Rosenworcel Says Pai Also Canceled Numerous Meetings With Her; New CBRS Plan Proposed

“I try every day in every way to work with my colleagues,” said Rosenworcel, who noted she has met regularly with Republican Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Brendan Carr. Pai “has canceled just about all my regular meetings with him.” Rosenworcel said she met on average every two weeks with former Chairman Tom Wheeler during the Obama administration when she first was on the FCC.

“The results over the last 15 months speak for themselves,” Pai said after meeting when asked about the Clyburn complaints. Rosenworcel spoke after Pai. “We have seen an increase in the number of bipartisan, unanimous votes at the commission,” Pai said. At Thursday’s commissioners' meeting, all items were approved 4-0, he said. “That is the kind of spirit that I have brought to the chairman’s office,” he said.

A senior FCC official told us Pai didn't cancel meetings with either of the Democrats, and that the Democrats had canceled some meetings. “We were surprised to hear that complaint” from Clyburn since “we had never heard a compliant from her office before that [Pai] would not meet with her,” the senior official said. The official also disputed the Rosenworcel comments. Clyburn and Rosenworcel didn't comment further.

Spectrum

Rosenworcel also questioned why it took so long for the FCC to address the 3.5 and 5.9 GHz bands, both of which are targeted for sharing by Wi-Fi. Testing results were due last year from the Department of Commerce, Department of Transportation and the FCC on sharing of the 5.9 GHz band between automotive safety applications and Wi-Fi, she said: “Those results need to be made public as soon as possible.”

O’Rielly said he sees growing agreement on the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band. Pai tasked O’Rielly with overseeing a rewrite of parts of the CBRS rules. “The biggest issue out there is still the geographic size” of the priority access licenses, he said. “We’re trying to work through those differences and see if we find commonality. My goal is to provide the chairman recommendations as soon as possible and then go from there.”

On the 5.9 GHz band, O’Rielly said he has been working with Rosenworcel. O’Rielly said he's closely following the work of the new 5G Automotive Association, which is promoting cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) technology as an alternative to dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) (see 1804260040) and plans discussions with Pai on next steps. “I’m worried that we’re not going to get some point of fruition,” he said. The auto industry “is fractured” on DSRC, O’Rielly said. “We’re 20-some-odd years into this process and we still have lagged in terms of producing anything that would provide consumer benefit of safety,” he said.

In a letter to James Lentz, CEO of Toyota Motor North America, O’Rielly and Rosenworcel warned Thursday that the future of the 5.9 GHz band in the U.S. is in flux. The U.S. is looking at sharing the band with unlicensed devices and is also examining the potential of C-V2X systems as an alternative to DSRC, the commissioners said. “By taking a modern look at the possibilities for wireless services in the 5.9 GHz band, we can support automobile safety, increase spectrum for Wi-Fi, and grow the wireless economy.” The automaker said in a recent filing Toyota and co-owned Lexus plan to start deployment of DSRC on vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2021 (see 1804270048).

CBRS Proposal

The Wireless ISP Association announced an agreement among some of the CBRS players on rule changes. “While we wish the FCC would keep the current rules in place, this compromise is still a valuable step forward for our members and for America,” said WISPA President Claude Aiken. The proposal calls for five county-based PALs available in every market and two census-tract-sized PALs. The agreement also stipulates license terms of seven years with renewal based on “performance criteria.” A recent plan by wireless carriers was seen as a starting point for revised CBRS rules (see 1804240067).

The coalition said that licensing framework, with PALs being renewable based on performance criteria, came after three months of negotiations among coalition members and best ensures all stakeholders have "a reasonable opportunity" for obtaining PALs at auction. It said in a docket 17-258 filing posted Thursday that the five-per-county availability will fit needs of commercial mobile wireless carriers, cable companies and other broadband providers in rural areas, while the two-per-census tract approach is needed for meeting minimum spectrum requirements of interests including industrial and critical infrastructure entities, broadband operators in rural areas and commercial real estate. It said the approach is intended to help smaller and nontraditional spectrum users that too often are shut out of spectrum leasing or secondary market mechanisms to get access to CBRS spectrum. The group said large license areas don't help industrial, manufacturing and critical-infrastructure sectors.

Among those that signed on are Cox Communications, Exelon, FedEx Corporate Services, Frontier Communications, General Electric, Motorola, pdv Wireless, Southern Linc, Transit Wireless, Union Pacific and Windstream Holdings, said a WISPA news release. Associations backing the plan include the Edison Electric Institute, the Enterprise Wireless Alliance, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative, NTCA, the Rural Wireless Association and the Utilities Technology Council. The Port of Los Angeles also signed on. Major wireless carriers and their associations didn't.

“It would be very disappointing if the commission adopted a compromise along these lines, which leaves only two of seven licenses for the wide variety of innovative and localized uses envisioned when census tracts were adopted back in 2015,” emailed Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. “A truly robust 5G ecosystem will depend on local investment by a wide range of firms and locations in customized networks for IoT and other new uses, an opportunity that large county-sized licenses would largely foreclose.”

Also at the commissioners' meeting, an FM translator interference NPRM got a 4-0 vote: 1805100057; and a robocaller was fined $120 million in a 3-1 vote with the dissent partial 1805100008.