Disagreement Voiced on Extent of Airwaves Crunch and Sharing Spectrum
Spectrum sharing and the gravity of the spectrum crunch generated disagreement Tuesday at the annual Americas Spectrum Management Conference. Federal officials touted spectrum sharing as “the new normal” while T-Mobile Senior Director-Technology Policy John Hunter called sharing policies “draconian.” “It's incredibly difficult to measure scarcity,” said FCC Wireless Bureau Assistant Chief Matthew Pearl.
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Spectrum sharing and leasing could leave the U.S. in a poor position internationally for 5G, Hunter said, condemning sharing in the citizens broadband radio service band. “The rest of the globe is going in a different direction,” Hunter said. Interference protections that make it easier for incumbents to hold on to what they have and cumbersome sharing systems make sharing impractical, Hunter said.
The CBRS band is the first big chance to show sharing can work, said DOD Director-Spectrum Policy Frederick Moorefield. Sharing with federal users “is the new normal,” he said, noting DOD wants to use 5G and the IoT. A draft item on the CBRS band is set for the FCC October commissioners' meeting (see 1810020050). Sharing and leasing will be important to future use of federal spectrum, said Alex Damato, tech adviser to Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif. Leasing policies could leave the U.S. in a globally inferior position, Hunter said.
For spectrum sharing, federal agencies and the private sector need to consider that both uses of spectrum are likely to grow rather than remain static, Moorefield said. Neither federal users nor companies put the other user in “a cubbyhole,” he said. The key to successful sharing is automation, to reduce the cost and increase the utility of the sharing mechanisms, Moorefield said. Federal agencies and industry should be “pounding on the table” for automation capability, he said.
Spectrum scarcity is difficult to measure because the use of spectrum varies in rural versus urban areas, Pearl said. “Scarcity is a multidimensional issue.” The slow pace of deployment is more of an issue than a lack of available spectrum, said Veena Rawat, GSMA senior spectrum adviser. It takes five-10 years for a chunk of spectrum to be cleared and harmonized once it has been identified for mobile use at a World Radio Conference, Rawat said. Forecasts of mobile data demand have always exceeded reality, said LS telcom Spectrum Services Associate Director Saul Friedner. Mobile data use is “stagnating” in Sweden, Singapore and Japan, he said.