Wireless Industry Hopes for More Details Soon from FCC on C Band; CBA Updates Imminent

Pai’s reticence isn’t a surprise, industry officials said. Pai generally does less signaling than previous chairmen on next steps on key proceedings. But industry officials had hoped for more Thursday. One big question is whether the FCC will adopt the proposal by the C-Band Alliance, an auction as urged by T-Mobile, or another approach. The FCC and T-Mobile didn’t comment.

CBA is expected to make key filings in coming weeks designed to answer recurring questions, including a transparency filing on the transition plan and then a band plan, industry officials said Friday.

Two things are clear from the summit, said Roger Entner of Recon Analytics: “The U.S. will get C band spectrum, but it will take longer than what the industry would like.”

The C band offers a “Rubik’s Cube of opportunity and obstacles,” said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. “While it may be possible to clear more than 200 MHz in valuable big-city markets, this could also disrupt the economics of video distribution in the nation’s smaller cities and rural markets.” Congress is also interested in revenue from a C-band auction to pay for rural broadband, a Pai priority, Calabrese said. Pai is “likely waiting to see how serious Congress is about directing the outcome, as they’ve done twice before in relation to clearing and auctioning the 600 and 700 MHz TV bands,” he said.

The C band isn’t "unusually complicated," it’s “usually complicated,” said New Street’s Blair Levin: “Every effort to reallocate large bands of spectrum involves similar issues of emerging needs for spectrum, incumbent rights, trade-offs in terms of fairness and economic growth and conversations with engineers, economists and lawyers. It is complicated but not more than what the FCC did multiple times before.” Levin said industry might be disappointed, but it’s good Pai is studying the issue before making any decisions.

The CBA proposal has taken a lot of criticism recently “and the CBA will have to provide greater transparency on a number of issues,” but it’s still “the only detailed plan for reallocating spectrum in the C band, other than the T-Mobile plan, which does not seem to be gaining traction,” Levin said. “Other plans may still emerge and the FCC itself might figure out that it should develop a plan, rather than assume industry interests will develop the best one.” An issue commissioners haven't been vocal about is the kind of market structure it wants for 5G and how many C-band licenses it expects to be able to issue, Levin said. Three 60 MHz licenses "aren't very robust," and it's not clear how you get a competitive market structure for 5G out of that, he said.

We were told the CBA feels commission pressure, with many seeing the agency sending signals that CBA critics are gaining ground (see 1903210017). But an executive at a company employing C band said it's not clear if commissioners also might have been signaling to cable and broadcast parties concerned about C-band use.

Commissioner Mike O'Rielly's office told us talk of 200 to 300 MHz being cleared isn't a signal but a range reflecting the various competing interests for C-band use and the hope to find an optimal route to freeing up as much as possible as quickly as possible, with 200 MHz potentially a little low. O'Rielly's office said it hopes to see license sizes optimal for whatever flexibility is required for 5G.

Complicated

“As the many stakeholders in this proceeding have noted, clearing C-band spectrum for 5G -- when another vital application is already deployed in the band -- is a very complicated mission,” emailed a CBA spokesperson. “It requires an intense study of wireless technologies that are not yet deployed,” satellite capabilities, current user locations, existing contractual relationships, and U.S. broadcaster and programmer plans. “The CBA proposal attempts to balance all of those competing interests against a backdrop of the global race for 5G and the economic development and innovation that will accompany it," said the spokesperson, adding the CBA will continue to work “to find consensus so that the U.S. can be a leader in 5G technology and innovation.”

New Street’s Vivek Stalam said in a research note from the CTIA summit that C band was a big topic. “Various speakers made the case several times that C-Band was critical to ensuring that the US maintains its 5G leadership,” Stalam wrote. Pai appeared to indicate more movement in the 2.5 and 3.5 GHz processes, he said.

The Wireless ISP Association hopes the FCC “will keep rural America in mind as it continues to discuss this band,” said President Claude Aiken: “Rather than allowing a private entity to pick winners and losers across giant geographic areas, we believe the FCC should employ a balanced approach that enables sharing of 300 MHz of spectrum among earth stations and new fixed wireless uses, and auctions the remaining 200 megahertz.”

While numerous attendees expressed concerns Thursday, Scott Bergmann, CTIA senior vice president-regulatory affairs, said Friday the group is optimistic. “We’re encouraged by the chairman’s continued focus on the national importance of mid-band and confident that, under his leadership, the FCC will move forward quickly,” Bergmann told us.