FCC Revises Rules for 2.5 GHz Band, With Focus on Small Players

The FCC got broad support for the rules from groups like the Wireless Communications Association and the Wireless ISP Association, plus smaller carriers, Chairman Ajit Pai said during a news conference. “These are the foot soldiers of the digital revolution in many parts of rural America,” he said: “They are the ones who are willing and will be able we suspect to take advance of this spectrum opportunity.” If the agency had gotten more support from big players, “the criticism would be, ‘Well, the FCC is about to turn over all this spectrum to big wireless carriers,’” he said.

“It’s very disappointing,” said John Windhausen, executive director of the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition, an advocate of providing new EBS licenses in unserved areas: “It doesn’t look as though the FCC really evaluated the evidence.” Windhausen noted SHLB research shows national carriers already have hundreds of MHz of unused spectrum in rural markets. “This isn’t really going to lead to additional 5G deployment,” he said. “There’s some significant logical fallacies in the FCC’s explanation.”

The agency “turns its back on the schools and educational institutions that have made the 2.5 GHz band their home since 1962,” Starks said. The order will likely mean a “windfall of spectrum for current lessors,” including Sprint, Starks said. It’s a “a missed opportunity,” he said. “There’s no question that the EBS program has its flaws and that it doesn’t look quite the way it was envisioned all those years ago. But rather than embracing the positive aspects of the program and improving upon it, we instead set up a regulatory framework that may lead to its ultimate demise.”

This is “uninspired and stale” spectrum policy, Rosenworcel said, saying unused licenses in the band should be sold in an incentive auction and the proceeds used to address broadband for students who now go without. “It didn’t have to be this way,” she said: “We could close the homework gap” of those lacking at-home broadband.

Carr said the order is critical to 5G. The order “frees the spectrum from the misguided choices of FCCs past,” Carr said. “It makes the licenses flexible-use, which technology and the market show us will power 5G. It modernizes the licenses’ shapes by auctioning the white spaces and encouraging geographic consolidation. And it relies on market forces, rather than a protracted or reticulated FCC process.” The order directs the Enforcement and Wireless bureaus to review existing license holders “for compliance with our rules and other applicable laws,” Carr said.

EBS “never lived up to expectations,” said Commissioner Mike O’Rielly. “After a protracted history of wishful thinking that included educational broadcasting and then broadband opportunities for schools and nonprofit institutions, we are mostly left with an inefficient system of commercial broadband leases, continuous licensing freezes and underutilized spectrum.”

“At long last, we remove the burdensome restrictions on this band, allowing incumbents greater flexibility in their use of the spectrum and introduce a spectrum auction that will ensure that this public resource is finally devoted to its highest-valued use,” Pai said. “These groundbreaking reforms will result in more efficient and effective use of these airwaves and represent the latest step in advancing U.S. leadership in 5G.”

Voqal called the order a “short-sighted move that wastes a valuable resource and forecloses a rare opportunity to quickly support rural educators and communities starved for broadband access.”

“Once again, this FCC’s disdain for would-be providers unable to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for wireless licenses widens the digital divide,” said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld: “Once again, Commissioners grandstanding for the press on the ‘race for 5G’ means leaving tens of millions of rural Americans further behind. While Public Knowledge applauds the FCC for opening an application window for Tribal nations, the FCC should have extended a similar opportunity to other unserved and underserved communities.”

Meeting Notebook

NAB cheered 5-0 approval of a decision letting broadcasters email MVPDs of a carriage election change. A related Further NPRM asks about extending those rules to broadcaster and MVPDs that don't use public files. "Allowing for a more limited set of carriage notices to be sent electronically rather than by outdated and expensive certified mail represents a smart approach to streamlining bureaucracy that has outlived its usefulness," NAB said, also citing "NCTA’s willingness to work with NAB to alleviate this regulatory relic." The item was largely based on a NAB-NCTA proposal (see 1812100051). PBS and America's Public TV Stations also applauded.

Commissioners also unanimously adopted an NPRM on allowing MVPDs to electronically notify broadcasters of changes like deleting or repositioning a station or launching new services into a market, instead of paper notification. Rosenworcel said a media modernization initiative the FCC should be focusing on is updating of the public file system to make it searchable, sortable and downloadable. America's Communications Association supported both approvals and hopes for prompt adoption of allowing cable operators deliver required notices to broadcasters via email.

O’Rielly and Carr said the FCC appears to be nearing a decision on the C band. “I think we are overall getting closer,” O’Rielly said. The ultimate decision is up to Pai, he said. “We’ve been doing a lot of work on this,” said Carr, saying his own thinking is becoming clearer here. Carr said he probably couldn’t support a proposal that clears less than 100 MHz.