O'Rielly Departure May Slow 3.1-3.55 GHz Work; DOD Agrees to Share Portion of Band
The potential departure of FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly may affect work to allocate part of the 3.1-3.55 GHz band for 5G, lawyers and commission officials told us. President Donald Trump’s administration said Monday DOD agreed to hand off a 100 MHz portion of the 3450-3550 MHz band for commercial shared use (see 2008100038). FCC work on the band isn’t as far along as some other frequencies and NTIA is raising concerns (see 2007070062).
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The FCC’s push to open the 5.9 GHz for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use is likely to proceed unabated by O’Rielly’s departure, lawyers and officials said. O’Rielly has also been a strong advocate of other changes in the 6 GHz band, proposed in a Further NPRM. Trump withdrew O’Rielly’s nomination to another term last week (see 2008050059). The FCC and O'Rielly's office didn't comment.
The 3450-3550 MHz agreement will allow the FCC to hold an auction beginning in December 2021, with commercial operations in the band beginning in mid-2022, said Acting Undersecretary of Defense-Research and Engineering Michael Kratsios during a call Monday with reporters. An administration official said DOD and White House officials began meeting in April on the plan and were able to shave off a major part of the usual timeline for making similar bands available for FCC auction.
The sharing rules for the band are expected to mirror those for AWS-3 (see 1501300051). DOD and Trump administration officials chose 3450-3550 MHz because it can be “made available without sacrificing our nation’s great military and national security capabilities,” and will support towers and devices operating at “full commercial power levels” across the U.S., Kratsios said. An administration official believes it would be “much more complex” to make lower portions of the 3.1-3.55 GHz band available for commercial use.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called the action a “key milestone in securing” U.S. 5G leadership and the commission “looks forward to moving quickly to adopt service rules” for the coming 3450-3550 MHz auction. “Together with the spectrum being made available for 5G in the C-band as well as the 3.5 GHz band, we are now on track to have a 530-megahertz swath of mid-band spectrum available for 5G from 3.45 to 3.98 GHz,” he said.
“Opening up this critical block of mid-band spectrum for full power commercial operations will enhance U.S. competitiveness in the 5G ecosystem,” said CTIA President Meredith Baker. The Wireless ISP Association is “greatly encouraged by this news,” said President Claude Aiken. “This sharing will benefit Americans, keeping them safe on the home front, and providing more of the fuel providers and the industry need to bring broadband to hungry consumers.”
'Negative Impact'
Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr told reporters spectrum work will proceed (see 2008060062). It remains unclear if Trump will change his mind or O’Rielly will recuse himself on future votes as he seeks a new job. Industry and FCC officials noted the 5.9 GHz proceeding is further along than work on 3 GHz, which likely still isn’t ready for prime time.
“Since the Democrats seem to object to a lot of what the chairman does, in either whole or in part, there has to be an overall negative impact on the FCC’s agenda unless Commissioner O’Rielly stays until the end of this calendar year,” said Fletcher Heald’s Peter Tannenwald. The FCC is likely to move ahead on 5.9 GHz regardless, he said. Pai “will be more interested in the politics from outside the agency than with his ability to get votes from within the agency, because both Democrats and Republicans have been impatient with the lack of development of the band by the auto industry,” he said: “I think he has the votes to win within the agency. The obstacle with Ligado was the Defense Department. The obstacle with 5.9 GHz is the automotive industry. The Defense Department is the more powerful adversary.”
O’Rielly “has been more responsible than anyone for leading the commission to a world-leading outcome on opening the 5.9 and 6 GHz bands for G-fast, next generation Wi-Fi,” said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. “Pai and all the commissioners have fully embraced the goal of a 5G wireless ecosystem that relies equally on mid-band licensed and unlicensed spectrum,” he said. “The 5.9 and 6 GHz proceedings are now closely linked, and we believe that Pai will make sure both are completed before the end of the year."
“The nomination withdrawal could backfire,” emailed Mercatus Center Senior Research Fellow Brent Skorup. “The three Republican commissioners each have their own approaches and disagreements, but they share a priority for free markets and free speech over regulation.” Cooley’s Robert McDowell noted that spectrum issues tend to be bipartisan. “Even though the Pai commission has repurposed a record amount of spectrum and has been generous in allocating a balance of both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, should there be an early O’Rielly departure, proponents for more unlicensed could see an uptick in a few more megahertz sent their way in a few cases,” he said.
The effect remains to be seen, said Enterprise Wireless Alliance President Mark Crosby. “The emphasis will remain broadband capacity and greater spectrum sharing for the foreseeable future.”