FCC 12 GHz Rules May Take 18 Months or Longer, Incompas Hears
Adopting final service rules for the 12 GHz band will probably take the FCC at least 18 months, with more engineering and other study needed, experts said Monday during an Incompas webinar. Commissioners approved an NPRM 5-0 in January (see 2101130067) at the last meeting under then-Chairman Ajit Pai. Experts said comments will help the FCC decide what action to take.
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Dish Network has long sought revised rules for the 12 GHz band, which it views as unique, said Alison Minea, senior counsel-regulatory affairs. Minea has worked on the band for five or six years. It offers 500 MHz of “5G-ready spectrum” with no government incumbents and where the terrestrial rights have already been auctioned, she said.
Dish is a potential terrestrial user of the band but also uses it for satellite connections for its satellite-TV service, Minea said. “We have the unique credibility of being able to defend more robust terrestrial use because if we are wrong … our own customers are going to be impacted,” she said. “As the FCC looks to promote U.S. leadership in 5G, there’s no time like the present to consider 12 GHz” as the next band for “terrestrial, flexible use,” she said. “This is a band where there can be lots of successes stacked on top of each other.”
The FCC has done “a really good job of moving really quickly” on spectrum, said Noah Campbell, CEO of RS Access, which is a major holder of licenses in the band and seeks flexible rules. Regulators are “biased towards action, which … is a really good sign,” he said. Campbell views 12 GHz as “the band that time left behind.” It was auctioned in 2004-05 for the equivalent of wireless cable, he said. Then the first iPhone came out, which completely changed the wireless industry. The record-setting C-band auction demonstrated the demand for midband spectrum, he said.
RS Access recently bought licenses in the secondary market and is focused on figuring out the best use, Campbell said. “The rules here are extremely restrictive” for terrestrial use, he said. The power limit is about one-tenth of what’s available for the average wireless handset, with requirements for just one-way service and a ban on disaggregation, he said. “It’s a 500 MHz channel, one-way,” he said: “We’re really talking about Stone Age rules.”
Spectrum proceedings “always take longer than you think,” said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. Expect a two-stage process, starting with a look at coexistence for incumbents, followed by “fairly detailed public notices” on proposed rules, he said. “There really is an opportunity, we think, for coexistence."
Over the next year, “the FCC is going to be able to make some definitive cuts as to what types of sharing it wants to pursue and what types it thinks are too likely to interfere with the existing services,” said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. The citizens broadband radio service and C bands went through several versions before they were finalized, he said: “I expect a similar process here.”