C-Band Issues Remain With Other Deadlines Pending, Experts Say
The FAA “lost a lot of credibility” in how it handled the C band, seeking to stop deployment on the eve of when buildout was supposed to start (see 2201040070), said Harris Wiltshire’s Tricia Paoletta during a Federalist Society spectrum webinar Tuesday. “This was a huge debacle” and embarrassment for everyone involved, she said. Paoletta warned “another nightmare” could be in the offing.
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The FAA is testing radio altimeters on all aircraft and the devices installed on airliners that serve major air routes won’t have problems because they’re more accurate and aren’t affected by C-band interference, Paoletta said. At smaller airports and on third-tier routes “the altimeters probably need to be replaced,” she said. The FAA will “hopefully” wrap up work by July when carriers are supposed to be able to deploy C band everywhere, she said. “There is a chance we won’t have a second debacle in the second half of 2022 when we get more of the little boy crying wolf,” she said.
The FAA is “the expert on air safety,” said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld: “That’s not the same as being a spectrum expert.” In 2023, licenses in the upper C-band are coming online, and they’re 100 MHz closer to the spectrum used by altimeters, he noted. “It’s troubling” the FAA hasn’t “cleared for the post-July uses of the band” let alone uses next year, he said.
The FAA should have done a census of all altimeters in 2018 when the FCC was working on the C-band order, said Adam Candeub, a law professor at Michigan State University and former NTIA acting administrator. That reflects that the FAA considered altimeters “a problem we can handle politically” rather than accepting the FCC’s authority to reallocate the band, he said. The FAA never calculated the size of the problem, “they just waved their hands and said ‘this is a real problem,’” he said. The FAA didn't consider the most appropriate and cheapest ways to remedy the problem, he said. The FAA didn’t comment.
Spectrum fights undermine faith in the FCC and auctions, speakers agreed. “People just won’t bid on spectrum,” Candeub said. “We won’t get the new technologies we want … because people don’t want to risk money,” he said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s December decision (see 2112280047) upholding the FCC’s 6 GHz order makes clear FCC authority over spectrum and is important, Paoletta said. The court said “the FCC is the arbiter on what is going to be harmful interference, what are appropriate technical conditions for sharing,” Paoletta said: “Going forward, that will help with some of these interagency fights.”
5G auctions are basically over, with only the 2.5 GHz auction (see 2203220066) on the schedule, Feld said. “Mostly we’re now trying to get lessons learned from here for 6G, which everybody is kind of looking to as five or so years from now,” he said. 6G “will have its demand for spectrum -- that’s the cycle,” he said.
The process for addressing spectrum issues at the Office of Engineering and Technology seemed to break down during the COVID-19 pandemic, which made work on everything more complicated, Paoletta said. Acting OET Chief Ron Repasi took over for Julius Knapp and then COVID-19 hit, Paoletta said: “People are off and do they have each other’s cellphones? Do they know how to do a Teams meeting? Is it authorized by the FCC?”
Knapp was “a national institution,” Feld said: Knapp had relationships at other federal agencies “and could bring folks together in a way that nobody else has replicated, and we do need to spend time rebuilding those relationships.”
Work remains to develop better metrics on the sensitivity of devices and the levels of tolerable interference, Candeub said. “There are going to be more and more sharing issues” because “we’re squeezing more and more into the spectrum,” he said.