5G for 12 GHz Coalition Leaders Remain Optimistic FCC Will Act Soon

“We have a working 12 GHz two-way higher power radio that we want to demonstrate the capabilities of and are just waiting for the FCC to act” on the STA, said Jeff Blum, Dish Network executive vice president-external and legislative affairs. Blum said the coalition hasn’t gotten feedback yet from the FCC on the STA request and plans additional meetings in coming weeks on broader 12 GHz engineering issues.

Public comments opposing changes to the rules, like those filed by SpaceX customers (see 2207060012), likely will have little effect, said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. “When it comes to these kinds of spectrum decisions … mass comments from the public are not terribly effective because it’s an engineering” decision, he said. “If the FCC decides to go ahead it will be because they have decided it is not going to cause any kind of harmful interference to the existing service,” he said. “The real question is where are we on the engineering, and we think that the engineering has been moving along,” he said. SpaceX didn't comment.

“This is really important spectrum,” said Incompas General Counsel-Chief Advocate Angie Kronenberg: “The U.S. really does need to be leading in 5G capabilities. Spectrum is very scarce.” Kronenberg noted an NPRM was launched more than 18 months ago: “We’ve had comments, reply comments, a number of ex parte presentations,” she said. “Many studies that have been submitted demonstrate that this band is ripe for terrestrial two-way services.”

“Everybody says the same thing, every conference you go to,” said RS Access CEO Noah Campbell: “They say we need to be very creative. We need to work at coexistence. We need to figure out how we can move very quickly, and we need to bring the stakeholders to determine how coexistence can work. Sharing and coexistence is built into this band.”

The Monte Carlo analysis of interference risk the coalition filed in the proceeding is “traditionally what the FCC has used” and is “the platinum standard,” Campbell said: “For now, we are the only entity that has done that work.”

“We want to share this band,” Blum said: “We don’t want to fight with Starlink or Oneweb or DirecTV; we think sharing is possible in the band.” Blum slammed studies submitted by the three companies. “They’re looking for the headline,” he said. The studies offer “worst case analysis, exaggerated claims,” he said.

The 12 GHz band offers the “best case” for sharing of pending bands, with no federal users, known incumbents and users that can be worked around, Feld said. “Everybody says this is the future -- these innovative uses are the future,” he said. “The future is now.”

Aviation industry objections to C-band deployments demonstrate “how pernicious efforts to interfere with competition can slow things down from the political sphere -- that’s really what the aircraft/aviation industry tried to do,” said Andrew Schwartzman, senior counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. The stakes aren’t nearly as high in 12 GHz as they have been in the C-band fight, where the concern was interference radio altimeters used aircraft, he said: “The argument from the aviation industry was this is life and death, so the stakes were really high.”

“We welcome the FCC conducting further studies to look at the best uses of the band,” a OneWeb spokesperson emailed: “Too many communities across the country are still lacking access to reliable broadband and as the record has shown tens of thousands of organizations and American’s have written into the record to advocate for the protection of this band the services provided within it. As the FCC has a mandate to make decisions in the public’s interest, we are hopeful they are listening to their voices.”