FCC Releases WRC-15 Order, WRC-19 NPRM
The FCC released two items Wednesday on proposals from past World Radiocommunication Conferences. The full commission issued an order adopting proposals from WRC-15 -- which took place 10 years ago -- and an NPRM seeking comment on proposals from WRC-19. It’s not unusual for the FCC to take years to enact WRC proposals, said Scott Harris, managing partner of Crest Hill Advisors.
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The WRC-15 order implements spectrum allocation decisions for amateur radio, satellite services and broadcast auxiliary stations. The changes include providing protections for satellite-based search and rescue systems operating in the 406-406.1 MHz band, allocating the 5351.5-5366.5 kHz (60-meter) band to the amateur service on a secondary basis, and allocating the 410-420 MHz band to the space research service on a secondary basis. Joe Kane, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's director of broadband and spectrum policy, said in an interview that orders coming out of the WRC are telegraphed well in advance and unlikely to surprise stakeholders.
The WRC-19 NPRM includes proposals on making “the space operation service in the bands 137-138 MHz (space-to-Earth) and 148-149.9 MHz (Earth-to-space) available for use by non-geostationary satellite orbit short-duration mission systems,” adopting power limits for earth stations in the mobile satellite service, and making the 495-505 kHz band available for use by the international Navigational Data system. Many of the proposals are based on NTIA recommendations, the NPRM said. “Collectively, our proposals are designed to harmonize our spectrum allocations with and conform our rules to the WRC-19 Final Acts to the extent that doing so would better meet domestic requirements.”