The FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee was a good idea, but its findings inevitably will reflect who's on the group, and state and local interests are underrepresented, NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay said Thursday at a Practising Law Institute conference. BDAC approved six sets of recommendations for speeding deployment of wireless and wireline infrastructure at its last meeting in November (see 1711090054). Other PLI news: 1712070063 and 1712070016.
Wireless Spectrum Auctions
The FCC manages and licenses the electromagnetic spectrum used by wireless, broadcast, satellite and other telecommunications services for government and commercial users. This activity includes organizing specific telecommunications modes to only use specific frequencies and maintaining the licensing systems for each frequency such that communications services and devices using different bands receive as little interference as possible.
What are spectrum auctions?
The FCC will periodically hold auctions of unused or newly available spectrum frequencies, in which potential licensees can bid to acquire the rights to use a specific frequency for a specific purpose. As an example, over the last few years the U.S. government has conducted periodic auctions of different GHz bands to support the growth of 5G services.
Hughes Network Systems urged the FCC to go easy on performance-measurement duties in a planned Connect America Fund Phase II reverse auction of USF support for fixed broadband services in traditional ILEC areas where incumbents declined CAF II offers. Such obligations would impose burdens that fall hardest on smaller winning bidders, said the Hughes response Wednesday to a public notice in docket 10-90 (see 1711060055). The FCC should leverage existing programs, including Measuring Broadband America, but if it does impose a new requirement, it should select a "software approach where the software resides on the operators' modems," said Hughes, which earlier made broader CAF II auction arguments. Several parties lobbied FCC rural broadband auctions task force members in filings this week. The Wireless ISP Association pressed the staffers not to require potential bidders using spectrum to submit propagation maps for the census block groups they're eying. Such applicants should demonstrate due diligence in applications, but the mapping requirement "would be impractical, unfair and inefficient," said WISPA, which also criticized a proposed financial screen and backed census block groups (CBGs) as the geographic bidding unit. A rural coalition of power companies and NTCA urged the FCC to simplify the auction, arguing that procedural complexity, particularly package bidding, could deter small provider participation. But officials from USTelecom, AT&T, CenturyLink, Consolidated Communications, Frontier Communications, Verizon and Windstream defended package bidding, which they said allows participants "to plan efficient network deployment" across CBGs. They said their analysis suggests packages of up to 25 CBGs are "likely to provide sufficient opportunity to reap network build and operating efficiencies to yield bids" consistent with the FCC's goal of ensuring competitive prices and broad coverage. They also said the ability of bidders "to change performance tiers between rounds appeared to contribute more to views that the auction is unnecessarily complex than to the needs of existing broadband providers."
Telco groups pressed the FCC to shore up funding for high-cost USF support. NTCA highlighted the need to "remedy shortfalls" in support it sees as "undermining the effectiveness" of the program. The FCC should "pursue readily available paths toward helping to mitigate the insufficiency of USF support," including "the immediate use of existing program reserves" pending a further review and long-term measures, said an NTCA filing posted Wednesday in docket 10-90 on a meeting with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. The group said its May 2016 petition for reconsideration provided a vehicle for near-term relief. USTelecom backed "both long-term and short-term solutions" to ensure support is adequate. Insufficient funding affected "broadband providers' ability to build out fiber to rural areas," said its filing on a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Seven Tennessee rural telcos receiving USF support through an Alternative Connect America Model urged the FCC to act by year-end to "authorize additional A-CAM funding up to $200/month per eligible customer location to enable more rural consumers in Tennessee to have the broadband connectivity necessary for jobs, education, healthcare, and economic development," said a filing. Some parties lobbied on the planned Connect America Fund Phase II reverse auction of support for fixed services, including a rural coalition of electric cooperatives, NTCA, the Utilities Technology Council and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. They urged the FCC to reject advocacy that "would reduce accountability and potentially undermine an efficient and fair auction process by delaying (or preventing entirely) the Commission’s review of information essential to confirming the technical and financial qualifications" of bidders. They disputed opposition to the coalition's proposal that wireless parties be required to provide spectrum propagation maps of their planned coverage areas in short-form applications. The American Cable Association urged the FCC to use census blocks, not census block groups as proposed, as the minimum geographic bidding unit. "[A]lthough many census blocks may be economically viable, the census block groups -- in which these blocks are found -- often are not," said an ACA filing on a meeting with agency auctions task force staff. "This is because these groups include extremely high-cost census blocks, whose reserve price is capped at an amount often far below what a bidder would need to meet its deployment obligations."
T-Mobile supports a request by broadcasters in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for permission to repack stations early (see 1711150038), the carrier said in a letter to the FCC posted in docket 12-268. Allowing an early transition of the TV stations affected by recent storms in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands “has real, practical benefits for broadcasters and, in turn, will benefit the overall transition plan and enable rapid deployment of new wireless service,” T-Mobile said. T-Mobile has emphasized its plans to take possession of spectrum purchased in the broadcast incentive auction as soon as possible, and previously has entered into agreements with public TV stations and low-power outlets to facilitate their repacking efforts (see 1707170043). “An early repack would prompt broadcasters to take advantage of this interim operations period to rebuild once, rather than require a rebuild of current facilities only to be built again in less than two years’ time,” T-Mobile said.
An Intelsat/Intel plan for freeing up some C-band downlink spectrum in metropolitan areas nationwide (see 1710020047) is getting mixed responses. Meanwhile, wireless interests continue to push for opening up the 6 GHz band for unlicensed operations, raising red flags with public safety. Wednesday was the deadline for replies in the mid-band notice of inquiry docket 17-183 that already had disagreements among industries and saw many comments posted through Friday (see 1710030052).
The FCC, having made 1,700 MHz additional high-band spectrum available for mobile use Thursday, plans to initiate a third spectrum frontiers proceeding in the first half of 2018 that will look at the 23, 42 and 50 GHz bands and tee up the 26 GHz band, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said as commissioners approved 4-1 the latest spectrum frontiers NPRM and Further NPRM. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the agency needs to speed up the path for 5G implementation and laid out a five-point plan: “We are simply not moving fast enough."
House Communications Subcommittee members universally lauded potential benefits of deploying 5G technology during a Thursday hearing, with members of both parties emphasizing the need for the U.S. to take a leading role in advancing the technology. But the hearing also featured debate on proposals on Capitol Hill, the FCC and elsewhere to pre-empt state, local and tribal antenna siting rules, as expected (see 1711150052). Senate Commerce Committee staffers are evaluating a draft bill from Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, that would ease siting requirements (see 1710310057).
The House Communications Subcommittee's Thursday hearing on 5G is aimed mainly at educating members on potential benefits of and barriers to 5G deployments, but it also could feature debate about related proposals to pre-empt state, local and tribal siting rules and exempt projects from some existing review requirements, lawmakers, House aides and lobbyists told us. Senate Commerce is evaluating the Streamlining Permitting to Enable Efficient Deployment of Broadband Infrastructure Act (S-1988) and a draft bill from committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, both geared toward easing siting requirements (see 1710200047 and 1710310057). The hearing begins at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
The FCC deserves credit for making more high-frequency spectrum available for 5G, expected at the Thursday commissioners’ meeting, but now the agency has to schedule an auction, blogged Stacey Black, AT&T assistant vice president-federal policy. “Now that the Commission has the 5G ball rolling with spectrum allocations, we urgently need to get to the next step -- auctioning this newly allocated spectrum so that mobile broadband providers can deploy as quickly as possible,” Black wrote Wednesday. “As an industry, we believe the best timing for auctioning the 28 GHz and 37-40 GHz bands is by December 2018. By this time, chipsets and equipment will be commercially available, FCC service rules will have been finalized, and standards will have evolved to a point that permits commercial 5G network deployments in 2019.” At the meeting, regulators will take up an order reallocating the 24 and 47 GHz bands for 5G (see 1710270030). Wireless industry officials expect an auction by the end of next year of bands reallocated in 2016 (see 1711030045). Citing the blog, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly tweeted Wednesday that he concurs on "need & timeliness of 5G spectrum auctions," but the agency "has a statutory hiccup" and he's supporting "targeted bills" by Reps. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Doris Matsui, D-Calif. and by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D. According to O'Rielly's office, those were references to Guthrie and Matsui's Spectrum Auctions Deposits Act and to similar legislation Thune introduced last Congress and is working on again, though it hasn't been reintroduced.
U.S. Cellular Chairman LeRoy Carlson met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on the national carrier’s need for high-frequency spectrum for 5G. U.S. Cellular “discussed how its experiments with fixed 4G wireless service have produced strong results,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-177. “Its future ability to continue to compete with the dominant nationwide carriers will depend in large part on its deployment of 5G networks, which will require access to millimeter wave band spectrum.” Competitive carriers need access to high-band spectrum below 30 GHz, because of the propagation characteristics, the filing said. Its target band is 24 GHz, cleared by the FCC for 5G. The company urged the FCC “to ensure that smaller bidders have a reasonable opportunity to acquire licenses for the 24 GHz band.” The agency should license the band using seven 100-MHz blocks, it said. “Because licenses for 200 megahertz blocks could be prohibitively expensive for many smaller bidders, all such bidders could be forced to compete for a single 24 GHz band license in each market, which undoubtedly would cause this license to sell at a premium," the carrier said. "Licensing the 24 GHz band primarily on the basis of 200 megahertz blocks also would mean artificially restricting this band to, at most, four licensees, likely to the exclusion of smaller bidders.” The carrier had meetings with the other commissioners as well.