AT&T and Verizon supported the thrust of an FCC plan for auctioning USF subsidies for fixed broadband services in areas traditionally served by large carriers. They, CTIA and a few others commented for the first time on proposed procedures for the Connect America Fund Phase II auction of up to $1.98 billion in support over 10 years. Replies were posted Wednesday and Thursday in docket 17-182. The commission largely "got it right," commented AT&T, saying the auction "must be simple enough to enable providers of all sizes, using different technologies, to participate." The design must "enable bidders to maximize efficiencies by allowing them to assemble contiguous networks across census block groups," it said. It disputed concerns package bidding would crowd out smaller bidders (see 1709190002) and urged the FCC to keep anti-collusion rules, while suggesting "modest modifications." Verizon backed the framework and endorsed "targeted changes," including USTelecom proposals to modify package bidding, bid-switching rules and a financial qualifications screen. CTIA objected to "proposals to require additional showings from applicants proposing to use spectrum to provide the supported services (wireless applicants)," including "calls for wireless applicants to include propagation maps in their short-form applications." The Wireless ISP Association also opposed the propagation-map proposal of a rural coalition. Microsoft again sought inclusion of unlicensed "white space" spectrum and backed a WISPA proposal for even broader spectrum use. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, joined this time by Public Knowledge and other consumer-oriented groups, said "the FCC should only consider bids that cannot cover all premises in the event that there is no bidder that can connect all premises" in an area. Bidders providing "high-quality fixed service" should be preferred over "high-latency satellite options," they said. SpaceX opposed measures "that exclude any technology that meets" baseline criteria. Hughes Network Systems said the FCC should grant its reconsideration petition to change bid weights and should eliminate package bidding and increase bid-switching flexibility from round to round. Repeating its concern about complexity, a rural electric and telco coalition urged the FCC to simplify the auction by "eliminating or substantially modifying its proposal to allow package bidding; prohibiting bidders from switching tiers between rounds; and allowing proxy bidding." It said anti-collusion rules should be altered to let small providers share auction consultants. The American Cable Association supplemented its arguments against package bidding, a proposed "five-point" financial screen, and anti-collusion rules preventing consultant sharing. Also filing again were GeoLinks, Illinois Electric Cooperative and the Rural Wireless Association.
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.
NBC didn’t contact the FCC after President Donald Trump’s tweeted questioning whether the network's “license” could be pulled, said NBC Broadcasting and Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus during panels (see 1710180023) at the NAB Show New York Wednesday. Lazarus declined to comment on Chairman Ajit Pai’s remarks that the FCC wouldn’t unilaterally take a station’s license. Asked about the president’s tweets, he said NBC News valued editorial independence and he's confident in NBC’s reporting: “We have great confidence that the FCC will stand by our First Amendment rights and support us and we have every confidence our licenses will be renewed.” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai faces heat for not addressing more squarely the tweets. Some Democrats won't get a Senate Commerce Committee FCC oversight hearing on the matter.
Wireless ISPs, backed up by Google and other advocates of unlicensed spectrum, are mounting an all-out challenge to get the FCC to make changes to its 3.5 GHz NPRM to be voted at the Oct. 24 commissioners’ meeting. Wireless ISP Association officials met Tuesday with Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, who helped develop the NPRM, on their concerns over the size of priority access licenses (PALs) that would be part of the rules. WISPA officials told us Wednesday they view the band as critical to their future, since many WISPs need more mid-band spectrum to continue to compete.
Partial economic area (PEA) or other larger license sizes would mean carriers are the only ones likely to buy priority access licenses (PALs) in the 3.5 GHz, Citizens Broadband Radio Service band, said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America, in a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Commissioners are to consider an NPRM proposing larger license sizes and other changes to the citizens broadband radio service rules at their Oct. 24 meeting, with Democrats skeptical of changes (see 1710120009). The Los Angeles PEA covers the entire metropolitan area, includes Riverside County and extends to the Nevada border, Calabrese said in a filing in docket 17-258. “It would be far easier for carriers to assemble larger contiguous areas by acquiring census tracts than it would be for hundreds or thousands of other potential users noted above to either win a PEA or county license at auction,” Calabrese said. “Subleasing small areas of spectrum from a big mobile carrier, through a secondary market transaction, is unrealistic both because of high transaction costs and because carriers have a disincentive to allow competitors with or substitutes for their services to access spectrum at a reasonable price.” The Wireless ISP Association, meanwhile, said the FCC should keep the current rules in place. A plan backed by Commissioner Mike O’Rielly “and the mobile industry would overturn pro-innovation rules adopted unanimously by the FCC -- twice -- in 2014 and 2015,” WISPA said in a Monday statement. “Dozens of companies are already making significant investments in the CBRS band, counting on the current rules.” WISPA also urged the FCC to approve the Broadband Access Coalition’s proposal for the 3.7-4.2 GHz band (see 1706210044). “Under mobile industry pressure, the FCC is prioritizing a much broader and more time-consuming review of multiple spectrum bands, which would lead to years of regulatory delay and no near-term progress for rural America,” WISPA said.
FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly welcomed Chairman Ajit Pai's spectrum frontiers plan to issue an order by year's end, and a Pai aide warned of a "potential stumbling block" to 5G auctions. Both spoke to the Americas Spectrum Management Conference Friday. O'Rielly said the agency should auction licensed bands quickly or at least set a schedule. He said millimeter-wave spectrum "of greatest interest to manufacturers and providers" should be prioritized, with industry focused on the 24 and 42 GHz bands. "Considering these bands also makes sense due to the proximity" to already-allocated 28, 37 and 39 GHz bands where providers are conducting trials, he said in remarks. O'Rielly cited benefits of international spectrum harmonization and said the EU and China are among those studying the 24 and 42 GHz bands for 5G use. He said more work is needed on mid-band spectrum for next-generation technologies. He couldn't support proposals for fixed operations at 3.7-4.2 GHz, and labeled as "gibberish" criticisms that proposals to provide industry more certainty contained in a pending draft 3.5 GHz NPRM were "stale ideas." Those ideas ushered in auctions and modern networks that made the U.S. "the leader" in wireless, he said. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Wednesday criticized the 3.5 GHz draft as offering "stale ideas" (see 1710120009). Citing unlicensed mid-band opportunities, O'Rielly said it's time to bring the 5.9 GHz proceeding to a close, and also consider whether dedicated short-range communications are needed. If DSRC isn't needed, the FCC could combine the 5.9 and 6 GHz bands to expand unlicensed operations. Surveying Pai's policies, his adviser Rachael Bender hailed "flexible" spectrum use and detailed FCC efforts in low, mid and high bands as part of his "all-of-the-above approach." She said a hurdle to the 5G push is that bidder upfront payments are required by law to be put in an FCC-designated "interest bearing account of a financial institution," but no private entities want to do that for spectrum auctions because of recent regulatory changes on collateralization and capitalization. "So the commission currently has no way to comply with the law or move forward with a large spectrum auction," she said, noting a legislative fix was included in a draft FCC Reauthorization Act cleared by the House Communications Subcommittee Thursday (see 1710110070).
FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel used a Friday Senate Commerce Committee field hearing with Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., to announce a program to crowdsource data collected to update the National Broadband Map, saying “if we want to get serious about addressing our broadband problems, we need to know exactly where those problems are most pronounced.” Hassan’s hearing in Keene, New Hampshire, was to examine ways to improve broadband deployments, especially in rural areas. “We need better mapping” given that the National Broadband Map was last updated more than three years ago, Rosenworcel said in prepared testimony. “Too often the FCC cobbles together data for each individual rulemaking and report without a comprehensive and updated snapshot of where service is and is not.” Rosenworcel said she’s “a big believer in the wisdom of crowds, so I think we should put it to the public. If you’ve not been able to get service, or live in an area that lacks it, help us make a map.” She said she set up the email account broadbandfail@fcc.gov to collect the crowdsourced data, which she will share with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and “put on pressure to do something about it.” Rosenworcel also endorsed the Advancing Innovation and Reinvigorating Widespread Access to Viable Electromagnetic Spectrum (Airwaves) Act (S-1682), which Hassan and Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., fielded in August. The bill aims to identify spectrum for unlicensed use and free up mid-band spectrum for wireless industry purchase via a future FCC auction. S-1682 also would direct the FCC to allocate 10 percent of proceeds from future spectrum auctions toward funding wireless broadband access for unserved and underserved consumers (see 1708010069). The legislation is “the kind of creative effort that would in time lead to more coverage on a broadband map and also help bridge the Homework Gap,” Rosenworcel said. “It’s good stuff.” U.S. Cellular Vice President-Federal Affairs Grant Spellmeyer also testified in favor of improving broadband mapping, drawing praise from the Competitive Carriers Association.
Although dissents on NPRMs aren’t common, FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel continue to have big questions on the pending 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service NPRM, set for a vote Oct. 24, industry and agency officials said. CBRS rule changes primarily affect only one of the three tiers of the FCC’s sharing plan for the band, the priority access license (PAL) tier. Under the sharing plan, federal incumbents, followed by PAL holders and then general access users, would have top priority to use the spectrum.
A public notice announcing how much of the $1.75 billion repacking reimbursement fund will be allocated upfront to broadcasters will be issued “soon,” FCC Incentive Auction Task Force staff said Tuesday. Many broadcasters have been holding off on ordering repacking-related equipment until the amount of reimbursement money is announced, said broadcast attorneys and NAB filings in docket 14-252. IATF said the initial allocation would be “an amount sufficient to allow stations and MVPDs to get started with their channel transitions." NAB, Ion and other broadcasters pressed the IATF in recent weeks to offer more of the funds upfront (see 1709280068). IATF Chair Jeanne Kiddoo said the commission wants to hold some of the fund in reserve to deal with any differences between estimated and actual costs and to avoid having to get back funds from broadcasters with lower-than-expected expenses (see 1707270051).
A letter that House Republican Conference Chairman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., are circulating (see 1709290060) would in part urge FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to not allow any delays in the existing 39-month repacking timeline, according to text of the letter we obtained Friday. The letter would urge Pai to ensure incentive auction spectrum is “cleared no later than July 13, 2020, as currently scheduled.” Lawmakers have been considering whether to include language in final repack legislation to grant the FCC more authority to not penalize broadcasters that can't meet the existing timeline (see 1709070058). “Clearing the 600 MHz band as quickly as possible is a critical component of the ongoing effort to deploy high-speed internet to rural America and close the digital divide,” the letter says. “We are concerned that delays to the 39-month repacking timeline established by the FCC will impede the billions of dollars of private sector investments in infrastructure necessary for achieving this goal.” Delays in the 39-month timeline “would not only harm constituents in our districts, especially those in rural areas who do not have access to broadband or have only limited, unreliable wireless service, but also threaten to slash the financial contributions that spectrum auctions make” to the U.S. budget,” Eshoo's office said in an email seeking additional lawmakers' signatures on the letter. At least 39 other House members already had signed the letter, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La.
The FCC’s mid-band notice of inquiry attracted what some saw as a surprising amount of interest last week, with just under 80 substantial comments filed by carriers, cable companies, Wi-Fi advocates, satellite operators, content companies, electric utilities and public safety entities, and the interest groups that represent them. Several industry officials said by opening such a broad inquiry the FCC probably inadvertently raised red flags on some bands that aren't under consideration for 5G. The NOI asks about spectrum 3.7-24 GHz, while targeting three specific bands -- 3.7-4.2, 5.925-6.425 and 6.425-7.125 GHz (see 1708030052).