FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said women should hold more positions in telecom, media and tech. "I hate when people say it's a pipeline problem" because it "absolves" managers of responsibility, she said at an FCBA event Wednesday. She largely stuck to familiar themes in Q&A with FCBA President Julie Kearney of CTA. Rosenworcel backed a "spectrum calendar" and closing the "homework gap," suggested T-Mobile's proposed buy of Sprint has a difficult case to make, and decried the spread of unjustified claims of "fake news." She voiced hope for "distributed ledger" technology as a possible spectrum-sharing solution.
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.
Agencies can change their minds about regulation due to leadership shifts, a dynamic that applies to broadband reclassifications, said FCC senior litigation officials at an FCBA event Tuesday evening. It's settled law that changes in administration bring changes in policy, said Jacob Lewis, associate general counsel, suggesting Chevron judicial deference applies. That agencies can change course after administration changes is nothing new, as 1984's Chevron was about a Reagan administration EPA change from the Carter administration policy, said Richard Welch, deputy associate general counsel. He noted they spoke only for themselves.
The 3.7-4.2 GHz band will play a role in deployment of 5G, speakers agreed Friday at a New America event, but they jousted over whether the C-band could be cleared in only some geographic areas and complained about lack of clarity and technical details on the two main plans for terrestrial access to the band. Top priority must be preventing harm to incumbent users, and there needs to be far more detail about the Broadband Access Coalition (BAC) and Intelsat/SES/Intel proposals before an evaluation can start, said American Cable Association (ACA) Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Ross Lieberman.
The FCC Wireless Bureau said it's accepting applications to modify existing licenses in the 39 GHz band. “The Bureau is accepting these modification applications to facilitate the efficient use by existing 39 GHz licensees of the millimeter wave spectrum” for 5G, the IoT and “other advanced spectrum-based services” before an auction of new licenses for flexible use in the band, said a Thursday public notice in docket 18-619. Nothing the bureau is doing “prejudges the proposals pending before the Commission regarding the assignment of licenses for, or access to, the 39 GHz band,” staff said. The FCC hasn't set a date for a 39 GHz auction. "We emphasize that -- for purposes of streamlined processing -- licensees may only request modifications that reflect the amount of their existing holdings, i.e., they cannot apply for modifications to their licenses that cover more MHz-Pops within each [market] than what they currently hold in the 39 GHz band," the bureau said.
South Korea is poised to jump into the mid-band fray with auction of 3.5 GHz spectrum for 5G starting Friday, as the FCC is working toward finalizing revised rules. CTIA is asking the FCC to move quickly to free more mid-band spectrum. “The wireless spectrum being auctioned by South Korea’s government will be available for commercial use by December of this year,” CTIA said. “Recent research commissioned by CTIA revealed that the U.S. ranks sixth out of 10 lead nations studied in terms of mid-band spectrum availability. China ranked first.” The association noted Spain plans a mid-band auction in July, and Australia and Italy plan to launch mid-band auctions in coming months. The FCC didn't comment. “The leadership of the United States is not guaranteed -- especially when you consider that the FCC is timidly moving to auction spectrum for 5G one band at a time instead of boldly all together," responded Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. "It also has yet to put on a public calendar just when additional airwaves will be made available. These are confusing signals to send to the marketplace. We need to fix them.”
CTIA, the Wireless Infrastructure Association and 14 other groups urged Congress Monday to act on the Advancing Innovation and Reinvigorating Widespread Access to Viable Electromagnetic Spectrum (Airwaves) Act. HR-4953/S-1682, filed in the Senate in August, aims to identify spectrum for unlicensed use and free up mid-band spectrum for wireless industry purchase via a future FCC auction (see 1708010069). House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Leonard Lance, R-N.J., and ranking member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., filed the House version in February (see 1802070054). HR-4953/S-1682 “provides the certainty necessary for the U.S. to reclaim global wireless leadership by establishing clear auction deadlines for substantial amounts of low-, mid- and high-band spectrum," the groups wrote the act’s House and Senate sponsors. They praised emphasis on rural connectivity, saying had its provisions “been in place, the previous two spectrum auctions alone would have resulted in a rural broadband investment of more than $6 billion," or more than the FCC Mobility Fund will make available over a decade.
Commissioners were in lockstep Thursday as they approved a high-band Further NPRM, though there was a party-line rift over the pre-auction limit of 1250 MHz of millimeter-wave spectrum that any party can buy at auction. The agency is sending "confusing signals" to industry given those limits and yet not committing to a time frame for making available more spectrum, said sole Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who dissented in part. Her support of the pre-auction limits was unclear (see 1805250058). The FCC said there was no substantive changes from the draft, but the approved item wasn't released Thursday. Commissioners also Thursday approved a telecom discontinuance streamlining order and six other items (see 1806070021).
Between now and the U.S. 5G future sit hurdles ranging from an "urban crunch" of spectrum availability to the morass of dealing with legions of local zoning and permitting steps, speakers said at an Axios event Wednesday. North America “started late” on 5G standardization, behind the Far East, but the country has reversed its position in the past two years and the first large-scale rollout likely will happen within the next 12 months in the U.S., said Ericsson North America CEO Niklas Heuveldop.
Leaders of the Senate Communications Subcommittee and the Congressional Spectrum Caucus filed their Supplementing the Pipeline for Efficient Control of the Resources for Users Making New Opportunities for Wireless (Spectrum Now) Act Wednesday. Senate Communications Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, led the Senate version. Reps. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Doris Matsui, D-Calif., led the House one. Spectrum Now would give federal agencies additional flexibility in use of money from the Spectrum Relocation Fund to subsidize spectrum research and development. Agencies would be allowed to get additional funding than they otherwise could. CTIA believes Spectrum Now “will unlock funds to free up additional spectrum for commercial wireless use that will help spur new innovation and services for consumers,” said Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Kelly Cole. The AWS-3 spectrum auction (see 1806060040) "proved that providing additional funds for spectrum research is money well spent, and reforms included in [Spectrum Now] have the potential to produce positive results,” said Competitive Carriers Association President Steven Berry. The Wireless ISP Association also lauded the bill's filing.
CTIA asked the FCC to act on changes to rules for the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band at the July 12 commissioners' meeting. The Wednesday letter by President Meredith Baker said unless the FCC acts soon, the U.S. will fall behind other countries in the race to 5G. CTIA asked the FCC to approve rules based on its April proposal made with the Competitive Carriers Association (see 1804240067). The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (PISC) pushed for small priority access licenses (PALs) in the band, with no major changes from the Obama administration rules.