GOVT., INDUSTRY AGREE HOW TO MAKE WAY FOR WI-FI AT 5 GHZ
Industry and key govt. agencies, including FCC and Defense Dept., bridged impasse more quickly than expected last week on harmonizing international spectrum for wireless local area networks at 5 GHz, industry and govt. sources said. New U.S. position is expected to clear way for potential compromises with administrations in Europe and elsewhere on how to make way for Wi-Fi at 5 GHz at the World Radio Conference (WRC) in June in Geneva. Before reaching accord, U.S. govt. and industry interests had struggled to find balance between protecting military radars at 5 GHz and making way for harmonized spectrum for Wi-Fi.
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“It’s huge,” NTIA Dir. Nancy Victory told us Fri. of U.S. consensus position. “The timing of this is very fortuitous since we go into the CITEL meetings next [this] week. The fact that we have a unified U.S. position going into this meeting with our Western Hemisphere colleagues will be very helpful with a consensus position in the Americas.” Revised U.S. position is to be unveiled this week at Inter- American Telecom Commission (CITEL) meeting in Orlando. Earlier U.S. proposal had bumped up against less restrictive measures that regulators in Europe, Canada and Brazil had sought. CITEL meeting also should provide better view of where other administrations in Americas stand on 5 GHz issue, Victory said. Like U.S., other countries have been closing in on final policy positions, as well. “Clearly, our goal is to have a consensus position out of the Americas,” Victory said. Fact that U.S. itself has consensus position “is a big step,” she said.
DoD and industry agreed last year that protections were required for radar systems at 5 GHz and that interference protection should be carried out through mechanism called dynamic frequency selection. Agreement was elusive, however, on what sensitivity levels were needed to provide DoD systems protection. Some companies raised concerns that protection levels in earlier govt. proposal were so low they would result in “false positives” that could lead system to think radar system was there, even if it wasn’t.
Earlier U.S. position was for primary global allocation to mobile service at 5150-5350 MHz, including mitigation techniques to protect incumbent services. Previous stance also had been to postpone resolution at WRC 2003 to consider wireless LAN deployment at 5470-5725 MHz until next WRC conference in 2007. Latest policy agreement, several sources said: (1) Would provide less restrictive protection level for military radars at 5250-5350 MHz than an earlier proposal of -67 dBM. (2) Would set protection level to allow allocation of 5470-5725 MHz now rather than in 2007. Agreement wasn’t achieved without some give from industry, including some requirements on access points, one source said. “All major corporations that are part of this are on the same page,” industry source said.
Approach, which comes after months of negotiation involving NTIA, FCC, Defense Dept, and industry, has 2-tiered approach for dynamic frequency selection (DFS) for wireless LAN devices at 5250 to 5350 MHz and 5470 to 5725 MHz. DFS allows detection and avoidance of co-channel interference with radar systems. For devices that have power outputs below 200 MHz, DFS threshold would be -62 dBM. For devices at 200 MHz and higher, DFS threshold would be -64 dBM, sources said. There are about 8 military radar systems in band that need to be protected from potential interference with wireless LAN use.
“What is the key to that proposal is that the U.S. government is going to support the allocation of an additional 250 MHz at 5470 to 5725 MHz,” industry source said. Those protection levels were determined on systemwide basis, rather than per-device, which was key factor in industry’s signing on to this proposal, the source said. Agreement among U.S. interests was seen as likely before WRC 2003, but as recently as last week it appeared to still be several weeks off. One important factor that appeared to make difference in clearing way for agreement was that industry was able to convince govt. negotiators that penetration levels for unlicensed systems on which some of assumptions were modeled for earlier interference protection levels weren’t realistic, industry source said. “When they realized that those penetration rates would be difficult to achieve, it allowed us to get some of the protections we are receiving,” that source said. “It’s closer to what industry thought was reasonable. It’s more realistic.”
“It took 6 months of work, but engineers from the government and the private sector managed to find the sweet spot, which will both fully protect military radar systems and allow robust use of the 5 GHz band by the private sector,” Washington attorney Scott Harris said.
U.S. is to outline terms of its revised proposal at this week’s meeting in Orlando of CITEL’s Permanent Consultative Committee, last time that body will meet before WRC, one source said. U.S. stance also is circulating as part of discussions of ITU Study Group 8, another source said. “We may have the potential to work with some of the Europeans on a compromise,” source said.
Apple, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft and Motorola are among U.S. companies that have been backing domestic position that would allocate part of 5 GHz for broadband access using wireless LANs. Representing federal spectrum users, NTIA had been among those raising interference concerns as part of WRC planning process concerning military radars. Microsoft and others have stressed that 5 GHz is expected to become increasingly important for unlicensed spectrum use as 2.4 GHz becomes more congested.