Administration Focus Always on Spectrum Sharing, FCC Official Tells FCBA
A 2010 administration order that the government make available 500 MHz of spectrum for broadband in 10 years is entirely consistent with the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology recent recommendation that sharing be the norm for making federal spectrum more available for commercial use, said Wireless Bureau Deputy Chief John Leibovitz. Also at an FCBA lunch Thursday, Renee Wentzel, wireless aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, took questions from the lawyers in attendance.
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The June 2010 executive order addressed “making more spectrum available,” Leibovitz said. “Spectrum availability can happen in many ways. Allocation and exclusive use is one way, but sharing is another way.” PCAST last month (CD May 29 p1) called for a presidential memorandum saying it’s U.S. government policy to share underutilized government spectrum. PCAST proposed a new target -- 1,000 MHz of shared spectrum. The report hasn’t been released.
Leibovitz told us NTIA’s release of its report on the 1755-1850 MHz band in late March was a critical development. “As people from NTIA and the administration have said, the report raised some questions about costs and time frame and so forth that cause people to say, ‘maybe we should take a closer look at sharing,'” he said. Working through spectrum issues is an ongoing process, he said. “The 1755-1850 MHz report was a key part of the process.”
Spectrum sharing also can take different forms, Leibovitz said. For example, in May T-Mobile sought a temporary license to test sharing proposals in the 1755 MHz band, he noted. “That concept is very much about coexistence and deploying wireless networks in some of the same frequencies and some of the same places where there’s other types of wireless use.” A second type “is more active and cognitive types of sharing … almost an extension of the TV whites spaces in other bands,” he said.
Wentzel welcomed AT&T and Sirius XM’s FCC filing this week on interference issues in the wireless communications service band (CD June 19 p1). “We're always happy to see industry coming together for a solution,” she said. “We'll be taking a hard, close look at it. I'm sure that’s already happening, in fact.”
Wentzel discussed Genachowski’s Mobile Action Plan, a concept he spoke about more extensively at last month’s CTIA conference. “Assuring that we have the capacity to meet the demands on our spectrum is something that we're very focused on at the commission and the chairman is very focused on,” she said. No one solution will work, she said. “Do we need more spectrum?” she asked. “Do we need to use the spectrum we have more efficiently? Do we have to come up with new innovations? … The answer is yes, all of the above.” The plan is capturing “a lot of what we've been doing, a lot of what we've been thinking, but putting it down as a part of a definitive plan, organizing it into different buckets” she said. Wentzel also said industry should expect release of one or more notices of proposed rulemaking this fall as the build up continues for an incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum.