U.S. and Mexico Have Big Job Ahead Working Out 700 MHz Differences, Officials Say
The FCC and Mexico have approved different 700 MHz band plans and the result could be interference along the U.S.-Mexico border, officials from the countries said Tuesday at the Americas Spectrum Management Conference. But officials from both countries also downplayed the risks, as long as negotiations continue. The U.S. build-out is based on a unique North American plan, also being followed by Canada and Nicaragua, while Mexico recently opted to adopt the Asia Pacific plan (APT).
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"Obviously the United States and Mexico are now faced with the challenging situation of dissimilar channeling plans along … our border,” said Hal Grigsby, the State Department’s lead negotiator for the U.S. delegations on U.S.-Mexican telecom issues. “I think both governments realized that we have a lot to discuss.” The U.S. can’t easily move away from its current plan, which informed the 2008 700 MHz auction, he said: “It’s a train that has already left the station and it’s well under way. It’s in motion and it’s moving; actually it’s accelerating."
Luis Lucatero, chief of regulatory policy at the Mexican Federal Telecommunications Commission, said Mexico looked at various plans and embraced the APT plan only after studying the issue in great depth. The plan allows 15 MHz channels and “when you have 15 MHz channels you can actually make the most of the spectrum,” he said.
The cross border issues are critical, Lucatero said. “If difficulties arise you would have interference and the quality of your signal decreases until it’s not working,” he said. “This is a very serious issue.” Mexico won’t sell off rights to use the 700 MHz spectrum through an auction until a solution is worked out, he added. “The United States has lots of great engineers that know how to solve interference problems and hopefully Mexico is getting some good engineers too,” he said. “I think that this problem will be solved."
"I think you can look at this spectrum and say that there are some complex aspects to it,” Grigsby said. “I think Luis recognizes that. For our two delegations to work out a solution we'll be negotiating this for a while.” Grigsby, who has held his position with the State Department for 13 years, said the U.S. and Mexico have worked out agreements on similarly complicated spectrum issues in the past, most recently 800 MHz rebanding.
Marc Dupuis of Industry Canada, who was in the audience, said international agreements are always difficult. “Because we adopted the U.S. band plan, and there are some slight differences … it doesn’t mean you don’t have any coordination challenges,” Dupuis said. “Believe me, it’s not a slam dunk, or a piece of cake, to use a few expressions, when it comes to Canada-U.S. coordination because we have a very long border and whatever Verizon and AT&T do in the U.S. affects our future licensees and vice versa."
"Questions moving forward must include how can those two systems exist along the border and how can they coexist,” said Carl Povelites, a public policy assistant vice president at AT&T, who also spoke at the conference. “How big of an exclusion zone is needed along the border on the Mexican side?” Qualcomm Vice President Dean Brenner said industry faces huge challenges in general keeping up with the pace of change. “Three years ago if you came here and talked about tablets, people would think you were talking about the Ten Commandments,” Grenner said. “I think it’s just the constant race. … We work at Qualcomm with a sense of urgency and if we don’t, shame on us.”