Incentive Auction Band Plan Raising Major Concerns, with Comments Due at FCC
The FCC’s proposed “preferred” band plan for an incentive auction of broadcast-TV spectrum is raising big concerns among both carriers and broadcasters, lawyers representing both said. The issue is expected to arise in comments filed by NAB, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Qualcomm and others, which are due at the FCC Friday. Concerns over the band plan and the lack of international coordination could lead to delays in the start of the incentive auction, which Chairman Julius Genachowski has predicted would get underway next year, industry and agency sources said.
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The issue is that the band plan, proposed by the FCC in a Sept. 28 rulemaking notice (http://xrl.us/bnscum), would push broadcaster and carrier operations into the same spectrum, depending on how fully subscribed the auction is. Under the proposal, the FCC would sell paired 5 MHz blocks in which the uplink band would start at channel 51 (698 MHz) and expand downward toward channel 37 based on the amount of spectrum broadcasters decide to offer for sale. The downlink band would begin at channel 36 (608 MHz) and also expand downward. Channel 37 (608-614 MHz), now dedicated to receive-only radio astronomy operations and the wireless medical telemetry service, would act as a kind of buffer, though the FCC also seeks comment on the future use of the channel and whether it should be reallocated for unlicensed use.
"Some people argue that putting broadcasters in the duplexer gap, the space between wireless uplink and downlink operations, will cause harmful interference to the mobile operations,” said a lawyer who represents carriers and other clients closely following the NPRM. “NAB doesn’t want to have any broadcasters ’stranded’ in the wireless spectrum. ... The FCC was basically inclined to let some broadcasters stay in the spectrum above channel 37, to the extent that in a given market there wasn’t enough spectrum reclaimed, they were going to start at channel 51 and work their way down. Depending on how much spectrum they got from the broadcasters, they were planning to let some broadcasters stay there above channel 37."
Concerns over the band plan, and the need for the FCC to do major work on the plan, mean holding an auction next year may prove an elusive goal, said broadcast and wireless industry officials. “The band plan needs a lot of work, and I think they're going to have to go back to square one, so that will take time,” a wireless industry lawyer said.
"There has been a high level of interest in the FCC’s planned incentive auction,” a commission spokesman said Wednesday. “We will review all comments closely, and anticipate that interested parties will provide specific data so we can evaluate any technical proposals.”
"These types of things historically have always taken longer than expected,” said Commissioner Robert McDowell, referring to the incentive auction. “While I've always been a proponent of shot clocks, we need to understand that drafting the most complex spectrum auction in world history may end up taking longer than some would hope in order to do it right.”
"The FCC is going to have to balance a number of concerns ranging from how to clear enough spectrum to make the auction a success while simultaneously making sure that every broadcaster that wants to stay in business can do so,” said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. “Along the way, it wants to minimize migration costs, preserve spectrum for TV white spaces and other secondary users of the spectrum ... and provide enough certainty about the future band plan so that wireless carriers will bid and that manufacturers and standards bodies can start thinking about how to develop new equipment. That’s a pretty tall order.” The concerns of the large trade associations are important and should be taken “very seriously,” Feld said. “But it is by no means certain that what the broadcasters think they want and what the wireless providers think they want is actually what would make a successful auction,” he said. “Politically, it is hard to resist a coalition of the buyers and the sellers. But this is sufficiently complicated that the FCC may be able to address these concerns.”