Nebbia Cautious on Outlook for 5 GHz Wi-Fi

The approval of the NPRM “certainly shows an interest” on the FCC’s “part to move the ball forward,” Nebbia said. “But it doesn’t, as far as I can see, convey a conclusion that everything is going to be workable. ... Certainly, I think, it reflects a commitment to work with us and try to work through what issues there are.” The NPRM was approved at the agency’s meeting Wednesday (CD Feb 21 p3) and later posted online by the commission (http://bit.ly/WVvAgn).

The NTIA has “identified what systems are in there,” Nebbia said. “We've identified what type of mitigation techniques might need to be considered, but ultimately the kind of quantitative analysis that has to go on to see how these things will work needs to go on between government and industry.” Some of the biggest concerns have been raised by the automotive industry, which is studying use of the 5850-5925 MHz band for a Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) backbone, to help curb collisions on the roadways (CD Jan 16 p1). Nebbia said NTIA is encouraging the automotive and Wi-Fi industries to “please talk to one another, that it would seem a great outcome if the two industries could work together.”

At the meeting’s end, Nebbia asked CSMAC members to ponder whether some commercial bands should also be open for sharing, possibly with government users. Nebbia said some agencies feel the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) spectrum sharing report (CD July 23 p1) at least raises that possibility. The FCC “has essentially licensed or auctioned the entire country,” he said. Government users want to use spectrum in some cases that appears to be completely unused, but “they're told ‘please ante up some money, we've purchased that, it’s ours,'” Nebbia said: “'Even though we're not using it at all, you shouldn’t be using it unless you're willing to pay us something.'"

T-Mobile Senior Vice President Tom Sugrue said maybe there should be some mechanism for the government and commercial users to trade their unused spectrum. If licenses “match up geographically, if there’s some legal ability to do that, then there could be some deals that could be made,” Sugrue said. “Got some cold hard cash here today, Tom?” Nebbia joked in response. “We could work a deal.” Sugrue fired back, “We've been trying for years to give you some cold hard cash in return for frequencies."

Wilkinson Barker lawyer Bryan Tramont is “really interested in exploring” if there’s “a way to look at ways in which a commercial spectrum auction is a lower-cost alternative for the federal government users to solve their mission critical needs,” he said. “The FCC and NTIA ... should look at whether or not the current system of spectrum allocation and service rules unduly limits the ability for spectrum to flow both directions."

In an era of tight government budgets, “there’s no reason why the systems that are built originally with an eye to the commercial domain could not offer up their economies of scale also to the federal users, so it’s a worthy topic,” said Janice Obuchowski, president of Freedom Technologies.

"I would be thrilled to see the federal government use more commercial systems,” said Kevin Kahn, senior fellow at Intel. Nebbia countered that wasn’t exactly the question he had asked.

CSMAC also approved with little debate a final report from its Working Group 1 on rules for opening up the 1695-1710 MHz band for commercial use while protecting federal meteorological earth stations from harmful interference (http://1.usa.gov/VvSSKn). CSMAC heard updates from its other four working groups, as well.