Many Comments Expected on 6 GHz NPRM, Including Nontraditional Players
With a flood of comments expected, some nontraditional players have started to weigh in on an NPRM on unlicensed use of the 6 GHz band. Among them is an education-focused group in North Carolina and a group that builds new homes. Commissioners launched a rulemaking on Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz band in October (see 1810230038) and comments were due midnight Friday in docket 18-295.
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“Broadcom is very excited about this NPRM and you’re going to find a lot of substantive comments are filed today,” Chris Szymanski, director-product marketing and government affairs, told us Friday. “It’s going to be an incredibly active proceeding.” Some nontraditional players will file, emphasizing the importance of Wi-Fi, he said.
One point groups will make is that ability to get Wi-Fi signals throughout a building is becoming more difficult, Szymanski said. With the new Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ax, “you could see maximum spectrum efficiency” with high speeds, he said. “That efficient traffic will be slowed down by any other traffic that is on the band -- not only the data transmission but all of the core control signaling that’s necessary.” In the 6 GHz band, there’s no legacy traffic competing for the spectrum, he said.
Broadcom’s expectation is that most wide-bandwidth traffic will use the 6 GHz band and narrower traffic the 5 GHz band, Szymanski said. “That basically means that you’re creating a highway,” he said. “What we’re looking at here is a band that is completely optimized for faster throughput and lower latency.”
“As educational content becomes richer, with the advent of virtual reality and augmented reality learning applications, the need for more spectrum is painfully obvious,” said the Friday Institute in North Carolina. A typical school with a one-device-per-student rule “consists of a classroom with about 25 students, each with a device such as a tablet or Chromebook,” the group said. “Depending on the local school policy, other student-owned Wi-Fi devices such as smartphones and watches may also be granted access to the school’s … network.” Classrooms will need more spectrum, the institute said: “Many of the student devices available today do not have Ethernet interfaces available; wireless connectivity is the only option.”
“Production home builders … care about unlicensed spectrum generally and this proceeding in particular because consumers demand WiFi-enabled new homes,” the Leading Builders of America commented. “New residential homes offer automated features that rely on increasingly more unlicensed spectrum for WiFi and IoT applications. Increased bandwidth demands for in-home functionality require more unlicensed spectrum.” That filing is interesting, Szymanski blogged. “They demonstrate the wide-ranging impact that telecommunications generally, and Wi-Fi specifically, has on the economy,” he said.
The National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Radio Frequencies said the FCC must protect radio astronomy and other scientific use of the 6 and 7 GHz bands. The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council raised similar concerns about public safety use of the spectrum. “Despite the best intentions of the Commission, the history of dynamic spectrum sharing to date does not engender unbridled confidence in the approach,” NPSTC warned.
HP plans to offer products taking advantage of new Wi-Fi protocols. “Performance and functionality of these products would benefit significantly from wider channels (i.e., 80 MHz/160 MHz) that can be implemented in the contiguous spectrum blocks available in the 6 GHz band,” it said.