Pai: FCC Considered All Objections From Incumbents on 6 GHz Plan
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Monday the agency will move as quickly as it can to allow outdoor use of the 6 GHz band by very low-power devices. Pai told incumbents the FCC has fully vetted their concerns, speaking on a webinar hosted by New America’s New Technology Institute and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. Pai circulated the draft last week for a vote at the April 23 commissioners’ meeting (see 2004020066).
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Pai said his message to FCC engineers was “don’t look at the politics, don’t monitor the press releases, just look at the physics.” Changes to any band get the same complaints every time, and that's true for him and past chairmen, he said. Pai said one of the last in-person meetings he had at the FCC was with the Edison Electric Institute, which represents electric utilities that use the band. “I told them, ‘Look, this is what we’re thinking of doing, this is why it doesn’t harm your interests,’” he said. “It’s much easier to go with the very quick headline” like “the power grid is going to go down,” Pai said.
The power level for indoor use in the proposed 6 GHz rules is “sufficient” to protect incumbents but doesn’t “torpedo the value” of the spectrum for Wi-Fi, Pai said. Some wanted action more quickly, he said: “At the end of the day … that care and time that we took was to good purpose.”
“The need for Wi-Fi has been demonstrated all the more” by the COVID-19 lockdown, Pai said. Telehealth is more important than ever, he said. Many of those dying from the disease do so alone and their only connection is virtual, he said: “That’s the most powerful use case there is in terms of teleheath. It has really been on my mind.”
Data on Wi-Fi shows constant increases in data since it was introduced more than 20 years ago, Pai said. Wi-Fi and unlicensed could eventually be “the dominant wireless use case,” with cellular “a very important complement.” Wi-Fi 6 and 5G work together, he said.
The FCC wants to move forward as quickly as it can on a Further NPRM in the item, which will explore higher power levels indoors and use of very low power devices outdoors, Pai said. “We just weren’t able to reach a resolution” allowing limited outdoor use as part of the rules, he said: “Things like wearables are going to become more important.”
The FCC weighed the proposal by CTIA and others to set aside half the band for licensed use (see 2003120065), Pai said. That would require moving federal operations to 7 GHz, he said. “One of the reasons that I have more gray hair now … is that dealing with federal users trying to accomplish the relinquishment or sharing of spectrum is a very, very challenging task,” he said: “We’ve been very aggressive in terms of licensed spectrum.” The FCC struck “the right balance,” he said. “There’s a home for everybody.”
“The draft order is truly revolutionary for Wi-Fi, for unlicensed innovation and for advancing the concept of spectrum sharing more broadly,” said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. Calabrese expects deployment in the band by year's end. Pai indicated he hopes use will start around the 2020 holiday season.
“I don’t think any incumbent in any band hasn’t insisted that spectrum sharing would be a disaster for them,” Calabrese told Pai.
The power levels allowed for indoor-only devices will be 70 to 80 times lower than a standard power device, at lower bandwidths, said Chris Szymanski, Broadcom director-product marketing and global government affairs. They get their power from using much wider channels -- up to 160 MHz under Wi-Fi 6, he said. Standard power devices will operate like typical Wi-Fi devices in the 5 GHz band “using a very simplified database model,” he said. The order will protect incumbents and “enable the future of Wi-Fi,” he said.
For consumers, it means the new generation of Wi-Fi “will be as fast as the internet coming into their homes and businesses at no extra cost,” Szymanski said. Wi-Fi networks will be able to handle an “exponentially greater number of devices” for streaming video, gaming, telelearning and telehealth, he said. Wireless ISPs will be able to provide gigabyte-speed broadband in areas never served before, he said.
Even before the pandemic, Charter Communications subscribers heavily relied on Wi-Fi, said Audrey Connors, vice president-government affairs. “As consumers connect more devices to the internet, and use more data-hungry applications, we expect internet traffic to increase substantially over the next five years,” she said. The 6 GHz band means Charter can keep pace with growing demand and allow use of “wider channels that we don’t have today,” she said: “Within the next year or so, consumers will start to see real benefits from opening this spectrum.”