Groups that hold ITFS spectrum are seeking a last-minute meeting with FCC Chmn. Powell to head off a proposal that they give up 18 MHz of spectrum as part of a final rule on the MMDS/ITFS spectrum allocation, which is being circulated at the FCC for a possible June 10 vote. Sources in the ITFS community said Tues. they were caught off guard by the proposal that they give up bite size chunks of spectrum as part of the order.

Officials representing high-tech and wireless companies Wed. called on the FCC to allocate to promoters of wireless broadband services more low-frequency spectrum. The companies also said during an all-day FCC forum on the topic that resolving standardization issues will prove critical in coming months.

Draft versions of 2 World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC-07) agenda items were introduced and tabled at a Wed. meeting of the 2nd informal working group (IWG-2). IWG-2 is looking at agenda items concerning satellite services and high altitude platform stations (HAPS). The group discussed agenda item 1.6, Resolution 415, which considers “additional allocations for the aeronautical mobile service in parts of the bands between 108 MHz and 6 GHz, in accordance with Resolution 414 (WRC-03) and, to study current satellite frequency allocations, that will support the modernization of civil aviation telecom systems, taking into account Resolution 415 (WRC-03).” While the issue was defined as looking at creating broader satellite frequency allocations to include civil aviation telecom systems and other non- aeronautical telecom services while remaining compatible with existing allocations, there was group discussion about whether the inclusion of “non-aeronautical services” was necessary. Draft author David Weinreich of Connexion by Boeing said it was important not to restrict the frequencies to only aeronautical uses, but also fixed satellite service (FSS) applications in remote areas. A 2nd draft for agenda item 1.21 created little discussion. The item proposes “to consider the results of studies regarding the compatibility between the radio astronomy service and the active space services in accordance with Resolution 740 (WRC-03), in order to review and update, if appropriate, the tables of threshold levels used for consultation that appear in the Annex to Resolution 739 (WRC-03).” IWG-2 plans to meet May 27 in order to finalize preliminary views on both agenda items before the June 8 meeting of the WRC-07 Advisory Committee.

Verizon Wireless told the FCC late Thurs. it would open bidding at $5 billion if the agency auctioned nationwide PCS spectrum at 1.9 GHz. The pledge by the largest U.S. wireless carrier upped the ante in the battle over 800 MHz rebanding. It came as the FCC neared a vote on a proposal to fix public safety interference, which wasn’t widely expected to entail an auction. Several sources cautioned Thurs. some plan details were still under deliberation, although a majority appears to have coalesced around key elements of a rebanding plan backed by Nextel and others.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) said any 800 MHz rebanding plan that involves relocating incumbents must be “self-financing.” In a letter to FCC Chmn. Powell made public Tues., Stevens said he wasn’t weighing in on either side the complex proceeding about mitigating public safety interference at 800 MHz. But he said that if Nextel must give up spectrum at 700 and 800 MHz to eliminate public safety interference, it must get replacement bands elsewhere. He said an auction wouldn’t be needed to do this.

Harmful interference was still the major area of concern for fixed service (FS) operators in reply comments on earth stations aboard vessels (ESVs). Comments filed in Feb. made proposals on how to eliminate the potential for interference from ESVs by limiting how closely ESVs can come to the shore and how the devices coordinate with FS operations (CD Feb 25 p10). L.A. County said its private operational fixed service (POFS) uses the 6 GHz band some ESVs operate in and the service is relied on heavily for public safety communications, “first response” operations and emergency situations: “[I]f left unconstrained, there would be an extraordinary amount of ESV frequency use within the county, creating dangerous interference to public safety communications.” But Telenor Satellite criticized claims of interference in the comments of FS operators, saying C-band ESV operations haven’t had significant interference problems with FS operations: “In fact, the comments of the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition [FWCC] and its supporters demonstrate this point ably: Despite being specifically invited by the Commission in the [notice of proposed rulemaking] to provide examples of interference, not one commenting party has been able to do so. Their silence speaks volumes.” The FWCC responded: “Without basic operational information about the ESV, identifying it as the cause of interference requires taking the FS link out of service for an extended period. And even when FS operators have taken the trouble to shut down a link and gather data on an interference incident, ESV providers have still refused to provide the information needed to identify a particular ESV as the source. The lack of substantiation thus reflects not an absence of interference, but rather an absence of cooperation form the ESV industry.” Meanwhile, Stratos said Maritime Telecom Network (MTN) is the only ESV interest proposing a coordinated approach for ESV C-band operations. Stratos said operations on a non-coordination basis have been successful and should continue. But MTN said coordination is the only way to provide co-primary protection for ESVs similar to protection for FS operations. FWCC agreed that coordination is essential, but said it must go farther than coordination at single locations: “Even a successfully coordinated ESV can still cause interference if it leaves the coordinated route, enters an uncoordinated route segment, or slows down.” FWCC proposed all ESVs be required to have GPS equipment “programmed to shut down automatically if the vessel departs from its coordinated parameters.”

Nextel has the spectrum “to make sure everybody is whole today” in virtually every market involving border areas that would be affected by a plan to fix public safety interference at 800 MHz, said Nextel Senior Vp-Chief Regulatory Officer Bob Foosaner. On the sidelines of the CTIA show, he said San Diego is a challenging market because peaks surround the city. “We have to work closely with the public safety community in San Diego to manage the usage of the peaks,” Foosaner said. “We believe it’s manageable. We've talked to them on a fairly regular basis and we are developing a plan directly with them,” he said of the San Diego public safety community. The question of how to coordinate 800 MHz spectrum as part of rebanding along border areas between the U.S. and Canada and the U.S. and Mexico has arisen during the 800 MHz proceeding. Nextel, the Assn. of Public Safety Communications Officials and others have backed a plan that would entail rebanding parts of 700, 800 and 900 MHz and 1.9 GHz. A draft proposal circulating on the 8th floor doesn’t involve the 700 and 900 MHz band, but would give Nextel 10 MHz at 1.9 GHz, subtracting from the value of that spectrum the cost of retuning incumbents at 800 MHz (CD March 11 p1). Under the consensus plan proposed to the FCC, spectrum realignments that affected areas along the Mexican and Canadian borders with the U.S. were designed so that no incumbent would have a net spectrum loss while separating public safety and cellular operations at 800 MHz. The plan as proposed to the FCC included contingencies such as compliance with international treaties. Foosaner said backers of the consensus plan believe it would be beneficial for the U.S. to use the model along the border that cellular licensees have, “where the licensees across borders coordinate and everybody has access to all the spectrum.” Foosaner said: “It’s doable.” Asked about the FCC’s consideration of a plan that wouldn’t include 700 and 900 MHz as part of rebanding, Foosaner said that even if that spectrum weren’t part of the mix, “we're contributing more than the reasonable value of 1.9 [GHz].” He said that from a legal perspective, the FCC has the flexibility to do a license modification if a public interest finding is made. “Remedying interference to first responders, getting additional spectrum to first responders and having the entire cost underwritten by a company has got to be in the public interest,” Foosaner said. In other areas, the retuning rules that are part of the consensus plan give important enforcement “teeth” to the Commission in dealing with licensee cooperation, he said. “If they [the rules] don’t have teeth, they could undercut the entire retuning,” he said. “One, 2 or 3 licensees in a major market could just stop public safety from getting remedied. To me, that’s a very significant issue. That’s fundamental to us concurring if we have that ability with anything they do.” In other retuning scenarios, the Commission has had “reasonable rules in place,” he said. The 800 MHz issue is complicated by the extent to which 55 public safety regions around the country have plans to roll out services in the NPSPAC channels in the upper part of the 800 MHz band, Foosaner said. The plans are based on region-by-region launches of allocated services. This would mean that without adequate enforcement mechanisms behind the FCC’s retuning rules, one licensee in one of these regions could create problems if it refused to move, he said. -- MG

Operators of nongeostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) fixed satellite service (FSS) gateways and incumbent broadcast auxiliary service (BAS) and cable TV relay service (CARS) operators should use existing coordination procedures for operations in the 12.75-13.25 GHz bands, SkyBridge told the FCC. The Commission had asked in Dec. for comment on sharing among the services, basing several proposals on a SkyBridge/Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC) plan for growth zones (CD Dec 24 p11). SkyBridge said FSS operators should initiate coordination with BAS and CARS operators when deploying a new gateway, while BAS/CARS operators should initiate coordination for their new operations. Meanwhile, SkyBridge and the FWCC asked the Commission not to adopt rules varying significantly from the joint proposal the groups submitted: “[T]he joint proposal balanced the competing interests of these 2 services, based upon practical technical considerations and the need for regulatory certainty.” For example, while the SkyBridge/FWCC proposal suggested the creation of Growth Zones based on county boundaries, the Commission asked whether a better method exists to define the zones. SkyBridge/FWCC said while county boundaries aren’t the perfect solution, “it appeared to the joint parties to be the most rational, efficacious, generally fair, and easily administered solution.” They said one of their related proposals, which would update the list of zones every 6 months, “takes a considerable amount of time, money and effort” but is necessary to avoid imposing unexpected regulatory obligations on a new gateway operator.

Public safety officials have pushed for streamlining federal spectrum decision-making in talks under President Bush’s call for recommendations on promoting efficient spectrum use. But groups have warned against merging the duties of NTIA and the FCC to accomplish that. At an NTIA forum on public safety spectrum Tues., issues debated as part of the year-long process included simplifying federal frequency coordination, spelling out spectrum requirements of agencies and improving interference analysis.

Nextel said Fri. it would conduct a trial of a wireless broadband service in Raleigh-Durham using Flarion Technology’s Flash-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technology. Nextel said the test would begin later this month, offering certain customers high-speed, IP-based broadband access through a mobile service. Flash-OFDM is billed by its developers as a signal processing system that supports high data rates at very low latencies over an IP wireless network. Nextel said trial participants would include employees of some of its business customers, including Cisco, IBM and Nortel. The service will offer average downlink speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps with burst rates up to 3 Mbps, which Nextel said was akin to DSL or cable modem service. Nextel COO Tom Kelly said: “Nextel is considering a number of interesting wireless technologies and this market trial will help us understand how the wireless broadband service performs, how valuable it is to our customers and what the market is likely to pay for it.” Nextel said the Flarion-based service would operate on a network separate from its iDEN wireless network. It said the trial would run for at least 6 months. Cisco is providing infrastructure support for the trial and Nortel is handling base station installation. A Nextel spokesman said the Flarion-based technology would be running on spectrum at 1.9 GHz leased from another company that he declined to identify.