ASPEN, Colo. -- House and Senate priorities when they're back in session in September include reauthorizing the FCC's spectrum auction authority, agency oversight and filling FCC and FTC commissioner openings, legislative aides said Monday at Technology Policy Institute's Aspen Forum. Panels and speakers also discussed the inevitability of further media consolidation and social media's effect on political polarization. UScellular CEO Laurent Therivel urged revisiting the decision to allocate the 6 GHz band for unlicensed use. The prospects of AI regulation also were discussed (see 2308210029).

FCC action on the 6 GHz Further NPRM would help make communications more energy efficient, the Wi-Fi Alliance said in a letter to the four commissioners (see 2307310049). “Commission action is particularly critical because while policymakers in several countries are following the Commission’s lead, the upcoming 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference will also consider the 6 GHz spectrum designation,” said a filing Tuesday in docket 18-295. “In addition to the substantial spectrum harmonization benefits that a global approach to the 6 GHz band would produce, these pending international decisions offer a unique opportunity to leverage spectrum policy toward energy conservation and sustainability objectives,” the alliance said: “It is already well established that Wi-Fi technology excels in low-power, cognitive radio techniques including spectrum sensing, spectrum sharing, and adaptive transmission. These capabilities enable Wi-Fi to significantly outperform other wireless technologies in energy efficiency.”

Apple supports the more narrowly tailored View C on identifying additional frequency bands for international mobile telecommunications (IMT) over View A, supported by much of the wireless industry (see 2304240049), at the upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference, representatives told Ethan Lucarelli, chief of the FCC Office of International Affairs. “We noted how View C offers appropriate refinements to the frequency bands for study for a future IMT agenda item by accounting for increasing deployments of ultrawideband technologies in 7.7-9.3 GHz,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 17-183. Apple also urged a “no change” position on “the 6 GHz bands in Agenda Item 1.2, as well as provided a status update on recent filings concerning potential rules for very low power device operations in the 6 GHz band being considered as part of a pending” Further NPRM, the filing said.

A lawyer for tech companies met with FCC Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Ron Repasi on 6 GHz issues, said a filing posted Friday in docket 18-295. There have been reports the FCC will vote in coming months on a follow-up order to a 2020 Further NPRM (see 2308070060). “We discussed the numerous overlapping protections that will prevent very low power (VLP) devices from causing harmful interference to fixed-service receivers in the 6 GHz band,” said HWG’s Paul Caritj: “In particular, I explained how the Commission can be confident that transmit power control would reduce average VLP power by at least 3 dB. We also discussed the itinerancy of VLP devices, which provides yet another layer of protection against harmful interference.” Caritj represents Apple, Broadcom, Google and Meta Platforms. NCTA and CableLabs, meanwhile, met with OET staff on the band. They “emphasized the importance of unlicensed spectrum to American consumers, innovation, and the US economy” and asked the FCC to complete action on revised 6 GHz rules. "NCTA reiterated that CableLabs’ probabilistic analyses, on which the FCC relied in the 6 GHz Order, upheld by the DC Circuit, and which have been supplemented in the 6 GHz FNPRM record, consistently show that even when applying conservative assumptions, there is no meaningful risk of harmful interference to incumbent fixed link operations when [low-power indoor] power limits are increased as proposed."

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel appears to be teeing up an order on revised rules for the 6 GHz band for one of the commissioners' open meetings before the World Radiocommunication Conference, which starts Nov. 20 in Dubai. The WRC includes an agenda item on whether to identify the upper 700 MHz of the band for international mobile telecommunications, which the U.S. opposes, and the order would lay down a strong U.S. marker in favor of unlicensed use of the band, Wi-Fi advocates told us.

The Utilities Technology Council told the FCC it's asking to see the “underlying data and algorithms” from studies of 6 GHz interference done at the universities of Michigan and Notre Dame, said a filing posted Friday in docket 18-195. The tests showed minimal interference risks for incumbents (see 2307240025) in comparison to tests by FirstEnergy and others (see 2308010063). UTC called for a comparison of the academic findings with the results from multiple real-world interference tests done by several incumbent licensees and engineering firms and submitted in the FCC’s proceeding on unlicensed use of the 6 GHz band. The National Science Foundation funded the academic tests.

The potential that a very-low-power device would interfere with a fixed-service receiver in the 6 GHz band is “incredibly remote and requires a chain of improbable coincidences,” said a lawyer for Apple, Broadcom, Google and Meta Platforms in a filing posted Thursday in FCC docket 18-295. HWG’s Paul Caritj said he met with Ira Keltz, deputy chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology. “Given that the typical user is indoors more than 90% of the time, this already reduces the risk significantly,” the filing said: “The device must be in an unusual location where harmful interference is even theoretically possible. Due to the off-axis discrimination of FS antennas and the fact that FS links are designed to operate high off the ground to avoid buildings, terrain, and clutter, this requires either VLP operation very close to an FS receiver, or an anomalous FS link whose beam intersects the ground.” The FS link must also be operating on the same channel as the VLP device, the filing said.

Nineteen groups, led by the Open Technology Institute at New America, sent a letter to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Thursday urging the agency to wrap up work on two long-standing issues raised in a 2020 Further NPRM on the 6 GHz band (see 2004230059). The letter cites digital inclusion concerns. “The authorization of Very Low Power (VLP) devices and higher power for indoor-only use (LPI) are particularly crucial for digital equity and inclusion, for continued U.S. leadership in next generation Wi-Fi, and for virtually all consumers, businesses and community anchor institutions that increasingly rely on Wi-Fi for connectivity,” the letter said: “Above all, we need to ensure that final rules for the 6 GHz band do not create a new Wi-Fi Digital Divide.” The letter warns, “Weak indoor signals and any unnecessary reliance on costly and complex database control over Wi-Fi and other unlicensed technologies will disproportionately deprive low-income households, students and others of affordable access to this advanced connectivity.” Some expect FCC action soon (see 2306230046). Groups signing the letter include Public Knowledge, Consumer Reports, Next Century Cities, the American Library Association, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, the Schools Health Libraries Broadband Coalition, the Tribal Digital Village Network, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, the Wireless ISP Association, the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, Access Humboldt, X-Lab and the Institute for Local Self Reliance.

Electric utility representatives, led by FirstEnergy and the Edison Electric Institute, met with FCC Office of Engineering and Technology staff about FirstEnergy’s recent 6 GHz interference tests (see 2305100047). Electric companies “operate 6 GHz communications networks that are necessary for the safety of electric company personnel and to maintain the backbone of electric companies’ operations during emergencies and disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-295: “Protecting existing 6 GHz networks remains the reason for electric companies to invest their limited resources to conduct tests to evaluate the risk that unlicensed devices pose to their networks.”

AT&T opposed a recent waiver request by Extreme Weather of FCC rules for low-power indoor devices for 6 GHz access points (APs), to be installed exclusively in indoor-only sports venues. The company wants to protect the APs with a waterproof enclosure “to protect the devices from beverage spills and during venue washing,” said a July 21 waiver request in docket 18-295. “As a general matter, access points in the 6 GHz band must operate using an automated frequency coordination system to avoid interference with primary Fixed Service microwave incumbents in the band,” though an exception is for points “limited to indoor operation,” which are governed by form-factor rules including that “devices cannot be weather resistant,” AT&T said, posted Tuesday. The waiver “should be denied because the form factor rules are a key component of the regulatory scheme protecting primary FS incumbents and Extreme has not justified undermining those safeguards,” AT&T said.