The FCC must take caution not to disrupt critical infrastructure as it opens the 6 GHz band to unlicensed users, said two state utility commissioners in support of a proposed NARUC resolution. State commissioners plan to vote on the 6 GHz statement at their meeting next week in San Antonio (see 1911050040). Senators and wireless carriers are also warning the FCC.

Wi-Fi uses being considered for the 6 GHz band are “fundamentally incompatible with mobile broadcast operations used for electronic newsgathering,” NAB told FCC Office of Engineering and Technology staff, per a filing posted Friday in docket 18-295. Proposed solutions for protecting electronic newsgathering and other mobile uses of the spectrum “will be entirely ineffective,” the group said. Restricting unlicensed operations to indoor use won’t provide protection because electronic newsgathering itself frequently takes place indoors, and “there is no reason to believe that WiFi signals from indoor access points and devices will in fact remain indoors,” the association said. The FCC shouldn’t allow unlicensed operation in portions of the 6 GHz band allocated for mobile, NAB said. Others are expressing concern about opening up the band (see 1911080033).

Critical infrastructure and public safety groups lined up against the FCC’s NPRM on unlicensed 6 GHz band use, in a Friday letter to Chairman Ajit Pai: “Given the significant risk that the proposed unlicensed operations could have on mission-critical networks that are used to protect the safety of life, health and property, and provide essential services to individuals, businesses, governments and others across the nation, unlicensed operations should only be permitted in the 6 GHz band if the Commission adopts more stringent interference protections for co-channel and adjacent channel microwave systems, including proven technology to mitigate the risk of interference by prior coordination of unlicensed operations.” Proposed mitigation of automated frequency coordination “is theoretical in nature and has not been tested or proven to work,” said associations for gas, petroleum, water, railroad and power industries, plus the International Association of Fire Chiefs, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and Utilities Technology Council. Others also have concerns (see 1911080052). Industry studies failed to lessen New York concerns about possible interference from unlicensed 6 GHz band use, the city wrote the FCC, posted Friday in docket 18-295: Broadcom, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and New America studies didn’t fully examine all potential interference cases or adequately show negative impact interference would cause critical public safety communications. "The potential influx of low powered devices operating in this critical band [could] impact the ability to isolate interference, an already difficult task compounded by the sheer number of devices operating" in the city, New York said. “Adopt more stringent interference protections, including for co-channel and adjacent channel operations.” Proposed mitigations are “unproven, untested, and have not yet been built to mission critical standards,” the municipality said. New York said it met last week with Broadcom, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Qualcomm and New America, and the companies presented their proposals for unlicensed use in the band. The businesses discussed a lidar study "conducted without the City’s prior knowledge or participation" that covered fixed service links licensed for public safety operations in the city, and a multipath fading study. New York has "significant concerns with the proposals generally" and the studies and those concerns have been filed with the commission. The companies and New America didn't comment Friday or declined to comment.

Wi-Fi Alliance President Edgar Figueroa spoke with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai about the importance of the 6 GHz band to Wi-Fi. Pai said in a recent speech he recognizes the importance of the band to unlicensed (see 1910220057). “Significant enhancements and innovation in Wi-Fi connectivity will become available through the use of 160 megahertz wide channels,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-295: "That, coupled with the ever-increasing congestion in currently-available unlicensed spectrum, is why Commission action in this proceeding, making the 5925-7125 MHz band available for Wi-Fi, is so important.”

Utilities Technology Council officials told FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks about interference risk to utilities posed by Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz band (see 1911040048). UTC said "utilities were promoting broadband deployment to unserved and underserved areas, and urged the Commission to enable opportunities for utilities to compete for access to broadband funding that will be made available through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund,” per a docket 18-295 filing posted Wednesday.

Companies and associations urged opening the 6 GHz band for sharing with Wi-Fi, writing FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “The Wi-Fi industry powers 13 billion devices worldwide,” said Tuesday's letter in docket 18-295: “Wi-Fi has become the single most important wireless technology for American consumers and businesses.” The letter notes no new mid-band spectrum has been made available for Wi-Fi for 20 years, “causing a severe shortage for a wireless technology that handles 75 percent of mobile data traffic.” Apple, Boingo Wireless, Broadcom, Charter Communications, Cisco, the Consortium for School Networking, Facebook, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Juniper Networks, Marvell, Microsoft, Netgear, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Philips North America, Public Knowledge, Qualcomm, Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, Sony Electronics, Wireless ISP Association and Wisper Internet were among signers.

Commissioner Mike O’Rielly is headed to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to take part in the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference, FCC officials confirmed. Chairman Ajit Pai was at the opening stages and O’Rielly’s trip is timed so he can be there near the end of the conference. He's expected to return before the commissioners’ meeting Nov. 22. O’Rielly was at the last WRC in 2015 and is active in international spectrum issues. He said in a recent speech U.S. priorities should include pushing for 3.1-3.3 GHz to be among the bands studied for future wireless broadband and protecting the use of the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi (see 1910240030). O’Rielly advocates a bigger leadership role for the U.S. in the ITU (see 1710050055).

NARUC plans to weigh proposed resolutions urging FCC caution on the 6 GHz band and IP-captioned telephone service (IP CTS), at its annual meeting Nov. 17-20 in San Antonio. A resolution before the Telecom, Water and Critical Infrastructure committees asks the FCC to “modify its proposal to not allow unlicensed operations in the 6 GHz band unless and until such time that it has tested and proven that its [automated frequency coordination (AFC)] system works as intended to protect utility and other [critical infrastructure industry] systems, and that the FCC require AFC for all unlicensed operations.” It would be “premature if not irresponsible” for the FCC not to rigorously test for possible interference, it said. “The 6 GHz band satisfies the unique needs of utilities due to its ability to transmit data quickly over long distances,” the notes the draft. “If forced out of the band, utilities and other CII licensees have few, if any, reasonable alternatives. Meanwhile, there are other spectrum bands that are currently available or that could be made available that would more efficiently serve the needs for unlicensed operations and more efficiently than the 6 GHz.” Commissioners Robert Pickett of Alaska, Sarah Freeman of Indiana and Mary-Anna Holden of New Jersey jointly sponsored the resolution. The IP-CTS draft resolution by Nebraska Commissioner Tim Schram asks the FCC to adopt service quality standards for all IP-CTS providers before migrating to exclusively automated speech recognition (ASR) services. ASR-only IP CTS providers should "be required to demonstrate that their services can perform in 911 and other emergency and public safety scenarios by, for example, ensuring that a [communications assistant] can help with the call until ASR-only services have a proven track record to handle emergency, life-threatening situations,” it says. And to be functionally equivalent with CA-based IP CTS, "a user’s privacy and confidentiality should be protected by an ASR-only IP CTS provider as well as its third-party ASR partners or underlying providers.”

The Utilities Technology Council warned an aide to FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly of the risk to utilities posed by Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz band. UTC and members “described how utilities and other critical infrastructure industries operate extensive microwave communications systems in the 6 GHz band, which they use to support the safe, reliable and secure delivery of essential services,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 18-295. “They urged the Commission to refrain from allowing unlicensed operations in the 6 GHz band, and that further field testing of the automated frequency control technology proposed to mitigate harmful interference is necessary before any such unlicensed operations should be permitted in the band,” UTC said.

Tech companies are wrong that radio local access network devices can safely share the 6 GHz band indoors, at low-power levels, without automatic frequency control, the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition told the FCC. Apple and other tech groups said the opposite (see 1910080036). The FWCC “opposes non-AFC-controlled RLANs on the ground that some are statistically certain to cause harmful interference,” said a filing in docket 18-295, posted Friday: “When they do, there will be no way to turn them off.” The group noted about 97,000 fixed links are licensed to use the band.