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.

The FCC Wireless Bureau announced last week the shifts in responsibilities among its staff members as part of its recent reorganization into 6 new divisions. A bureau spokeswoman said the legal advisers and deputy bureau chiefs generally had shifted the divisions they supported. The bureau chief’s office added Aaron Goldberger as a legal adviser to provide support to the Public Safety & Critical Infrastructure Div. (PSCID) and to coordinate with the FCC Office of Engineering & Technology. The bureau named Lauren Patrich as special counsel for media and outreach. It announced 2 reassignments in the chief’s office: (1) Chief Engineer Thomas Stanley will be responsible for wireless technology and engineering policy on licensing or sharing wireless services. (2) Chief Economist Walter Strack will be policy and technical adviser on economic issues concerning regulatory policy, spectrum policy and auctions. In other areas, the Bureau said: (1) Deputy Bureau Chief Catherine Seidel is supporting the bureau’s new Broadband Div. and the PSCID. (2) Deputy Bureau Chief Gerald Vaughan is supporting the Spectrum & Competition Policy Div. and the Spectrum Management Resources & Technology Div. (SMART). (3) Acting Deputy Bureau Chief Peter Tenhula provides support to the Mobility Div. and the Auctions & Spectrum Access Div. Tenhula also directs the agency’s Spectrum Policy Task Force. Margaret Wiener, chief of the bureau’s Auctions & Industry Analysis Div., becomes chief of the new Auctions & Spectrum Access Div. The new Broadband Div., which has taken on some policy areas that had been in other divisions, is headed by Joel Taubenblatt, who was deputy chief of the former Policy Div. and a legal adviser to the bureau chief. The Div.’s policy areas include Multipoint Distribution Service/ITFS, advanced wireless services, 70-80-90 GHz, Local Multipoint Distribution Service, 24 GHz and 18 GHz issues. D'wana Terry, who headed the previous iteration of the Public Safety Div., becomes chief of the new Public Safety & Critical Infrastructure Div. William Kunze is heading the Spectrum & Competition Policy Div., responsible for Spectrum Policy Task Force implementation, secondary markets. His division also will include competitive reviews of proposed transactions. Elsewhere, John Chudovan is heading the SMART Div., which covers all the bureau’s information technology, licensing support, auctions support and outreach functions.

Attention turned in recent months in the 800 MHz proceeding to the question of how to value spectrum at 1.9 GHz under a rebanding proposal by Nextel and others, FCC Wireless Bureau Chief John Muleta said after the Commission’s Thurs. agenda meeting. But he said that didn’t mean the agency had zeroed in on the “consensus plan” to mitigate interference to public safety at 800 MHz. Other FCC officials acknowledged they faced budgetary belt-tightening in 2004 and said a must-carry decision might be a way off.

Connexion by Boeing said it planned to expand beyond aeronautical mobile satellite service (MSS) to high-speed satellite broadband for the maritime industry. The date of the launch, details of the system and service pricing weren’t announced, but Connexion Pres. Scott Carson said the company had “actively engaged in discussions with several of the leading maritime operators, as well as potential distributors,” about the service. Connexion said its existing satellite and ground networks would provide coverage over the N. Atlantic, with plans for Pacific coverage to be announced. A spokeswoman said Boeing wouldn’t need additional FCC authorization to provide the maritime service because it would operate the service with authorizations from the flag nations, adhering to the recently adopted international rules on earth stations aboard vessels. The company currently has an aeronautical mobile satellite service authorization in the 14-14.5 GHz and 11.7-12.2 GHz bands using AMC 4 at 101 degrees W and Telstar 6 at 93 degrees W.

Boeing urged the FCC not to adopt a lower stationkeeping tolerance value for geostationary satellite orbit (GSO) mobile satellite service (MSS) satellites “because such a rule is unnecessary for the safe and effective operation of GSO MSS spacecraft and will significantly increase the cost of operating GSO MSS satellites.” The company is among several expressing concern over the Commission’s pending action on orbital debris. Boeing said the proposed adoption of a 0.05 degrees longitudinal stationkeeping tolerance for MSS satellites -- rather than the existing 0.1 degrees tolerance -- could require 6 times as much onboard propellant and decrease the anticipated 12-year life of Boeing’s 2 GHz MSS spacecraft by 50%: “The severe negative impact of a 0.05 degrees… tolerance results from a combination of factors within the overall available longitude budget, including in particular the significant area-to-mass ratio of Boeing’s spacecraft and its use of a slightly inclined orbit.” Boeing said that although the Commission had adopted the lower tolerance value for GSO fixed satellite service (FSS) satellites, it “was adopted solely ‘for the purpose of avoiding harmful radio interference’ between FSS satellites,” an interference risk that didn’t exist for MSS birds. Separately, Inmarsat told the FCC that if it adopted changes for East-West and North-South stationkeeping, the changes shouldn’t apply to MSS satellites already in orbit or under construction. In a presentation, the company said the standard 2.4 degrees-3.4 degrees inclination in which its satellites operated would make it difficult to maintain the proposed 0.05 degrees tolerance “because of the significant increase in the number of required” maneuvers. It also would reduce the lives of 4 Inmarsat 2 satellites by 2.5 years each, Inmarsat said. As for a proposal to increase the de- orbit height to 300 km, instead of the existing 192 km, Inmarsat said each of its satellites would experience a 2-3 month reduction in its expected life. Meanwhile, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) plans to begin studying space debris, Xinhuanet reported. CNSA will launch 3 programs to monitor, prevent and curb the movement of waste left mostly by space research activities. Xinhuanet said the programs would be used between 2006 and 2020.

The FCC released a notice of proposed rulemaking on sharing between satellite services -- including nongeostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) and geostationary satellite orbit (GSO) fixed satellite service (FSS) operations -- and 3 other services -- fixed services (FS), broadcast auxiliary services (BAS) and cable TV relay services (CARS). The final rules would apply in the 7 GHz, 10 GHz and 13 GHz bands, the Commission said: “We undertake this proceeding to facilitate the introduction of new satellite and terrestrial services while promoting interference protection among the various users in these bands.” The Commission proposed the following: (1) NGSO FSS downlink operations sharing with FS operations in the 10 GHz band based on a Growth Zone Proposal by SkyBridge/Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC). It suggested identifying FS growth zones based on geographic areas where “FS use is high and growth is most likely to occur.” The Commission’s proposal would qualify counties as growth zones “where at least 30 FS frequencies are licensed to transmit in the 10.7-11.7 GHz band.” Zone determinations would be made individually, rather than every 6 months, as NGSO FSS earth station applications were submitted to provide a “near real- time” element to the process, the FCC said. Coordination also would adopt proposals determining where the earth stations should be located, who would be protected from interference and how coordination would be determined. (2) Coordination between NGSO and GSO FSS earth stations and mobile BAS and CARS operations in the 6875-7075 MHz and 12750-13250 MHz bands. The Commission said it would apply existing coordination rules from Parts 25 and 101 of its rules to the bands and consider additions or modifications. It said it also would determine whether additional rules needed to be applied separately to FSS coordination with mobile or fixed BAS/CARS operations. Comments are due 30 days from publication in the Federal Register, replies 45 days from publication.