The FCC needs to “get creative” to address the homework gap, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said Monday at Digital Equity Summit 2019 in Richmond, Virginia. “Nightly schoolwork now requires internet access” and the homework gap “is real,” Rosenworcel said. She cited Lee High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, where schools are lending wireless hot spots and computers to students who need them to do homework. Rosenworcel encouraged educators to make their voices heard in support of the E-rate program: “Make noise. Make a ruckus.” Under one proposal before the FCC, the E-rate and rural telemedicine programs “could share a single funding cap and slug it out for resources,” she said: “I do not support this approach. We have serious broadband problems in this country. And the FCC has a statutory duty to expand the reach of communications to everyone -- no matter who they are or where they live.” The FCC also needs “better data about where broadband is and is not so communities across the country can build on it to address the Homework Gap,” Rosenworcel said. She backed making more spectrum available for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use, and using spectrum auction proceeds to pay for better connections through a homework gap fund.
Wireless Spectrum Auctions
The FCC manages and licenses the electromagnetic spectrum used by wireless, broadcast, satellite and other telecommunications services for government and commercial users. This activity includes organizing specific telecommunications modes to only use specific frequencies and maintaining the licensing systems for each frequency such that communications services and devices using different bands receive as little interference as possible.
What are spectrum auctions?
The FCC will periodically hold auctions of unused or newly available spectrum frequencies, in which potential licensees can bid to acquire the rights to use a specific frequency for a specific purpose. As an example, over the last few years the U.S. government has conducted periodic auctions of different GHz bands to support the growth of 5G services.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told us he's ready to refer nonprofit educational broadband services to the Enforcement Bureau, based on letters he's sending to various institutions. Carr said any proceeds from the sale of licenses by nonprofits found to violate the rules could be used to pay for education. Commissioners will vote Wednesday on an order reallocating the 2.5 GHz to an auction.
Consensus on FCC legal authority for a particular method of C-band clearing remains elusive, judging by docket 18-122 comments posted through Friday on such issues as enforceable interference protection rights in the band. Parties jousted over the nature of satellite and earth station operators' rights and various proposals for clearing the 3.7-4.2 GHz band.
The draft order reallocating educational broadband service spectrum for 5G is controversial on the FCC eighth floor. Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks are concerned and expected to raise questions when commissioners vote Wednesday, agency and industry officials said. But the major changes to are expected to address questions Commissioner Brendan Carr is raising about the business practices of national nonprofits using EBS licenses (see 1907020072).
The Wireless ISP Association wants changes to draft rules for the 2.5 GHz band to ensure WISPs will bid for the band in an eventual auction. WISPA President Claude Aiken spoke with an aide to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel about proposed changes, said a filing Monday in docket 18-120. WISPA asked the FCC to offer small business and rural provider bidding credits, as it traditionally does in auctions. WISPA “expressed strong disappointment with the Draft Order’s proposal to auction spectrum in two blocks, one of 100 MHz and the other of 16.5 MHz” and prefers smaller blocks that would be less expensive for WISPs. The order is teed up for a commissioner vote next Wednesday (see 1906190063).
The Wireless ISP Association, backed up by Google, made a case for sharing with repacked satellite earth stations C band spectrum that's not reallocated for licensed use The two unveiled a new study at an event Tuesday by Virginia Tech professor Jeff Reed on a methodology for sharing the band while protecting earth stations. FCC officials told us the sharing plan may not get much traction there, where a C-band plan is taking shape.
Wireless ISP Association President Claude Aiken said it backs most aspects of the draft 2.5 GHz band reallocation order on July's agenda (see 1906190063), but using small business and rural provider bidding credits would encourage more participation by small providers in or near rural areas. His comments came in a phone call with an aide to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. In the docket 18-120 ex parte posting Friday, WISPA also said it's disappointed with the proposed spectrum block sizes, with the 100 MHz band being likely beyond what a small provider could pay and the 16.5 MHz block being too small on a stand-alone basis. The FCC should at least cleave the 100 MHz block into 60- and 40-MHz blocks, with one bidder able to buy both in a county, it said.
Consensus is starting to emerge on the C band, with the different proposals getting closer together, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said at the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance Global Summit Thursday. The FCC needs to get as much as 300 MHz available for 5G “as soon as possible,” O’Rielly said. “My first priority is speed,” he said.
Top Senate Communications Subcommittee and the Congressional Spectrum Caucus members floated a pair of 5G-centric spectrum bills Tuesday and Wednesday. House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chair and CSC Co-Chair Doris Matsui, D-Calif., released her C-band-centric draft Wireless Investment Now in (Win) 5G Act Wednesday, as expected (see 1904230069). The measure would set up a tiered system for satellites companies to benefit from an FCC-administered auction of spectrum in the 3.7-4.2 GHz band in which freeing up additional spectrum would increase satellite companies share. Satellite companies would receive none of the auction proceeds if they clear less than 100 MHz on the band, 10 percent for 100-199 MHz, 35 percent for 200-299 MHz, 75 percent for 300-399 MHz, 90 percent for 400-499 MHz and 100 percent if they clear all 500 MHz. The Win 5G Act draft doesn't allow additional funding to relocate C-band users off sold spectrum but does allow auction proceeds to be shared with earth station operators. Any proceeds not allocated to satellite operators or earth station operators would go to a new Rural Broadband Deployment Fund. Matsui and three other lawmakers refiled Tuesday the Supplementing the Pipeline for Efficient Control of the Resources for Users Making New Opportunities for Wireless (Spectrum Now) Act. The bill, first filed last year (see 1806060060), would require a plan for repurposing the 3450-3550 MHz band before an expected auction next year. It would require NTIA to consult with the FCC on whether bands can be made available on an unlicensed basis if they can't be auctioned. It would also give federal agencies additional flexibility in using money from the spectrum relocation fund to subsidize spectrum research and development. Agencies would be allowed to get more funding than they otherwise could. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Senate Communications ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, led the Senate version. Matsui and fellow CSC Co-Chair Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., led the House one.
Verizon got the partial waiver it was seeking to adopt a temporary, 60-day lock on 4G LTE handsets to ensure bona fide customers buy the handsets. Verizon faces special restrictions because of rules for the 700 C-block spectrum the carrier bought at auction. “We deny Verizon’s request for a declaratory ruling, because we are not persuaded that Verizon’s interpretation of section 27.16(e) is accurate,” the bureau said. “We do, however, find that the limited waiver of the unlocking requirement that Verizon requests would serve the public interest and therefore grant Verizon’s request for a partial waiver.” The bureau said strict compliance with the unlocking requirement would be “inconsistent with the public interest because it facilitates and may even encourage fraud.” In March, the bureau sought comment on the request (see 1903050057). The order noted rural carriers, T-Mobile and others objected. NTIA suggests “we consider requiring Verizon to unlock its handsets as soon as the first payment is successfully processed or immediately upon purchase ‘in situations where the fraud risk is low, such as in the case of long-time customers who acquire new handsets for use with existing service,’” the bureau said: “Verizon, however, responds that 60 days is the minimum necessary to accomplish the purpose of the temporary unlocking, in order to allow for the amount of time it takes to receive and process customer payments, to identify fraud via checks from accounts with insufficient funds or stolen debit or credit cards, and to obtain information.” Tuesday's order was on docket 06-150.