WIRELESS COMPANIES BID FCC GO SLOW ON UNLICENSED RULE CHANGES

The FCC offices of Engineering & Technology (OET) and Strategic Planning & Policy Analysis released a joint staff paper in May that said relocation of existing users might be needed to increase spectrum for unlicensed users but wholesale clearing of incumbents might not be needed to free up that additional spectrum. It said the FCC should adopt rules for unlicensed devices that were clear, strictly enforced and maximized utility to address interference problems.

Cingular took issue with the proposal that unlicensed devices could operate as an underlay in bands now allocated to licensed services. “As a threshold matter, the Commission must address its lack of authority under Section 301 of the Communications Act to permit radio transmissions on an unlicensed basis,” Cingular said in comments late last week. “As a matter of policy, the FCC must not continue to view unlicensed devices as a panacea and the cure-all for its spectrum management policies -- particularly at the expense of licensed services.” Cingular raised similar Sec. 301 issues earlier this year in the ultra-wideband proceeding. Sec. 301 sets out licensing provisions for communications systems. Cingular said the Commission’s Part 15 rules hinge on Sec. 301’s applying only to interstate transmissions, with low-power operations allowed on an unlicensed basis because such transmissions generally lacked an interstate component. “This premise was fundamentally flawed,” Cingular said. It said Sec. 301 always was intended to apply to intrastate transmissions and “licensing, not unlicensed use, is the statutory model.”

Cingular criticized the use of an interference temperature concept in the Spectrum Policy Task Force report as “similarly flawed.” OET Chief Edmond Thomas told reporters last week the FCC by year-end would open a proceeding on the possibility of an “interference temperature.” That idea would put a ceiling on the noise environment in which receivers would be required to operate. To the extent such a ceiling in a particular band wasn’t reached, a user that operated below that limit would gain additional operating flexibility. If the FCC decided to allow additional unlicensed underlays, “it must conduct comprehensive studies of the noise floor,” Cingular said. One key problem with spectrum underlays, the carrier said, is that a licensee’s tolerance to interference changes over time. “Licensees should be given incentives to take advantage of these tolerance changes and use their spectrum more efficiently.”

AT&T Wireless stressed the promise of unlicensed technology, including its agreement with Wi-Fi service provider Wayport. But it urged the Commission not to undermine the benefits of exclusive use spectrum license rights. Before it moves ahead with an interference temperature concept, the FCC must determine whether it’s sound policy, AT&T Wireless said: “While there is great focus on the futuristic possibilities of unlicensed devices sharing licensed spectrum, the interference temperature metric poses real consequences for the Commission’s market- oriented spectrum licensing regime.” The company said it disagreed strongly with the staff paper’s suggestion that the Commission could introduce an interference temperature cap to allow more devices to share a band, with the possibility of raising the ceiling for newer receivers to promote more efficient spectrum use. “The interference temperature concept would limit incumbent licensees’ future network design flexibility, as well as their ability to introduce more efficient technologies and systems,” it said.

CTIA’s comments generally backed the creation of additional “commons” spectrum for unlicensed operations if there were a demonstrated need. It urged the FCC to ensure rules were in place to protect commercial mobile operators from harmful interference. The group disagreed with the working paper’s assertion that existing exclusive use licenses represented an “inefficient use” of available spectrum, “which might imply that the Commission believes unlicensed services and devices would somehow provide greater innovation than licensed CMRS devices.” CTIA also warned the FCC to move ahead with underlay spectrum for unlicensed devices “with extreme caution.” It called the idea a “long- term theoretical mechanism that will require an immense amount of further empirical study and analytical work before its possible usefulness can be established.”

Messaging service provider WebLink Wireless said it opposed any proposals that involved shared access to licensed spectrum in the form of underlays or easements, particularly the paging and messaging bands on which it operated. The company raised concerns that the working paper accepted ideas proposed by the FCC’s Spectrum Policy Task Force “without adequate analysis.” The staff paper said interference that might be intolerable to one service might be acceptable to another user. WebLink said the “obverse is not true: If an unlicensed company is operating in an underlay to a licensed frequency that is supporting paying customers, any interference to those customers from an unlicensed device would be intolerable and would have consequences to the licensee.”

Itron, which makes automatic meter reading technology using Part 15 devices, said it supported the task force’s endorsement of exploiting the time dimension of spectrum use and the concept of interference temperature. The time dimension ideas included more efficient use of spectrum bands that in some cases might be underutilized for long periods of time. “Itron endorses blending time dimension limits and the interference temperature concept by incorporating and enforcing duty cycle limitations in the unlicensed bands,” it said.