NAB Study Has Many Errors, Say FCC, Wireless Players
An NAB-backed study contending there’s no spectrum shortage gets many points wrong, said the FCC and several groups seeking to repurpose airwaves used by TV stations for wireless broadband. A spokesman for the commission emailed reporters with a long list of shortcomings the agency contends are contained in a report by industry consultant Uzoma Onyeije. Within hours, the CEA and Wireless Communications Association joined in on the criticism. Broadcasters, an “infrastructure dinosaur,” incorrectly try to downplay the coming growth of wireless data usage, CEA Vice President Julie Kearney said.
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Onyeije told us his report is sound and it’s the FCC’s research that has holes in it. The paper’s key point is that the commission should “fully investigate and quantify the impact of non-spectral capacity-generating options on the amount of spectrum believed to be necessary to address the capacity concerns” of carriers, he said. When that information is gathered, he said the regulator can revisit a flawed agency paper, by the team that put together the National Broadband Plan, that talked about the need for more spectrum for mobile broadband. “Meanwhile the FCC should complete a comprehensive spectrum inventory that goes beyond ‘who holds what’ and deals with whether and how the spectrum is being put to use,” Onyeije said. “With several unassigned spectrum bands still in the commission’s pipeline, there is no reason to rush to judgment."
Onyeije’s paper doesn’t contain new analysis, seeks to repurpose non-TV bands for wireless broadband when that process now is under way, recommends carriers cap data usage and suffers from other problems, an FCC spokesman said. “There’s no denying that the looming spectrum crunch is real and that we need to take action now,” he said of the paper. It said there’s no such crisis at hand (CD April 27 p2). “We simply can’t afford to study this to death while the rest of the world passes us by,” the commission representative said. “We need to take every step possible, including voluntary incentive auctions, to free up spectrum and ensure our global competitiveness.”
The document is part of a “frenetic, reality-defying campaign” to show there’s no spectrum shortfall, Kearney wrote on the CEA’s blog. “Every one of the spectrum efficiency techniques cited in the NAB ’study’ has been long known, long used or fully evaluated by wireless carriers,” she wrote. “The ’study’ ignores the fact that the underlying approach of the FCC and White House spectrum plan is to extend spectrum efficiency techniques to TV broadcasting -- an industry populated by tall towers, high power and mileage separations that leaves spectrum unnecessarily idled.”
The broadcaster-backed study has no “quantifiable analysis,” which is “too bad,” WCA President Fred Campbell wrote on the association’s blog. It’s a “discussion of networking technologies without sufficient technical or economic analysis” and the document says the commission “should find spectrum somewhere else,” he said. “NAB’s recitation of potential new network technologies fails because it doesn’t quantify the overall potential capacity benefits of these technologies or their cost.” The study is an “effort to downplay the importance of the broadband spectrum crunch,” said Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter. That puts the broadcaster association “on the wrong side of science, economics, technology and history,” said Spalter, whose group includes AT&T, T-Mobile, Ericsson and Qualcomm.
"From the beginning, NAB has indicated a willingness to work with policymakers to determine whether there is a spectrum crunch, and how technology, the FCC, wireless providers and broadcasters can be helpful in resolving it,” an association spokesman said. “We're hopeful that upcoming congressional hearings will resolve these unanswered questions.”