Broadband Inflight Proposal May Have Implications for Administration Spectrum Sharing Push

The NPRM acknowledged that the band sees heavy use in some cases. “Secondary status is appropriate for air-ground mobile broadband because of the need to protect FSS in the band,” it said (http://bit.ly/10xAtvN). “The mobility and ubiquity of FSS earth stations in the band necessitate great caution in preventing harmful interference. Because secondary-status services may not cause harmful interference to primary-status services, and must accept any interference they receive from primary-status services, we propose that secondary status for air-ground mobile broadband is the appropriate tool for protecting FSS in the band.”

The Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee has looked more closely at how spectrum rights would work in a shared spectrum world. But that’s not a focus of the NPRM, which doesn’t explore those questions in depth.

"Two things do make this a harbinger for creative ways to share federal spectrum,” said Michael Calabrese, CSMAC member and director of the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Project. “First, the commission is proposing a type of spatial re-use to allow a dual use of the same spectrum without interference to the primary licensee. Second, they are proposing coordination to ensure the primary licensee’s service is protected. A database to track and control shared access to avoid interference is exactly what the PCAST [President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology] recommended last year and what the FCC has proposed as a means of opening the 3.5 GHz band for sharing with naval radar.” The proposal also “looks similar to the sort of transitional sharing that carriers propose for working around continued federal operations on the 1755-1850 band,” Calabrese said. “But since inflight broadband requires a coordinated, nationwide network of high-power transmitter hand-offs, the FCC’s proposal does not appear to contemplate any additional underlay of very low-power unlicensed access, such as the PCAST recommended as part of a general framework for sharing very underutilized federal bands such as 3.5 GHz."

The NPRM asks a battery of questions about potential rules for an auction. Qualcomm proposes that the FCC divide the 500 MHz block into two 250 MHz licenses. This would “enable two separate air-ground mobile broadband systems,” the NPRM said. “Qualcomm states that under this proposal, the aggregate throughput for each system would be approximately 150 gigabits per second, which would enable licensees to offer advanced data services.” The NPRM also asked about “whether and in what ways a 500-megahertz system is materially preferable to a 250-megahertz system. Commenters should discuss whether licensing two 250 megahertz blocks or a single 500 megahertz block would result in increased competition, innovation, and investment in the provision of air-ground mobile broadband."

The NPRM also explores the optimum size for a license. “We propose to license this spectrum on a nationwide basis,” the NPRM said. “We seek comment on whether specifying a smaller service area size for initial licensing, such as Regional Economic Area Groupings (REAGs), is more appropriate for this band. Are there service areas smaller than REAGs that would accommodate the proposed air-ground mobile broadband?"

"We have had the capacity to do secondary use rights auctions since the 2004 secondary market/leasing order,” said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. “The complaint has been that the regulatory regime makes it somewhat complicated. I've proposed various secondary market auction regimes for federal spectrum and commercial spectrum. There are other folks who have written about the idea of secondary market auctions for federal and commercial spectrum as well. But since the FCC has not shown any real interest it hasn’t generated a lot of adherents."

An auction of air-ground mobile licenses “could indeed represent one of various templates for federal government sharing along the lines envisioned by the Obama administration,” said Jeff Silva, analyst at Medley Global Advisors. “There remains, however, questions whether the proposal would be technically feasible in the real world and, as a related matter, whether interference concerns, real or exaggerated, would give rise [to] a level of opposition that hinders FCC adoption of air-ground mobile broadband rules. There might be a similar challenge with respect to federal agencies in future efforts to expand government spectrum sharing. In either case, a secondary-status licensing scheme could invite business/investment risks for commercial bidders and by extension lower anticipated auction receipts.” Silva said “spectrum sharing seems to be an inherently imperfect arrangement for key stakeholders ... but that does not mean sharing cannot work, and in a spectrum-scarce environment pressured by heavy data demand policymakers, and industry, cannot afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

Meanwhile, Fletcher Heald lawyer Jon Markman pointed to the connection between the proposed service and NorthPoint, another proposal from a decade ago that ran into resistance. Howard Griboff of the International Bureau explained at Thursday’s FCC meeting where the NPRM was approved that “because earth stations in the Fixed Satellite Service all point south and the air-ground mobile broadband base stations would be designed to point north” the service would “avoid harmful interference to satellites in the geo-stationary orbit over the Equator.”

Markman pointed out that NorthPoint made a similar argument, in a Friday blog post (http://bit.ly/198WJA5). “Those with long memories may find the north/south scheme familiar,” he said. “In the 1990s, a company called NorthPoint proposed to share the 12.2-12.7 GHz broadcast satellite band by transmitting fixed terrestrial signals in a southward direction. Since all home dishes in North America aim toward the south, NorthPoint reasoned, a southward-directed beam would hit the backs of the dishes and not cause interference. After extensive technical and political dispute, including debates in Congress, the FCC auctioned off the band for this use in 2004. It may be as contentious to devise an air-ground system that avoids interfering with the satellite uplinks while connecting thousands of planes that move around the country at hundreds of miles per hour.”