Sharing May Not Be Possible for Some DOD Systems, CSMAC Working Group Report Concludes

Tom Power, deputy federal chief technology officer, said the work of the CSMAC in part resulted in the Defense Department’s letter offering to free up the 1755-1780 MHz band in a short timeframe (CD July 23 p1). “The response to the ... proposal has been very good from all stakeholders and from throughout the White House as well,” he said. “I know there’s some challenges around that. Still, we haven’t refined [the proposal] to perfection yet. We've got a little bit of time, I guess, to still do that.”

The Department of Commerce and the White House appreciate the work of the CSMAC, though it’s only a first step, said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling. “I think at the same time all of you who have been participating in this work have now come to appreciate a lot of things on your own,” he said. “I think we all now have a much better appreciation for when we talk about efficiency in spectrum use, we really can’t take the industry notions of efficiency and apply them to bands like 1755 where you have a couple of dozen agencies and couple of thousand assignments involved.” The work of the groups makes clear the complexity of sharing between commercial and federal users, Strickling said. “We're only going to solve the spectrum needs of this country if we can solve these sharing issues. ... This is going to be the way we're going to need to be conducting our business going forward as we look at other bands.”

Working Group 5, on air combat training system, small, unmanned aircraft systems, precision-guided munitions and Aeronautical Mobile Telemetry, released a final report (http://1.usa.gov/14IuUBr), which raised a red flag on sharing. Reports by sub-groups looking at each area are still in draft form, said CSMAC member Bryan Tramont of Wilkinson Barker, who presented the report. “At a macro level, the sub-working groups concluded that based on the information available, separation distances in the hundreds of kilometers would be necessary to prevent harmful interference,” he said. “The ultimate conclusion would be that sharing would be, indeed, problematic.” More work needs to be done, he said. “We also note that to the extent relocation to other bands may be necessary that was not part of the scope here,” Tramont said.

Working Group 4 on point-to-point microwave, tactical radio relay (TRR) and joint tactical radio system/software defined radio (JTRS/SDR) was unable to work out an agreement on two key issues, said CSMAC member Mark Gibson of Comsearch. With respect to JTRS and TRR, “there is disagreement on the study of interference protection criteria (IPC),” the report said (http://1.usa.gov/1bNWOPr). “Industry believes that the study of interference criteria would be beneficial, while DOD believes that the current interference criteria are appropriate for all the systems that are operating in the band.” “We could not get that one over the transom, so to speak,” Gibson said. There was also disagreement on commercial licensee operations within protection zones “specifically regarding interference into commercial licensees” for both JTRS and TRR, the report said. “DOD requires commercial licensees to demonstrate technology or techniques that ensure LTE operations/networks can accept interference from operations within the Protection Zones, all prior to deployment of base stations,” the report said. “However, industry insists that [using] long-standing practices for agreeing to accept interference in such situations is sufficient."

Members debated next steps now that the working group reports are in. Tramont said the “strong view” among many members of the CSMAC working groups was that CSMAC can’t make edits to the working group reports. “The role of the CSMAC is to transmit the report to ... NTIA,” he said. “Actual edits from the members of the CSMAC to the draft document would be problematic in terms of reopening a lot of issues that we spent a lot of time resolving."

"If the position is that the document then would go forward as a working group document because any edits from us would be problematic, the ... question is then why are we here?” said CSMAC member David Donovan, president of the New York State Broadcasters Association. “Now we have a working group then, essentially, effectively, creating a document that has many national implications, even though it is a sub-working group.” Donovan asked whether it was clear at the time the working groups were created that if someone didn’t participate they would give up a role in writing the final reports.

"My recollection from ... the beginning was that these working groups were very much like our normal committees, that they were going to get together and bring recommendations to the CSMAC but we would be making a decision about what to recommend,” said CSMAC member Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation.

CSMAC Co-Chairman Greg Rosston, a Stanford University economist, conceded that “the fact we're having this discussion here” shows the process was not clear. But Rosston also said CSMAC had made clear that all members could participate in all working groups.

Strickling said CSMAC has to vote up or down on each report, though members can add comments, including dissents, if they see fit. “If you vote to transmit, we will view that as a vote that this is now the recommendation of the CSMAC, of a majority of the CSMAC,” Strickling said. “These [reports] have to be transmitted as recommendations of the CSMAC.”

CSMAC member Harold Furchtgott-Roth said members just got most of the reports in the last 24 hours. CSMAC member and former NTIA and FCC official Dale Hatfield said he had tried to read as much as possible but didn’t feel prepared to vote. “I did a valiant effort last night to try to get through some of them, the best I could do was scan them,” he said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable today having my name associated with something ... I hadn’t had a chance to read in a little bit more detail.”

"I think that we at least have to write a cover letter with our thoughts on the reports, I mean we can’t just vote up or down,” said CSMAC member Rick Reaser from Raytheon.

NTIA Associate Administrator Karl Nebbia initially proposed that CSMAC members vote by email as long as there were not sharp differences on any of the reports. At the end of the meeting, Nebbia said on the advice of counsel CSMAC will have to reconvene in August, if only by teleconference, since email ballots are not permitted under Federal Advisory Committee Act rules.