FCC Takes Up Long-Stalled Order on Spurring Use of 60 GHz Spectrum
A report and order on the agenda for the FCC’s Aug. 9 meeting follows up on a rulemaking notice the FCC launched in May 2007, which proposed rules designed to spur use of high-gain antennas in the 57-64 GHz band, for systems designed to provide point-to-point high-speed broadband. FCC officials told us the rules follow closely along the lines of the 2007 rulemaking notice (http://bit.ly/136dpVn), though the most likely potential use of the spectrum has shifted over the years, from point-to-point broadband to the wireless backhaul key to broadband buildout.
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Dale Hatfield, former chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology, said some applications should be in high-band spectrum to “relieve some of the pressure on the lower bands.” Short-distance, high-speed communications doesn’t need to be in low-band spectrum, he said. “We need to do everything we can to get more spectrum that’s usable and, obviously, just the economics, I think, will suggest people will take an interest in it and try to develop products that can solve some of the problems,” Hatfield said.
But getting the order up for a vote has been a long process. The Wireless Communications Association, a group that is no longer active, filed a petition asking for a rulemaking in 2004. The rulemaking notice followed in 2007.
The FCC proposed “to increase the fundamental radiated emission limit for unlicensed 60 GHz transmitters with very high gain antennas, specify the emission limit as an equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) level, and eliminate the requirement for a transmitter identification for 60 GHz transmitters,” in the rulemaking notice. “In particular, we propose to increase the current Part 15 average power EIRP level from 40 dBm to a new level of 82 dBm minus 2 dB for every dB that antenna gain is below 51 dBi. We also propose to increase the current Part 15 peak power EIRP level from 43 dBm to a new level of 85 dBm minus 2dB for every dB that the antenna gain is below 51 dBi.”
The notice, approved under former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, suggested the change “would encourage broader deployment of point-to-point digital systems in this band without increasing the potential for harmful interference, and thereby further the Commission’s objective of promoting the availability of broadband connectivity to all Americans."
The proposal ran into some objections in 2007. The band partly overlaps the 57-59.3 GHz band, which is primarily allocated to satellites that monitor temperatures, the Space Frequency Coordination Group said in a filing at the FCC at the time (http://bit.ly/13eBRE1). The satellites are critical to “upper tropospheric, stratospheric, and mesospheric temperature profiling,” the group said. “These measurements are essential elements for computer models calculating weather forecasts. It needs to be noted that interference to such sensors would result in wrong measurements which would have an impact on the correctness of the global model and would deteriorate the quality of forecasts in large regions of the world. The models rely on global correctness of all measurements taken during satellite passes. The adverse impact would also greatly inhibit climate monitoring."
The main advocate of the rulemaking in recent years, based on filings at the FCC, has been BridgeWave Communications, which manufactures a line of 60 GHz wireless point-to-point bridges (http://bit.ly/16eNUnR). In November 2011, BridgeWave executives met with FCC officials to discuss the rulemaking notice.
"Adoption of the proposed EIRP approach will permit low-cost unlicensed 60 GHz transmitters to deliver gigabit-capacity links over longer distances, thus enhancing the value of the unlicensed 60 GHz band as a vehicle for delivering broadband, particularly the high-capacity backhaul required for 4G wireless services,” BridgeWave said in a followup filing (http://bit.ly/1aLjyN8). “The 60 GHz band is an effective backhaul solution in the picocell environment due to its high capacity and the short distance between picocell sites.”
"The 60 GHz band offers a potential solution for connecting consumer electronic devices wirelessly,” including TVs and Blu-ray players, “and for small cell backhaul to handle higher data traffic loads in urban 4G deployments,” said Fred Campbell, director of the Communications Liberty & Innovation Project. “New IEEE standards for the band and new small cell deployments may have prompted the FCC to act on the rulemaking.” Campbell is a former Wireless Bureau chief who later pressed for action on the NPRM as president of the WCA.
"I'm always glad to see when things like this move forward,” said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld Thursday. “They aren’t sexy, and therefore they frequently fall by the wayside. But this is the sort of thing that helps new technologies develop and continually expands the frontiers of what we can do with wireless. I think that it is a fine irony that this is coming out when the House Energy and Commerce Committee is marking up legislation to make it even harder for the FCC to do its job. As I keep telling people, not everything is network neutrality. This is much more representative of the bread-and-butter work of the commission, and exactly the kind of thing we need to keep seeing.”