Mobile Broadband Spectrum Allocations on Docket for 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference
There are “no easy answers” concerning an agenda item planned for the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) that seeks ways to allocate additional spectrum for mobile broadband services, said FCC International Bureau Chief Mindel De La Torre Tuesday at an FCBA event. The conference Nov. 2-27, 2015, in Geneva will in part consider additional mobile service allocations and identify additional bands for International Mobile Telecommunications, the ITU standard for wireless communications, to facilitate development of terrestrial mobile broadband. “Every single band has a constituency,” De La Torre said. “There are incumbents in every single one."
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The issue is “definitely going to be contentious,” said Gonzalo de Dios, assistant general counsel-regulatory affairs at Intelsat. “It’s not going to be easily solved.” De Dios said the proposals he has seen have suggested at least 58 spectrum “slivers” to meet mobile broadband needs. The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations, for instance, is examining the 2.7-2.9 GHz band, which “always gives us a heart attack in the U.S., it’s a band we really do not like to give up,” de la Torre said. “Probably the easiest band would be to add a broadcast allocation to the 470-698 [MHz] band where there already exists that allocation in the allocation table regionally for Asia. If we expand that allocation worldwide, you're basically expanding something that’s working in one region."
The FCC, NTIA and State Department are jointly preparing the U.S. position for WRC-15. The FCC’s WRC Advisory Committee (WAC) has been preparing for WRC-15 since August 2012; its next meeting is in December, De La Torre said. NTIA’s Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee Radio Conference Subcommittee is developing a consensus opinion based on advice from federal agencies and will then clear it with NTIA leadership, said Darlene Drazenovich, chief of the NTIA Office of Spectrum Management’s International Spectrum Plans and Policy Division. The FCC and NTIA will eventually attempt to reconcile their proposals. If the two agencies can’t reconcile, State will make a final decision. It’s a “good idea” for the agencies to reconcile before State gets involved, however, because “you may end up getting something you don’t like,” Drazenovich said. The two agencies have been able to come to “near conclusions” on some bands, including 470-698 MHz and 1695-1710 MHz, she said.
It’s also important for private industry to be involved in developing the U.S. position on international spectrum allocations, de Dios said. “In many cases, you can’t represent what is important to you unless you speak up,” he said. “And even once you have a U.S. proposal, the question is, how is it shopped around? One of the challenges that we face is that there are different uses of different bands in each ITU region.” Industry and government need “some kind of assurance of what the spectrum allocations are going to look like going forward,” De La Torre said. “Without it, a lot of our industry will face a stranglehold -- they'll have a hard time figuring out how to develop devices.”