2.5 GHz EBS Draft Raises Users' Hackles, May Get Much FCC Attention
The FCC posted the draft order reallocating the 2.5 GHz band for auction and lifting educational requirements for the educational broadband service spectrum. Officials said Wednesday it's likely the item that gets the most attention headed into the meeting. Groups that promote greater use of EBS slammed the order after it was posted. Other July 10 meeting items also were released Wednesday: 1906190067 and 1906190044.
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“Too much of this spectrum, which is prime spectrum for next generation mobile operations, including 5G, has lain fallow for more than twenty years,” the draft says. “That ends today.” Chairman Ajit Pai and other FCC officials had provided many details Tuesday (see 1906180072).
The draft dismisses a recent study by the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition (see 1905150053) that found "overwhelming economic benefits” in awarding EBS licenses to schools and tribes. “None of the self-deployed educational networks identified by SHLB offer service on a regular basis to the general public at $15/month,” the draft asserts: “While economic and social benefits would flow from increased broadband adoption, SHLB has not shown that educators could sustain a broadband system at the $15/month price point they studied.”
SHLB fired back. “Eliminating the educational priority for EBS would be disastrous for online learning, 5G deployment, and rural consumers,” said Executive Director John Windhausen. “The best way to encourage 5G in rural markets is to award licenses to educational institutions that live and work in their communities and whose mission is to serve the needs of students. Deploying broadband via EBS is not rocket science. … We cannot understand why the FCC would overturn over 50 years of educational precedent based on exaggerated claims by the commercial carriers that they will deploy 5G in these rural markets.”
EBS spectrum no longer even makes sense as a business model, the draft says. “Circumstances that led to the creation of a dedicated educational service no longer exist,” the agency says. “Substantial technological changes over the last 30 years enable any educator with a broadband connection to access a myriad of educational resources -- a content distribution model that does not require dedicated educational spectrum licensed to educational institutions.”
The Wireless ISP Association was disappointed the FCC plans to offer two license sizes -- a 100 and a 16.5 MHz block, and doesn’t envision bidding credits. “The 2.5 GHz band is particularly valuable due to the fact that it is the largest band of contiguous spectrum below 3 GHz,” WISPA said: But the proposed auction design could “foreclose small providers from having a meaningful opportunity to acquire a sufficient amount of spectrum at auction.”
The North American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation and Mobile Beacon “vehemently” opposed the draft order. It “strips away the educational core of the band, threatens the long-term sustainability of existing programs that serve more than 450,000 low-income and rural Americans today, and jeopardizes the ability for the FCC to accomplish their goals of a fast 5G deployment, closing the digital divide, and connecting rural America,” they said: “The FCC defies the unanimous recommendations of the educational community, public interest groups, rural educators, the U.S. Department of Education, and Congress to preserve the educational and public interest benefits of this spectrum.”