Verizon is working with leading vendors and technology companies to test 4G over the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service spectrum at its lab in Irving, Texas, the carrier said Thursday. After initial trials last year, Corning, Ericsson, Federated Wireless, Google, Nokia and Qualcomm are working with Verizon on “end-to-end system testing to further develop the use of this new spectrum,” Verizon said. The companies are testing spectrum access system algorithms from Google and Federated Wireless to make sure they are “consistently providing the best channel match from the SAS database,” said a news release. Also under examination are “data rates, modulations and the customer experience using CBRS spectrum,” the level of interoperability between infrastructure providers “to ensure seamless handoffs between CBRS spectrum and licensed spectrum for customers,” and the performance and data rates of 4G LTE over the spectrum,” the carrier said. The company predicted the band will be available for use next year.
The IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Technical Committee on Frequency Allocations in Remote Sensing raised some technical concerns with the FCC’s spectrum horizons rulemaking proposal, looking at use of bands above 95 GHz. Some of the research quoted in the NPRM needs to be updated, the committee said, citing a study on space research service and earth exploration-satellite service (EESS), which relies on a 2012 study. "The original study is now six years old and more recent analyses should be performed to verify that the conclusions from the 2012 study are still valid,” said the filing in docket 18-21. “Passive services are especially sensitive to artificial transmission and, even at the current power level limits, if a large number of unlicensed operators were transmitting at the same time, the aggregate interference could potentially disrupt EESS operations,” the group said. “Given the current trend in growth of wireless commercial services, the number of emitters will likely reach large numbers. Therefore, we recommend that the permitted power levels in those bands not be increased.”
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology approved revisions to a Microsoft experimental license as the software maker tests use of spectrum white spaces in various bands to provide connectivity for school buses along a rural bus route. The tests are being done in Hillman, Michigan. Microsoft said it wants to “improve coverage and service for school buses operating within the experimental area and to evaluate the capabilities of an experimental White Space device for this purpose.” The company said it needs to operate the devices at a higher conducted and radiated power level “than previously requested and to operate an experimental fixed base station device under manual database control, with periodic human intervention.”
Nokia demonstrated its prowess in the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band last week at the FCC, the company said in a filing in docket 15-319. Nokia is the “only company developing an end-to-end solution,” it said. It alone has “a fully virtualized, cloud-based, scalable Spectrum Access System (SAS), a Domain Proxy, an Environmental Sensing Capability and Citizens Broadband Radio Service Devices (CBSDs),” Nokia said. Nokia officials said they met with aides to all the commissioners, except Chairman Ajit Pai, and with staff from the Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology. “Nokia highlighted its advanced product development by demonstrating over-the-air live transmissions from CBSD small cells authorized by the Nokia SAS and the ease with which End User Devices could connect to the Nokia network and seamlessly access rich video content.” Nokia said it also demonstrated the technology at NTIA.
Pointing to its goal of protecting positioning, navigation and timing services delivered via GPS, the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation (RNTF) in an FCC docket 11-109 letter posted Thursday to Chairman Ajit Pai and the regular commissioners opposed "any efforts" resulting in harmful interference to PNT services. It also included recent opinion pieces by members of the National Space-based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Advisory Board (see 1708070025) and by the Phoenix Center (see 1703210060) that questioned Ligado's planned terrestrial low-power broadband service as potentially being a major interference threat to GPS. RNTF didn't mention Ligado in its filing and didn't comment Friday. Ligado didn't comment.
The FCC is moving quickly to make more spectrum available for 5G, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Thursday at the Cato Institute. Pai noted he recently committed to an auction of the 28 GHz band in November, followed immediately by a 24 GHz auction (see 1802260047). “We intend to move very quickly on other bands as well,” he said. “Our goal at least is to set the table” for innovation, he said. “The last thing we want is for regulation to stand as bottleneck for consumer welfare.” Pai noted the importance to 5G of changing the infrastructure rules: “The biggest roadblocks that we face now are regulatory.” Barriers to deploying small cells at the levels that will be needed for 5G are “almost insurmountable” Pai said. “There are multiple levels of regulatory review -- federal, state, local, tribal,” he said. Smaller companies in particular are struggling, he said. A small carrier deploying a 5G network in a city like Washington might have to install “several hundred or a thousand small cells,” he said. “I don’t want the FCC’s policies on 5G to stand as an example of what went wrong.” Pai was at Cato to discuss The Political Spectrum, a book by Clemson University economist Thomas Hazlett on the history of spectrum policy. One of the book's takeaways is that too much communications regulation is based on “accepted wisdom -- it is this way because it has always been this way,” Pai said. “There is sometimes a hesitance to look at the facts and to reconsider first principles.” Hazlett said local objections to the deployment of base stations is a major problem in the U.S. “There is a significant role for Congress and the FCC to get involved,” Hazlett said. “Spectrum allocation, it’s a work in progress and there is momentum.” But it wasn’t hard for him to identify in the book “horror stories” on spectrum regulation, he said. Too much spectrum is still in the hands of federal agencies, Hazlett said. Opening bands for commercial use can take decades, he said.
The Media Bureau and Incentive Auction Task Force updated the FCC’s online DTV Reception Map to help consumers learn how to tune in channels relocating as part of the post-incentive auction repacking, IATF Chief Jean Kiddoo and Media Bureau Deputy Chief Hillary DeNigro blogged Wednesday. Fifty TV stations have already implemented channel sharing agreements, and at least 100 will have changed channels by the summer, they said. “Hundreds of TV stations will begin transmitting on new channels between now and July 2020.” The map allows viewers to enter their address and see available broadcast signals. With the update, a column was added to tell viewers whether a station may change channels as a result of the auction. “The map’s auction-related data are updated each night so that the most up-to-date information is available to consumers,” the post said.
NAB said Microsoft’s blank channel proposal will cost broadcasters. Microsoft is seeking rules that would allow launching rural broadband using TV white spaces spectrum (see 1707100042). “Broadcasters don’t have any problem with letting Microsoft use truly vacant channels, provided that broadcasters don’t permanently cede their rights to build on those channels in the process,” wrote Alison Neplokh, vice president-spectrum policy, Tuesday. “Microsoft’s ask is not about using vacant channels, it’s about creating vacant channels.” The FCC would in the plan require that before broadcasters make any changes to their existing licenses, they first ask whether there would still be at least one channel available for unlicensed use throughout their service area, she said. “The only way this creates extra space for unlicensed use is by denying a broadcaster a channel,” Neplokh wrote. “Broadcasters would have to hold open a channel, even if nobody has any interest in using it. Whether it’s that the particular market in question has no demand for white spaces or that the whole white spaces idea is never successful, broadcasters can’t retain or expand broadcast service, because it would violate Microsoft’s proposed rule.” Then-Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated an NPRM in June 2015 that would guarantee a white space channel in every market (see 1506160043). Microsoft didn't comment.
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology asked for comments by April 11, replies April 23, in docket 18-70 on a waiver sought last week by Google for its Project Soli sensor technology. It uses the 57-64 GHz band and Google sought a waiver to operate at higher power levels consistent with what's allowed in Europe, OET said. “The requested higher signal powers will allow its Project Soli sensors to recognize gestures when a user’s hand is farther from a device," OET said Google says. "The higher power would make the feature more convenient, intuitive, and useful for consumers. ... Its devices could be particularly meaningful for users with mobility, speech, or tactile impairments.”
Nokia officials asked for a general acceleration in the timetable for auctioning mid-band and high-frequency spectrum needed for 5G and the IoT, in a meeting with aides to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “While the Nokia representatives commended the Commission for priming the spectrum pipeline by conducting proceedings and issuing service rules for new spectrum bands, we noted that the Commission is not moving quickly enough and should expedite auctioning those bands,” Nokia said in a filing in docket 17-79 Friday. Nokia also said the FCC should “develop a more robust record in the proceeding related to the 3.7-4.2 GHz band, ultimately providing additional proposals for the most expeditious way to clear that band for terrestrial 5G services.”