There's a “critical need” to reserve at least three channels per market for unlicensed use, said Dynamic Spectrum Alliance President Kalpak Gude in a meeting Monday with the FCC Media Bureau, Office of Engineering Technology and the Wireless Bureau, said a later filing in docket 12-268. Three channels would “ensure availability everywhere and incentivize investment, both by chip manufacturers and service providers, in TVWS [TV white space] technology,” DSA said. Comparing a single low-power TV station in one market vs. TVWS availability “would be a mistake” because “lack of TVWS channels everywhere would negatively impact the availability of TVWS everywhere,” the group said. All rural LPTV stations and translators should be placed together in one portion of the band “to enable the most efficient use of the remaining spectrum for TVWS services,” it said.
AT&T asked the FCC for a six-month special temporary authority to “demonstrate the functionality and capabilities” of 5G in an experiment in a Dallas building, using 28 GHz spectrum. “The 5G wireless link will be established between the base station and mobile user equipment located in the same room or space as the base station, at a distance of about 10 meters,” AT&T said. Verizon, meanwhile, filed for temporary authority to test 28 GHz connections in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, using equipment by Ericsson, Intel, Nokia, Qualcomm and Samsung.
The FCC needs to re-examine the 39-month repacking deadline and reimbursement procedures, said Meredith Corp. in a letter posted in docket 12-268 Friday. The TV station owner supported a recent petition for reconsideration filed by Ion (see 1708020055): “Meredith has serious concerns with the timing of reimbursement payments and hopes the Commission will clarify timing for partial and full reimbursement for repacking.” Like Ion, Meredith questioned rules on reimbursement differences between tube and solid state transmitters, saying “the time for the Commission to address these issues is dwindling, as planning, paperwork, and manufacturing is already starting.”
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology approved an experimental license for Mimosa Networks Friday to test its proposal for offering broadband in spectrum above 5.7 GHz. “The FCC is considering Mimosa’s proposal to allocate the 5.85-6.4 GHz band for terrestrial fixed wireless services,” the company said in a filing seeking authorization. “Mimosa seeks to test equipment in that band in order to collect, and then provide to the FCC and other government agencies, real-world information about the utility of that band for fixed services and the ability to use that band on a shared basis with incumbent users, including government radiolocation services.”
The FCC got feedback from General Electric that some in industry want small, census-tract sized licenses in the shared 3.5 GHz band. GE filed in docket 12-354 as the FCC sought comment on proposed changes filed by CTIA and T-Mobile (see 1708090058). A big issue is size of priority access licenses (PALs) the FCC will offer. “GE is currently developing a suite of fixed point-to-point networks involving applications such as utility substation automation, positive traction control for trains, oil and gas pipeline monitoring, smart metering, wastewater management, heavy mining, and other forms of IoT and machine-to-machine telemetry,” the company said. “These use cases rely on the unique propagation characteristics of 3.5 GHz spectrum, which travels further and withstands more interference than high-band millimeter wave spectrum, but has sufficient bandwidth available to support higher throughput compared to more limited low-band frequencies.” An initial order said census-tract licensing “is ideally suited to geographically targeted applications, such as those in oil refineries, coal mines, shipyards, and construction sites,” GE said. Those types of deployments would be impractical if the FCC uses partial economic area licenses as proposed by CTIA and T-Mobile, it said. Paul Milgrom, auction expert and Stanford University economist, assured the FCC it could auction census-tract sized licenses given current technology. “There is clear real-world evidence that it is possible to conduct very many simple auctions on a single platform in a short period of time,” he wrote on behalf of WifiForward and the Wireless ISP Association. “EBay currently has about one billion active listings for physical goods at any one time. … Nearly every visit to a commercial web page on the Internet triggers an auction for the right to show an ad.” A former spectrum official told us that with the FCC yet to release an NPRM, it's too early to discuss a possible compromise on geographical license size or other aspects.
Having received final FCC regulatory approval for its low-power mobile broadband plans in the 2483.5-2495 MHz band, Globalstar is ending for now plans for an L-band mobile broadband network. In a docket 13-213 filing posted Tuesday, the company said it was withdrawing its 2012 request for a rulemaking on terrestrial wireless operations in the 1610-1617.775 MHz band. The International Bureau on Tuesday approved a modification of Globalstar's satellite authorization to include a terrestrial low-power ancillary terrestrial component (ATC) network using mobile satellite service spectrum. The approval said Globalstar's ATC operations in the S-band are subject to the company's 2008 agreement with NTIA on out-of-band emissions into the 1559-1610 MHz band -- an issue raised by GPS Innovation Alliance (see 1706260022). Globalstar's 2012 petition for rulemaking proposed using 2483.5-2495 MHz for a terrestrial wireless service and a longer-term plan to use of spectrum in the 1.6 GHz/2.4 GHz band for an LTE-based mobile broadband network. Globalstar General Counsel Barbee Ponder told us that having received the authority for its short-term plan -- the FCC in December OK'd terrestrial use of the 2473-2495 MHz band for low-power mobile broadband use (see 1612230060) -- the company "is going to focus on that," particularly on getting international regulatory approvals for its terrestrial broadband plans. Ponder said Globalstar has applications pending in various countries and could get some international approvals this year. FCC bureau approval "marks the end of the FCC regulatory process to obtain terrestrial authority over our S-band spectrum and the beginning of a new range of innovative wireless services," CEO Jay Monroe said: It's working with chipset and infrastructure providers "to put this spectrum to more intensive use."
A key to when mobile 5G will launch is when standards are approved and whether China decides to opt in to the standards that will be used in the rest of the world, said Ronan Dunne, group president of Verizon Wireless, at the Oppenheimer financial conference Wednesday. The second big factor is the release of a wide number of devices, he said. Verizon intends to lead the way, he said: “We’ll be first. We have been in every generation of technology.” When a company goes first, it influences how “the industry sets up,” he said. “You help to define the rules by which industry plays.” Verizon has pre-commercial 5G trials in eight of the 11 markets where it plans tests, Dunne said. “We’re focused on the fixed-wireless opportunity,” he said. “What we’re looking for in the trials is just what the practical propagation experience is, the experience of self-install, do you need antenna rather than on the window on the inside?” Later in the year “we’ll have a lot more insight,” he said. The download speeds have been “very good,” but “what we need to understand is all of the conditions” like what effect trees have or what happens when a UPS van pulls up and blocks an antenna, Dunne said. Verizon’s buys of XO Holdings and Straight Path will give the carrier a very strong position in the 28 and 39 GHz bands, he said. Verizon is very interested in the unlicensed part of the 3.5 GHz band, he said. Rollout takes time, he said. Dunne said more than 90 percent of its data traffic now is on Verizon’s LTE network, versus only about 55 percent of voice traffic. “Voice over LTE came a little later,” he said.
CTIA's proposed high-frequency band road map (see 1707140055) would unjustifiably and unsustainably do away with the FCC's long-held technology-neutral stance by framing 5G as a terrestrial wireless-only neighborhood, said the Satellite Industry Association in a docket 14-177 filing posted Monday. SIA said a variety of satellite systems planned for bands above 37 GHz will let operators be part of the 5G biosphere, and CTIA's push for identifying bands solely for terrestrial wireless would harm competition and innovation among and between tech platforms. SIA said the 40 and 48 GHz bands need to be maintained as primary for core satellite operations, though terrestrial operations could use them on a secondary, noninterference basis, and there's "significant potential" for sharing the 24 GHz, 47 GHz and 50 GHz satellite uplink and downlink bands with terrestrial services. SIA said the CTIA road map would turn over to terrestrial wireless a variety of bands used by satellite, such as the 29 GHz band -- used by local multipoint distribution service stations and non-geostationary orbit satellite service feeder links. CTIA said Tuesday its road map "offers policymakers a balanced path to making much needed spectrum available for 5G services, while also providing satellite operators an opportunity to access high band spectrum.”
CTIA approved National Technical Systems (NTS) as a CTIA-authorized testing laboratory for over-the-air performance (OTA) testing, NTS said in a news release. “OTA measurement is essential to capture the antenna performance of a variety of wireless technologies, including cellular (2G, 3G, LTE), Bluetooth, ZigBee and Wi-Fi.” As IoT devices “become increasingly more compact, antennas are sometimes forced to be placed near other antennas, displays, computer processors [and] high-speed memory, all of which can interfere and degrade" the devices' OTA performance, it said.
The FCC needs to allow unauthorized use of the 5.9 GHz band, to support gigabit Wi-Fi, and to keep the designation of 64-71 GHz for unlicensed use while considering other high-frequency unlicensed spectrum designations, NCTA blogged Tuesday. Pointing to licensed and unlicensed spectrum needs to meet mobile broadband demands, NCTA said the agency "is on the right path" with its grant of the first 600 MHz wireless licenses and that it's likely to soon consider "modest changes" to 3.5 GHz rules.