The labor union representing flight attendants is again raising red flags over a proposal for air-to-ground (ATG) mobile broadband service over the contiguous U.S. Like its comments earlier this year on the docket and similar comments on an FCC proposal to lift the ban on using mobile phones for voice and data on flights (see 1502060034), the Association of Flight Attendants' ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 13-114 said the ATG proposal "would greatly enhance communications capabilities for terrorists and increase cyber warfare vulnerabilities." The filing recapped a pair of meetings between union representatives and staff of Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel. Any FCC decision should wait until after the Safety and Security in the Air Coalition interagency group develops a study on potential threats and vulnerabilities and looks at possible mitigation, it said. An ATG draft order was taken off circulation earlier this year (see 1502120054).
NASA is testing software-defined radio (SDR) and the latest technologies for spectrum sharing on the International Space Station (ISS), NTIA said Tuesday in a blog post. NTIA is promoting spectrum sharing research and NASA shares that goal, installing the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Testbed on the ISS, NTIA said. “NASA is partnering with other government agencies, industry, and academia to use the SCaN Testbed as a unique space-based platform to test new radio communication techniques and protocols.” Since being installed three years ago, more than 2,600 hours of experiments have been done, testing a total of 149 individual communication protocols on the testbed, NTIA said. “Some of the early results of these real-world tests have already been used to determine the types of communications technologies that can be utilized across NASA’s wide range of missions. In the future, spacecraft employing SDR radios will be able to be reconfigured with the latest and most efficient technologies that will allow them to adapt to disruptions and to more effectively share the same spectrum.”
The FCC should reject a request by T-Mobile that the agency block two Dish Network-backed designated entities, and Dish itself, from bidding for the licenses they opted not to buy after being the initial winners in the AWS-3 auction, said John Muleta, who heads one of the DEs, SNR Wireless. T-Mobile's letter last month was seen by analysts as a sign the carrier is interested in the returned licenses (see 1511020064). “The letter is an untimely request for reconsideration of the Commission’s August 18, 2015 order, which determined, inter alia, that the conduct of SNR, Northstar and DISH during Auction 97 did not violate Commission rules,” Muleta wrote the commission in a letter posted Tuesday in docket 14-78. “It is also an untimely request for reconsideration of the construction requirements applicable to AWS-3 spectrum.” The other Dish affiliate, Northstar Wireless, made similar arguments, in a separate filing.
The FCC shouldn't delay the incentive auction, former Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition Executive Director Preston Padden said in a post on his blog Friday. “Hundreds of TV Stations owners are far down the road of preparing for the FCC’s Incentive Auction.” The time to consider delay has passed, Padden said. Padden told us the blog post is a response to a speech by Commissioner Ajit Pai Thursday (see 1511050033) stating that the commission could delay the auction if it's necessary to ensure that the auction software is prepared. “March 29 wasn’t etched onto a tablet, Biblical or electronic,” Pai said. “If we are not 100% confident that the software will perform flawlessly as we make our way to the end of March, we must have the courage to postpone the auction rather than charging ahead and courting disaster.” The commission should “double-check and triple-check” the auction software, Pai said. “Chairman [Tom] Wheeler himself acknowledged in December 2013 that we want to avoid a software debacle of the kind the country witnessed during Obamacare’s rollout.” Pai also said the FCC should hold three mock auctions well before the incentive auction, as suggested by CTIA.
Wireless interests promoting LTE-unlicensed met with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Monday to argue that Wi-Fi and LTE-U can peacefully coexist, said a filing Thursday in docket 15-105. “The wireless industry participants described how LTE-U will allow large and small carriers alike to provide their customers a better wireless broadband experience with faster download speeds, improved security, greater capacity, wider coverage, and seamless mobility,” the industry representatives said. “They emphasized their support of unlicensed spectrum and their strong commitment to Wi-Fi. And they discussed their ongoing collaboration with the rest of the Wi-Fi community to ensure that LTE-U coexists successfully with Wi-Fi.” The Competitive Carriers Association, Ericsson, Qualcomm, T-Mobile and Verizon were represented, the filing said.
Thirty-four nations at the World Radiocommunication Conference support maintaining the current UHF spectrum allocation for broadcast TV, said the North American Broadcasters Association in a news release Wednesday. “A large and diverse group of countries continue to recognize the importance of broadcasting as an instrument of freedom of expression and the most effective and efficient means of using spectrum to deliver educational and emergency information to an entire population,” said NABA. “Despite some pre-emptive efforts from the wireless industry to spin the facts, only a handful of countries actually support reallocation.” The WRC is ongoing in Geneva, with FCC and other officials (see 1511030062).
The IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee (LMSC) plans to weigh in at the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as the standards group develops specifications for devices that use licensed assisted access (LAA), a variation of LTE-unlicensed, the committee said in a filing at the FCC. The IEEE committee deals with standards for local area networks and metropolitan area networks. The committee recommends that 3GPP “adopt a number of specific 802.11-like coexistence features, and that those features be a mandatory part of the LAA standard, given how successful these features have been in promoting the growth of wireless broadband over unlicensed spectrum,” said the letter, from LMSC Chairman Paul Nikolich. The committee understands 3GPP will make its draft LAA specification available in Q4, Nikolich wrote. “At that point, IEEE 802 expects to review 3GPP’s draft LAA specification and provide any appropriate feedback, and we hope that input will be incorporated into the LAA specification” due for release in March, he said. The filing was posted in docket 15-105.
Any spectrum sharing with mobile operators needs to avoid including C-band satellite bands, SES said in a white paper Wednesday in conjunction with this week's start of World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva. "C-band satellite networks are extremely reliable -- even in rainy regions -- and cannot be replaced by bands with different propagation characteristics and narrower beams, such as Ku- and Ka-bands," SES said. Numerous studies "have clearly concluded that sharing C-band between mobile and satellite operators is not feasible in the same geographical area since a minimum separation distance between the operations cannot be guaranteed," it said. That sharing would lead to interference that could affect everything from emergency response communications to video distribution, it said: "The risks and losses of sharing C-band to the global community far outweigh the gains to the mobile communications sector." Satellite executives have been saying for months they expect C-band reallocation issues to be a "tough battle" at WRC (see 1501150050).
Chief of Staff Ruth Milkman defended the FCC’s decision to set aside some incentive auction spectrum for companies that don’t have significant low-band spectrum holdings in a particular market, in a speech Tuesday to Evercore Tech Change Conference. “With more than 70 percent of low-band spectrum in the hands of just two providers, this reserve assures that multiple providers without significant amounts of low-band spectrum have a meaningful opportunity to compete to acquire these valuable airwaves,” Milkman said, according a text posted by the FCC. “Where competition cannot be expected to exist, we will not hesitate to act to protect consumers and advance the public interest.” Milkman said the TV incentive auction is now the biggest single item on the FCC agenda, noting the World Radiocommunication Conference is underway in Geneva (see 1511040040). She stressed the potential significance of the FCC recent NPRM on spectrum frontiers (see 1510220057), as the WRC looks at new bands for wireless broadband. “We’re talking about 3,800 megahertz of spectrum that we are going to look at,” she said. “That’s six times all of the commercial spectrum that the Commission has authorized for broadband. And we’re potentially doubling the amount of high-band unlicensed spectrum.” Milkman also emphasized the importance of the USF program. The new Connect America Fund “is moving forward with plans to invest $9 billion over 6 years to preserve and expand broadband deployment to 7.3 million rural Americans,” she said. “These investments are targeted and fiscally responsible. These contributions leverage investment from private ISPs. We will only fund one service provider per area, and we won’t provide funding in areas where there is an unsubsidized competitor.”
The FCC has multiple interests to weigh as it considers a T-Mobile request that the agency block two Dish Network-backed designated entities, and Dish itself, from bidding for the licenses they opted not to buy after being the initial winners in the AWS-3 auction (see 1511020064), said analyst Jim Patterson of Patterson Advisory Group Tuesday. “T-Mobile’s efforts to block the previous bidders from participating in a re-auction appeals to the concept of ‘fairness," Patterson emailed. “While there would be emotional appeal to excluding the designated entities, the FCC has to consider the obligation they have to the taxpayers and members of Congress who want to garner the maximum auction yield for deficit relief. There is a strong case to be made that a re-auction with AT&T and T-Mobile as the primary bidders would yield lower results than one with three or more parties.”