CEA President Gary Shapiro called the Federal Spectrum Incentive Act (HR-1641) “innovative, bipartisan legislation that addresses our spectrum crunch and achieves deficit reduction," in a Tuesday statement. "Consumers need more spectrum for mobile broadband as they want and expect their tablets and smartphones will get video,” Shapiro said. “To ensure that our nation has enough supply to keep up with demand, we need the effective and efficient use of spectrum, both commercially and by government. By incentivizing federal government users to consider terminating or sharing existing spectrum assignments, Congress will free up spectrum that will improve wireless innovation and job creation.”
Broadcom is "cautiously optimistic" a solution on "workable coexistence" could be reached on a model for licensed assisted access unlicensed LTE deployment, but less so on Wi-Fi and LTE-U, it said its executives told FCC officials. While the 3rd Generation Partnership Project isn't "a traditional venue for developing standards for unlicensed operation," Broadcom said that it "nevertheless" is hopeful that solutions are possible. On "LTE-U, however, Broadcom stated that the situation is far different," it said in an ex parte filing on its meeting with Chief Julius Knapp and others in the Office of Engineering and Technology and with a Wireless Bureau official, and another meeting with Jessica Almond, aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. "Planned Wi-Fi/LTE-U co-existence mechanisms will not be effective, and co-existence analyses performed by LTE-U supporters to date are deeply flawed." The LTE-U specification doesn't "mandate any meaningful co-existence features, only requiring co-existence capabilities," said the company in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 15-105. "This distinction is critical." The company is a member of the Wi-Fi Alliance, according to that group's website. The group in the FCC docket has asked the agency not to certify LTE-U equipment “until such time as it is fully satisfied that fair sharing of unlicensed spectrum will be achieved” (see 1508260039). Backers of LTE-U like Qualcomm have said it can work well with Wi-Fi. A Qualcomm executive didn't immediately comment Tuesday. LTE-U and Wi-Fi issues also were discussed at an FCBA panel Monday (see 1510060010). After the panel, an FCC spokesman said the agency is waiting for standards bodies to discuss LTE-U/Wi-Fi issues, has no LTE-U devices before it to look at, and will evaluate and ask technical questions about any products that do come in.
Broadcasters unanimously opposed the FCC proposal to preserve more channels for unlicensed and wireless mic use, in comments on a vacant channel rulemaking. Prioritizing unlicensed use over licensed TV broadcasters upends FCC policy, said Mako, Sinclair and numerous other broadcasters in docket 15-146. The commission can't make such a “radical shift” without first establishing a record to inform it, Sinclair said. There is “no logical way” for the FCC to “legally determine that unlicensed services, which have never" before "been accorded priority” over licensed services, “should now be found to have priority,” Mako said. Without a record, the proposed policy shift is “arbitrary and capricious,” Sinclair said. The vacant band rule would interfere with broadcasters taking full advantage of the new ATSC 3.0 standard, said Bonten Media and Pearl TV. “ATSC 3.0 is a near-term reality, and the Commission’s decision in this docket should preserve its significant benefits for the American public,” Pearl said. Implementing some of the channel sharing facilitated by the new standard will require stations to alter their contours, which could become “impractical or impossible” if TV stations have to worry about protecting unlicensed channels, Pearl said. The vacant channel rule would “improperly constrain television stations’ options for new or expanded television services” and reduce the chances to make broadcasting more diverse, said the Association of Public Television Stations, Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS jointly. If the FCC does enact the rule, it should come with exemptions for noncommercial educational full-power stations and translators, they filing said. The agency can't make the vacant channel proposal into a rule because it conflicts with congressional directives to preserve low-power TV spectrum, said the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition. The FCC must instead go back to Congress for guidance, the coalition said. The commission must provide “a legitimate opportunity” for displaced LPTV and translators to get new channels after the auction, Gray Television said. The FCC should also allow qualified LPTV stations after the auction to transition to Class A status, Gray said. The vacant channel policy is unlikely to be useful, Sinclair said. “The likelihood that the white spaces will have practical (as opposed to theoretical) value for unlicensed service is very small,” said Sinclair. “Unlicensed uses have been permitted in the white spaces of the broadcast bands for years, but the only evidence of usage suggests a few isolated experiments (and failed experiments at that).”
If DTV receivers and converters aren't properly tuning WJLP Middletown, New Jersey, on virtual-channel 33, the products may be violating FCC rules, said CBS in a letter posted Wednesday in docket 14-150. It responded to WJLP owner PMCM's emergency request last month for Media Bureau relief to grant the broadcaster's virtual channel 3.10 request. "The FCC should take appropriate enforcement action against" makers of equipment that can't tune WJLP, said CBS. "The need for FCC action is particularly important given that the impact of such equipment performance problems is likely to be exacerbated once broadcast television stations are operating on fewer RF channels following the upcoming incentive spectrum auction." PMCM's request said it tested TVs, including smart sets, and digital converters from companies including Hisense, JVC, Panasonic, Phillips and Sony and some of the devices didn't work properly. Representatives for those companies didn't comment Thursday, nor did CEA. When viewers selected Channel 33, PMCM said, the receivers in most sets instead tuned to WCBS-TV New York, which broadcasts on that channel. In August and September, more than 40 sets were tested, some in viewer homes, and most couldn't get WJLP over the air, said broadcast lawyer Don Evans of Fletcher Heald, which represents PMCM, in an interview Thursday. The number of viewer complaints to WJLP is rising, he said. CBS responded to PMCM's filing that the alleged failure by equipment makers to sell receivers that follow FCC rules shouldn't mean that WJLP can use a virtual channel number or a common major channel number that overlaps service contours of stations that have been on-air for "decades" on the same major channel number. CBS, owner of KYW-TV Philadelphia, which FCC records show uses virtual channel 3, and Meredith, owner of WFSB Hartford, also uses that virtual channel according to records, each opposed PMCM's newest request. After winning a court order allowing WJLP to move cross country, it has been seeking FCC OK for what many have said is a technological first in broadcasting: to run on the same main program and system information protocol (PSIP) channel as another station -- WFSB -- while each would have different PSIP subchannels (see 1409160043). Amid "the unexplained tuning anomalies alleged by PMCM, switching WJLP to a virtual channel already duplicated in the market risks extending the confusion and harm to additional stations," said Meredith. "The anomalies that PMCM identifies, if widespread, may well warrant careful investigation by the Commission." Of the sets WJLP tested, "it's not just old, off-brand sets, it’s TV sets from major manufacturers, they are fairly new sets, and for whatever reason, they’re not applying the PSIP channel properly," said Evans. "We agree with CBS that there is some problem with the receivers, because some of them don’t have the problem, and some of them do." He said PMCM isn't seeking enforcement action against the manufacturers, as CBS sought.
Sprint’s announcement that it won't participate in the TV incentive auction (see 1509280059) shows the Department of Justice was dead wrong in urging the FCC to devise rules for the auction that would guarantee Sprint and T-Mobile came away with spectrum, said Fred Campbell, executive director of the Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology, Thursday in a blog post on the RedState webpage. “Though it’s no surprise, it’s now obvious the country’s federal experts on competition and antitrust matters were wrong in their analysis of Sprint’s alleged need for low-frequency spectrum in order to compete,” he said. A Sprint spokesman responded in an email: “Sprint’s decision to not participate in the 600 MHz Incentive Auction provides no basis for critiquing the FCC’s public policy decisions in establishing the incentive auction structure, rules and procedures... Throughout these proceedings, Sprint consistently advocated for an auction structure with the best chance of promoting competition and thereby spurring wireless broadband innovation and benefiting consumers. The FCC’s auction decisions reflect a fair balancing of these goals along with other public policy considerations in a truly innovative and complex undertaking.”
Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt plans to speak to the Senate Commerce Committee on 5G Friday, said an ex parte document filed with the FCC Wednesday in docket 14-177. “We thought that you would find it of interest as the Commission explores new technologies that could unlock mid-band and higher band frequency spectrum for 5G and the next generation of mobile wireless services that it offers,” said Covington & Burling attorney Gerry Waldron, directing the filing to Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp. Hundt's presentation runs 53 slides, all included in the filing. One slide says 5G will come to reach everyone, everywhere, and another is titled, “5G: 40 Times More Spectrum.” Another slide said the IoT requires 5G and 5G requires a new radio access network on greenfield spectrum. “5G green field build needs to be anchored in mid band,” the presentation said. The Senate Commerce Committee has outlined a series of spectrum hearings this year, with an eye toward legislation.
The Open Technology Institute at New America and Public Knowledge jointly urged the FCC to set aside either one or two vacant TV band channels in every market nationwide for unlicensed use after the TV incentive auction. “The Commission can best optimize the use of TV band spectrum for communication, innovation, job creation, consumer welfare and economic growth more broadly only by ensuring the availability of a substantial number of six megahertz blocks of unlicensed access to TV White Space spectrum in every local market nationwide,” the groups said in a filing posted Thursday in docket 12-268. Wi-Fi generates at least $200 billion in consumer welfare each year in just the U.S., they said. “Yet Wi-Fi never would have flourished without access to a substantial and predictable amount of unlicensed bandwidth in every market nationwide.” Google also backed the proposal. "The preservation of sufficient unlicensed channels is critical to achieving the FCC’s goal of expanding the availability and affordability of unlicensed wireless broadband services, and therefore well worth the small practical impact on broadcasters," the company said.
The U.S.-based Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and Germany-based Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance said they agreed to work together on the deployment of 5G. The groups hope to "enable and support the timely delivery of 5G to the market,” a Monday news release said. “In the coming years, both parties intend to achieve this by working together in projects on 5G related issues and by carrying out joint 5G public relation measures.” ATIS President Susan Miller said the agreement underscores the importance of cooperation. "ATIS sees its agreement with NGMN as important to its leadership role in delivering 5G requirements focused on the North American market and contributing them to global efforts,” she said. “The goal is to deliver the long-promised convergence of all services onto a common framework, with corresponding enhancements to efficiency, security and service velocity."
U.K. telecom regulator Ofcom Friday said it would allow the use of white spaces devices (WSDs) to access the Internet, on a transitional basis, in bands other than the UHF TV band. Ofcom in February approved use of the devices in the TV white spaces. For the time being, Ofcom is allowing the use only of licensed, manually configurable devices. But Ofcom said it's reviewing other options and expects to issue revised rules by the end of 2018. “Ofcom has a duty to ensure that the radio spectrum is used in the most efficient way,” Ofcom said in its statement. “We have decided to authorise the deployment of WSDs on a license exempt basis where they meet certain technical and operational requirements to ensure there is a low probability of harmful interference to other spectrum users.”
The U.S. has emerged as the global leader in 4G LTE and a slew of reports backs that up, Tom Sawanobori, CTIA chief technology officer, said Friday in a blog post. “We were one of the first countries to deploy 4G LTE starting in 2010 and have expanded coverage, deployed advanced technology and enabled high speed broadband networks to stay at the forefront,” he wrote. Sawanobori cited, among other reports, a recent finding by Mosaik Solutions that 82 percent of Americans -- 256 million people -- now have a choice of four or more LTE-based providers. “And U.S. carriers have invested more than $166 billion in their networks over the last six years, deploying the advanced LTE technology that is carrying the increasing volumes of data traffic consumers demand -- more than 4 trillion megabytes of data in 2014 alone,” he said.