Larger, more sophisticated high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles will require a different approach from regulators than smaller UAVs have, said Jennifer Warren, Lockheed Martin vice president-technology policy and regulation, during a Silicon Flatirons spectrum conference late Wednesday. The challenge is which comes first -- the FAA has to set out performance objectives and the FCC needs to make spectrum available for command and control, Warren said. “It’s going to be an interesting timing scenario and the one has to be informed by the other,” she said. “There’s a little bit of collaboration that we’re hoping for between the FCC and the FAA” when we get beyond smaller drones, she said. The FAA and FCC don’t disagree, said Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology. The commission allocated 50.30-50.90 MHz for command and control of UAVs, he said. “There are so many different kinds of UAVs used by both federal and nonfederal.” Finding spectrum isn’t easy, Knapp said. “Most of the spectrum is spoken for in one way or another,” he said. “It generally comes down to there’s something there. Either you’re going to share without modifying it or it has got to be moved and that usually costs money.” Tom Hazlett, economics professor at Clemson University, said challenges presented by space-based and aerial communications technologies are “profound.” Hazlett sees a possible solution an Intel/Intelsat proposal for the 3.7-4.2 GHz band (see 1710020047). “They’re talking about incumbent licensees, including especially satellite licensees, being able to make deals with terrestrial in particular,” he said. Incumbents would be protected, but new entrants could “make deals, make bargains,” he said. The companies get it “just right,” he said. “There are rigidities in the system that can be overcome by allowing the rights to go into the marketplace, that allow bargains to be made.” The FCC wouldn’t have to make trade-offs on things that are “completely unknown” like “is a band better used for autonomous vehicles or Wi-Fi-delivery of cat videos,” Hazlett said. The FCC "doesn’t know the answer" to that question and neither does he, he said. “We want the opportunity costs to be visible, transparent,” he said. “We want users to make rational calculations and we don’t resources to go to low-valued uses when there’s something much better.”

Finding spectrum will increasingly become a challenge as space and airborne wireless becomes a bigger part of communications, said Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology, at a Silicon Flatirons conference Wednesday, streamed from Boulder, Colorado. The session was on 3D wireless, from satellites to high-altitude platform stations (HAPS) to drones. “It’s getting more complicated,” he said. “There’s a lot more things going up in the sky” and the FCC doesn’t have the luxury of giving all the users their own bands, he said. Like in chess, “2D is challenging, 3D, mind-boggling.” Knapp said 3D wireless is “at the intersection of policy, engineering, economics, and the services that they provide.” Geostationary orbit satellites, roughly 22,000 miles in space, have major latency issues, “not necessarily a complete" impediment, he said. Non-geostationary satellites offer worldwide coverage and are comparable to inverted cellular systems, he said. “Instead of having all of the base stations on the ground, now the base stations are in the air and the handoff is happening between satellites.” HAPS, at close to 60,000 feet high, have a role, he said. They are “low to the Earth, so they don’t have the latency issue,” Knapp said. “The power levels are higher so I can get penetration on the ground. I can use them to fill in areas.” There’s only one global allocation for HAPS now, he said. The "good news” is ITU is looking at more spectrum for HAPS as an agenda item at the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference, he said. “Because the technology has advanced, and the need to provide service to fill in” at various locations bigger, “it’s all being studied,” he said. Unmanned aerial vehicles, much lower than HAPS, are seeing work at NASA and the FAA and within industry, Knapp said. UAVs now mostly use unlicensed spectrum, “which always makes me a little bit nervous because there’s no interference protections,” Knapp said. UAVs need spectrum for command and control, but also for their payload, he said. People want HD video from the UAV and that takes a lot more bandwidth than the operations themselves, he said. “Where is that going to come from?" he said. "There has been much more focus on the control.” The big challenge for all the systems is spectrum, agreed Bobby Braun, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. “If you think of where we’re headed … I actually don’t think that there’s going to be enough spectrum,” he said. “I imagine there will some kind of allocation, sharing scheme in time.”

More than 80,000 individual drones were registered for commercial and government uses and more than 60,000 people obtained a pilot certificate to operate unmanned aircraft systems since the small drone rule known as Part 107 (see 1608290049) took effect a year ago, said the FAA in a Wednesday news release. The FAA said up to 1.6 million commercial drones, which weigh under 55 pounds, could be operating by 2021. The release touted drone uses including in response and recovery efforts for Hurricane Harvey.

The number of cellsites down due to Tropical Storm Harvey continues to decline, though other communications services are faring worse. According to the FCC's latest communications status report Thursday, 3.8 percent of the cellsites in the 55 directly affected Texas and Louisiana counties and parishes were down, compared with 4.2 percent on Wednesday (see 1708300054) and 4.7 percent on Tuesday (see 1708290029), and no county has more than 40 percent of cellsites out of service. It said at least 270,139 cable and wireline subscribers were without service, up from Wednesday's 267,426. It also said nine radio stations were down, up from five Wednesday, while the number of TV stations down was two, one fewer than on Wednesday. The agency said the number of public safety answering points down was seven, compared with 11 the previous day, and that none of the downed PSAPs is without a re-route. In a public notice Thursday, the agency said it would extend its disaster data collection to nine additional Texas counties at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Meanwhile CompTIA encouraged tech companies to make donations, which it said it would help double. AT&T said it would use 25 drones to inspect cell towers and determine network damage in areas of Southeast Texas not accessible to cars or trucks due to flooding. AT&T also said it would deploy two satellite cell on wheels in Beaumont, Texas, and stage 12 more in the area to support customers and first responders following Harvey's second landfall.

An FAA rulemaking committee aimed at developing standards for identifying drones will meet July 18-19, said the agency in a Friday news release that briefly provided an update of the panel's inaugural meeting (see 1706210064 and 1705230030). It said the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Identification and Tracking Aviation Rulemaking Committee, which first met June 21-23, considered existing drone ID and tracking issues, air traffic management for drones, concerns for local governments and potential legal matters. The FAA said the committee developed preliminary questions and reviewed some identification technologies. A Senate committee last week advanced legislation reauthorizing the agency until 2021, but that bill will have to be reconciled with House legislation (see 1706290024).

Vice Chair Jeff Johnson said FirstNet needs to closely monitor state efforts to limit commercial use of drones. Public safety use should be exempt, even if AT&T, which won the government contract to help with the network, operates the drones on behalf of FirstNet, he said at a board meeting of the authority Wednesday. “Now, we’re going to get flying repeaters.” Drones, cells on wings, can be deployed much more quickly than traditional cells on wheels, President TJ Kennedy said. “We’re going to see massive evolution over the next couple of years.” AT&T’s FirstNet deployables will be available by the end of September, Kennedy said.

The Senate Commerce Committee plans a Thursday markup of the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act (S-1405), which includes drone regulatory language. Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and other filed the bill last week (see 1706220057). The markup will begin at 9 a.m. in 106 Dirksen. The committee also plans to mark up S-875, which would require GAO “to conduct a study and submit a report on filing requirements under the Universal Service Fund programs." The bill, filed in April, would require the GAO report to “analyze the financial impact of those filing requirements and provide any recommendations on how to consolidate redundant filing requirements” (see 1705110060).

Senate Commerce Committee leaders filed their long-anticipated Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill (S-1405) Thursday. Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., one of the bill's main sponsors, previously told us he planned to introduce the bill before the start of the August recess (see 1705110060). Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla.; Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security Subcommittee Chairman Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; and subcommittee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., also led sponsorship of the bill. S-1405, as expected, includes drone regulatory language, including a Section 333 process for granting drone operator exemptions. The bill would grandfather drone operators who had existing Section 333 exemptions. The legislation would direct the FAA to conduct further drone regulatory efforts and restore rules for registering small drones. S-1405 would call for the development of a requirement for an aeronautical knowledge and safety exam for drone operators but would allow the FAA to exempt operators of drones less than 0.55 pounds. The legislation would authorize drones' spectrum use within FCC guidelines. The bill also contains language that makes it a crime to “knowingly or recklessly operate” a drone “near a manned aircraft or too close to a runway.” House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., filed a similar House FAA reauthorization bill (HR-2997). The bill represents “a strong and sustained commitment for the growth of commercial” drones in the U.S., said Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International President Brian Wynne in a statement. “The bill calls for UAS initiatives that would build upon the work that industry has already been engaged with NASA and the FAA, particularly the section that mandates rulemaking for a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system.”

In an effort to remotely identify and track "rogue" drones, the Federal Aviation Administration established a diverse rulemaking committee to create standards, said a Wednesday news release. The FAA said there aren't currently any "requirements or voluntary standards for electrically broadcasting information to identify an unmanned aircraft while it’s in the air." The agency said the Aviation Rulemaking Committee, made up of representatives from 74 public and private organizations, is meeting this week to develop recommendations. Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International President Brian Wynne said in a statement that developing standards for remotely identifying drone operators and owners builds on earlier drone registration efforts.

A bill winding its way through the Oregon legislature that would decriminalize the use of drones for firing bullets when properly authorized by the FAA or local police is drawing the wrath of CTA for fear that the wording in one section of the legislation would thwart the commercialization of drones. “Oregon, call your senators to encourage them" to defeat HB-3047, "which prevents drone innovation,” CTA President Gary Shapiro tweeted Friday. HB-3047, which cleared the Oregon House Thursday, contains a provision that would bar individuals from operating drones over private property “in a manner so as to intentionally, knowingly or recklessly harass or annoy the owner or occupant of the privately owned premises.” CTA wrote in a policy blog post that Oregon lawmakers, through the wording in that section of HB-3047, “want to slow drone innovation with a bill that prohibits drone flights that ‘annoy.’ This rule is impossible to define and totally senseless -- Oregon already has laws in place to protect privacy and prevent harassment. Don’t let an overly-broad bill crush drone use in your state.” Representatives of HB-3047's sponsors didn’t comment Monday.