WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission will vote next week on positions the United States may take at a major international conference in Geneva this fall, amid charges that the microwave and personal communications services industries might get shortchanged.
At issue is an industry recommendation to reallocate portions of the 6 GHz, 11 GHz and 18 GHz bands to global pocket telephone satellite systems like those licensed to Iridium Inc., TRW Inc. and Loral-Qualcomm L.P., which use low-earth-orbit technology. Additional big LEO satellite systems may be licensed as well.
That means mobile satellite service operators would join fixed microwave licensees as equals on bands already heavily congested. Microwave users fear they will receive harmful interference from satellite feeder links if the FCC approves the industry plan.
Complicating matters further is that the 6 GHz and 11 GHz bands are supposed to be the new home for fixed microwave users vacating the 2 GHz band that broadband PCS will occupy.
Relocating microwave users from the 2 GHz band to higher bands, a process to be financed by PCS carriers, is crucial to getting next-generation pocket telephone systems commercially operational over the next few years.
“It is extremely critical that the commission consider fully the potentially catastrophic impact that this proposed reallocation would have on both the [fixed microwave service] and PCS industries,” stated a group of public safety, utility, railroad and pipeline interests, as well as AT&T Corp., Alcatel Network Systems Inc., Harris Corp.-Farinon Division and the Telecommunications Industry Association.
The parties assert MSS spectrum needs can be satisfied without harming fixed microwave licensees and undermining the PCS microwave relocation program.
The controversy between mobile satellite and terrestrial private wireless users has apparently caused turf fighting between the FCC’s International Bureau and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, each advocating on behalf of the industry sector it oversees.
As a result, officials from the Office of Plans and Policy and the Office of Engineering and Technology are mediating spectrum conflicts within the commission.
FCC proposals as well as those of the Commerce Department and State Department will be used to formulate U.S. policy stances at the World Radiocommunication Conference, Oct. 23 to Nov. 17, in Geneva.
“I think you’ll see a more aggressive U.S. effort that you’ve ever seen on these issues,” said Scott Harris, chief of the FCC’s International Bureau. “I think the administration understands the importance of the issues to the mobile satellite industry, the telecommunications industry and the economy.”
The U.S. delegation will be led by Mike Synar, a former Democratic member of the House Commerce Committee who lost his congresssional seat in an Oklahoma primary last fall.
FCC Commissioner Susan Ness, a Democrat appointed by Clinton, will the agency’s chief representative at conference, which is sponsored by the International Telecommunication Union. Other officials from the FCC, Commerce Department and State Department will round out American negotiating team.
