WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission late Thursday said it would create “guard-band managers” as licensees for spectrum being set aside to protect public-safety users in the 700 MHz band.
The FCC is creating two guard bands to protect public safety from interference. One license will be four megahertz (a pair of two megahertz blocks) located at 746-747/776-777 MHz and one license will be two megahertz (a pair of one megahertz blocks) at 762-764/792-794 MHz.
The licenses will be for 52 major economic areas.
The Personal Communications Industry Association, which praised the decision, said the MEA licenses is a good compromise.
PCIA was also pleased that private wireless, which it believes is in desperate need of access to spectrum, can lease spectrum from the guard-band managers.
According to the plan, guard-band managers would bid at auction for the six megahertz closest to public-safety users. After winning a license at auction, the guard band manager would then be free to “subdivide its spectrum in any manner it chooses and make it available to system operators or directly to end users for fixed or mobile communications, consistent with the frequency coordination and interference rules,” said the FCC.
The American Mobile Telecommunications Association said this was an innovative approach.
“What makes this innovative is that it merges auctioning and frequency coordination and relieves the FCC of the administrative headaches,” said AMTA President Alan Shark.
The guard-band managers would not be permitted, however, to lease spectrum to those using a cellular-like architecture.
“Public-safety licensees should experience no greater interference risk from guard-band users than from other public-safety licensees … The FCC also found that entities operating in the guard bands should not be permitted to employ a cellular-system architecture. The public-safety community has expressed concerns that the frequency-coordination procedures required of entities operating in the guard bands could not be accomplished when users employ a cellular-system architecture,” said the FCC.
This prohibition was called a “double-whammy” by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association which believes FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth got it right when he said in his dissent that he “would have set strict interference limits and enforced them-without the majority’s limitation on the system architecture.”
CTIA also does not believe that the guard-band manager concept will raise enough revenue.
“Who is to say that they [the guard-band managers] would provide the treasury with the value for this spectrum. You would have to assume they won’t,” said Randall S. Coleman, CTIA vice president for regulatory policy and law.
CTIA was joined in its anger by FreeSpace Communications who said it passed up the opportunity to promote wireless broadband.
“The FCC has adopted a set of rules that amount to a giveaway of valuable spectrum to the private-radio industry and for out-of-date technology. It has passed up the opportunity to advance its own stated policies of promoting innovative wireless-broadband technologies for consumers, service to under served communities, and open and fair auctions,” said Gregory Lawler, counsel to FreeSpace.
FreeSpace had aggressively lobbied the FCC and was seen as responsible for delaying the decision on who should be able to use the guard bands when the original rules were released two months ago.
The start-up Silicon Valley company has said it is developing a concept that will allow for high-speed wireless Internet access but that it does not have the spectrum it needs. FreeSpace said it could meet any technical restrictions placed on the guard bands. It does not believe it can participate in an auction for the other 30 megahertz being auctioned on May 10 because it cannot compete with the large players who are expected to participate at that time.
Public-safety users believe the FCC made the right decision in prohibiting cellular-type architectures.
“Allowing high density cellular-type operations in the guard bands would have greatly increased the potential for interference. Police officers, firefighters, and paramedics could have suddenly found themselves in communications `coverage holes’ that occur when portable and mobile radios are in close proximity to fixed cell sites transmitting from adjacent frequency bands,” said the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International Inc.
The Industrial Telecommunications Association said the “bold decision … demanded thinking outside of the box and they achieved the critical issue to protect public-safety.”
The timing of the auction is important, said Shark, noting that people need time to develop business plans using the guard-band concept.
“The sooner, the less people will participate. Put this off as long as possible so new players can develop business plans,” Shark said.
The FCC said the auction will occur sometime late spring or early summer, and that an exact date and proposals such as minimum bids is expected to be released this week.
A team created by AMTA’s board to study this issue plans to meet this week to evaluate the FCC rules. Likewise, PCIA-which last week announced a major reorganization-is also evaluating whether to enter the auction as a guard-band manager. ITA said that its intention is to participate as a guard-band manager but it still has lots of work to do.
“Getting favorable rules sets up the golf course but you still have to play it,” said ITA President Mark Crosby.
The spectrum, being made available with the transition to digital TV, is known as 60-69 because of its place on the TV dial. There is a total of 60 megahertz. Congress split the spectrum so that 24 megahertz is to be used for public-safety operations and 36 megahertz for “commercial” uses.
Since the 60-69 spectrum is considered “prime real estate” by the wireless industry, every sector tried to convince the FCC to give it a piece of the pie.
Proposals for use of the spectrum included everything from using all of it for third generation wireless to setting aside some spectrum for private wireless uses. The FCC said its decision to auction 30 megahertz will allow for commercial uses including 3G and fixed wireless while still protecting public safety.
Bidders in the May 10 auction for the 30 megahertz will be bidding for two licenses in six economic area licenses in the commercial band. One license will be a block of 20 megahertz of spectrum (a pair of 10 megahertz blocks), and one block of 10 megahertz (a pair of five megahertz blocks). The FCC will allow bidders in the auction to win both licenses in each area.
In addition to protecting public-safety operations, there are 100 broadcasters still in this band that the FCC says will need to be protected from interference until the transition to digital TV is complete.
