Lobbying groups say, ‘feed the beast,’ as rules, reserve being set for spectrum auction
WASHINGTON – As the wrangling over rules for the upcoming spectrum auction continues, most stakeholders agree on the acute need for more spectrum, but not on how federal regulators should divvy up available airwaves.
AT&T and T-Mobile US have been sniping at each other through motions, while small carriers would like to see AT&T come away from the auction with as little as legally possible.
Wireless industry trade association group CTIA, meanwhile, released a statement on the issue: “Policy makers (e.g. FCC) must free up more than 350 megahertz of additional licensed spectrum to meet growing demand for mobile broadband. To meet the projected six-fold increase in mobile data, wireless carriers require 50% more spectrum by 2019 than is currently licensed for commercial mobile services. Additional licensed spectrum is key to America remaining global mobile leader, generating more than $400 billion in annual economic activity and supporting more than 1.3 million jobs.”
Despite those alarming figures, by the CTIA’s own admission the Federal Communications Commission has done rather well keeping up with spectrum demand over the last five years.
Last week a CTIA white paper noted that in 2010 the FCC projected the need for an additional 300 megahertz of spectrum to be made available by 2015 to meet what the FCC was projecting to be an additional 562 petabytes of data demand per month.
In actuality, the FCC needed to only open 135 megahertz to keep up with the 563 petabytes of traffic that arose. In short, the commission was spot on in estimating the increase in demand but over-estimated how much supply would be required.
Spectrum is the most sought-after resource in telecom today. Tom Power, general counsel and SVP of CTIA, earlier this year summarized the issue quite poignantly when he said, “We have to keep feeding the beast.”
The FCC plans to do just that; rumors are swirling that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is preparing to release a draft on the next round of auction rules, which is set for early 2016. The last FCC auction raised more than $44 billion in gross winning bids.
The FCC is also examining approving ways to use existing spectrum more effectively, opening up the 5 GHz band to LTE-Unlicensed technology. An FCC request for comment on LTE-U technology, which some allege would interfere with Wi-Fi networks, resulted in briefs from 36 technology companies.
In addition to looking at new technologies, the FCC has sought to tighten loopholes like the one that allowed Dish Network to get a significant discount in the last auction.
