FCC Republicans Question Proposed Rules on TV White Spaces

"Congress mandated that the commission auction all recovered spectrum and in so doing there will be ample room for unlicensed use of white spaces regardless of the size of guardbands,” a government official said Monday. “Everyday there’s a new innovation that squeezes more efficiency out of the airwaves and that may actually allow us to have smaller guardbands someday."

Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman explained the FCC’s proposal (http://xrl.us/bnvzq5) in some detail at a recent FCC workshop on the auction rules (CD Oct 16 p1). Milkman said the proposal provides unlicensed spectrum in three areas -- actual TV white spaces in some markets, Channel 37, except for in protected areas of the country and the guardbands separating broadcasters form mobile broadband. Milkman said the proposal envisions that the bands would provide at least 12 MHz of spectrum and possibly as much as 20 MHz depending on how much spectrum is sold by broadcasters. Each six MHz TV channel sold in a market would yield one MHz for the guardbands since the FCC plans to sell paired 5 MHz licenses in the forward auction to carriers, Milkman explained.

"The proposed guardbands are significantly narrower than what FCC officials told Congressional staff they might be during the legislative debate early this year,” said Michael Calabrese, of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute. “In fact, we are very skeptical that a guardband as narrow as 6 MHz will be sufficient to protect television viewers from very high-power cellular transmitters that are often located in residential neighborhoods overlooking homes and apartment buildings. Testing will probably be needed to determine how much separation is needed to protect TV viewers. I remain confident the commission will define guard bands that are technically reasonable, which is the only statutory requirement. There is an added benefit if these guard bands are unlicensed, since this would ensure at least a few white space channels in every market nationwide, which in turn stimulates the market for rural broadband and machine-to-machine applications using all the unoccupied TV channels."

Officials from free market-oriented groups said the FCC should make as much of the spectrum as possible available for licensed use by carriers. “We need to get very busy getting as much spectrum as possible to market,” said Seton Motley, president of Less Government. “Instead, the administration is preemptively pinching prospective broadcast spectrum. ... The marketplace needs a whole lot more spectrum. We do not need to diminish in any way the broadcast spectrum about to be made available. Don’t crunch it, keep it coming."

How much use the white spaces will get is untested, said Richard Bennett, senior research fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. “White spaces should be leftover slices of spectrum that aren’t large enough or geographically extensive enough to be used for anything but unlicensed networks,” he said. “We can’t go full bore into large, unlicensed networks because they remain an unproven concept. It’s doubtful that unlicensed can ever substitute for cellular, for a number of technical reasons. The repacking of TV channels that’s envisioned for stage two of the auction process should reduce guardbands and stray spectrum to a minimum."

"To the extent that the commission is exercising discretion concerning the amount of white space spectrum to be allocated for auction or left unlicensed, I prefer that it tilt in the direction of licensing at auction,” said Free State Foundation President Randolph May. “This is the best way to provide the proper incentives for ultimately putting the spectrum to its highest value use, while protecting taxpayers at the same time. So I'd be skeptical of any plan that seems to err on the size of bulking up the unlicensed spectrum at the expense of making spectrum available at auction."

But officials from other Washington interest groups say the FCC should err on the side of making as much white spaces spectrum available as possible. “For us, the question isn’t whether the FCC has gone too far in protecting unlicensed use,” said Public Knowledge Staff Attorney John Bergmayer. “The question is whether it has gone far enough. That said, it’s clear that the commission is acting well within the discretion Congress gave it to manage this process.” The NPRM takes the right approach, said communications lawyer Andrew Schwartzman. “The proper goal of the commission is the efficient use of spectrum, not simply to auction off spectrum for the sake of holding an auction,” he said. “The guard bands protect licensed users, which is very important, while simultaneously allowing for highly efficient use of that spectrum using advanced technology."

"Open spectrum benefits everyone -- including incumbents that increasingly offload traffic onto unlicensed networks,” said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood. “It also opens the door for new entrants, innovators, underserved communities, and individual consumers to get online without going through cellphone company bottlenecks. And it contributes tens of billions of dollars to the economy ever year, as opposed to the one-time injection that an auction provides to the government."

"Without passing judgment on the FCC proposal one way or the other, I think both FCC Democrats and Republicans make legitimate points,” said Jeff Silva, analyst at Medley Global Advisors. “My sense is meeting skyward-trending wireless data demand in the future will necessarily require a multifaceted approach that includes a mix of licensed and unlicensed spectrum as well as government sharing and reallocation. It’s clear there’s no silver bullet in this increasingly spectrum scarce environment, and it’s an uncomfortable fact that various approaches come with a certain degree of pros and cons. This scenario inherently makes the overall spectrum strategy as imperfect as the challenge itself. While it’s true the U.S. Treasury must forego capturing the dollar-value of unlicensed spectrum via auction, it’s possible such airwaves can produce benefits for the economy, industry and consumers that are meaningful but harder to quantify than auction receipts.”