5 MHz Uplink Shift Unlikely for Dish to Get FCC Waiver for Broadband Wireless Network
The FCC Wireless Bureau will likely avoid forcing Dish Network to move its uplink up by 5 MHz to get a waiver to use spectrum for a terrestrial service, agency and industry officials said. The bureau could lean toward placing power limitations at the bottom of Dish’s uplink frequency, the officials said. The FCC plans to make a decision this year on a rulemaking that proposes to allow Dish access to AWS-4 spectrum to build a terrestrial network, they said. Earlier this year, it seemed likely that the bureau would recommend a vote on the forthcoming draft order to make Dish move its uplink up, which the company said would have caused so much interference from adjacent, higher-frequency operations that it would drastically reduce the use of the upper 5 MHz. Now, it seems the bureau instead will ask FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to circulate an order that doesn’t require the move but does mandate lower emissions, agency and industry officials told us.
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It seems that the bureau moved off its initial plans of shifting Dish’s uplink upwards 5 MHz, an FCC official said. The bureau seems to be leaning toward wanting to protect the H block at 1995-2000 MHz for auction, the official said. The bureau also seems to be more focused on possibly making Dish build interference protections into its own spectrum without a shift, the person said. The satellite-use spectrum Dish acquired has its uplink band at 2000 to 2020 MHz.
The FCC seems to want to release an order this year, and the bureau is no longer interested in having Dish shift its uplink, a second agency official said. But Dish may not have full use of the 20 MHz of uplink spectrum it wants an FCC waiver for, so it can build out that network without smartphones and other consumer devices being connected to an orbiting satellite, agency and industry officials said. They said that’s because of the lower emissions the DBS company might be limited to in the lower part of the uplink spectrum. Dish and FCC spokespeople had no comment.
In a rulemaking notice, the bureau sought comment on the possibility “in which the uplink band would be shifted up 5 MHz to 2005-2025 or up 10 MHz and compressed to 2010-2025 MHz,” (http://xrl.us/bm5d3d). Dish opposed such a shift and it also opposed imposing more stringent out-of-band emissions limits on AWS-4 (CD Oct 19 p16). Sprint Nextel has urged the FCC to establish appropriate protection levels to mitigate interference in the H block and the PCS G block (CD Oct 12 p11). The notice, in seeking comment on other scenarios, had proposed to keep Dish’s uplink and downlink spectrum it could use under a waiver in the same place where the frequencies are now.
"We are prepared to go to order on the AWS-4 spectrum in a way that would create enormous value for the public and for Dish,” a third FCC official said. “But if the H block issues cannot be resolved soon, we may synchronize the AWS-4 order with an H block order in the first half of 2013.” The impression is that the commission will decide to leave the uplink where it is, but would internalize in Dish’s uplink a 5 MHz guard band that would protect the H block, said a wireless industry lawyer. This would make 15 MHz of the uplink usable, and that can be done by imposing out-of-band emission limits, the lawyer said. Going in this direction is consistent with the ex parte filing wars between Dish and Nextel, the attorney added.
The New America Foundation (NAF) urged the FCC to set conditions on service rules similar to those required of LightSquared in 2009 and 2010, when it got waivers to also build out its own satellite spectrum, a waiver that the FCC has since proposed to revoke. The assignment of AWS-4 licenses without an auction should be subject to four public interest conditions “that could recoup value for the public, while also promoting wireless industry competition, innovation and spectrum efficiency, particularly in rural areas,” NAF said in an ex parte filing in docket 12-70 (http://xrl.us/bnyn82). Conditions recommended by NAF include the commission imposing “unjust enrichment penalties on sale of the AWS-4 licensees to either of the two largest mobile carriers,” AT&T and Verizon Wireless, it said. NAF suggested Dish seek FCC approval before making more than 25 percent of the licensee’s data traffic capacity within any economic area available to any single carrier, “regardless of whether that capacity is accessed on a wholesale basis, roaming basis, under a spectrum manager lease agreement or as part of a network sharing agreement."
Figuring out how to protect bands adjacent to AWS-4 is “the heart of the rulemaking,” another wireless industry attorney said. The FCC rightly asked the question of what service rules it must put in place for AWS-4 spectrum to be used on a terrestrial basis while protecting the uses of adjacent spectrum,” the lawyer said.
A decision on the FCC proceeding will likely be made in 2012, analysts at Citigroup and Wells Fargo each wrote investors this week. Wells Fargo analysts said there’s clarity as to what Dish Chairman Charles Ergen “is and is not doing with the spectrum, and we think there are some catalysts on the horizon.” One catalyst, the forthcoming order on the spectrum, will likely be favorable to Dish, Wells Fargo analysts said. While Ergen seems to be for a merger with DirecTV (CD Nov 7 p4), “we don’t get the sense that this is immediate as we think the company’s focus is currently on the wireless spectrum,” Wells Fargo said.