Small Carriers Hope for Action This Year on 700 MHz Interoperability Requirement
Small carriers are making a last push to try to get the FCC to address interoperability in the lower 700 MHz band before the end of the year. Rather than mandating interoperability per se, a main focus of the small carriers has been on getting the FCC to require the restoration of a single band class for the lower 700 MHz band, carrier officials said in interviews Wednesday.
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The FCC approved an interoperability rulemaking notice at its March meeting. Chairman Julius Genachowski said at the time regulation may not be needed and encouraged industry players to come up with a voluntary, industry solution (CD March 22 p2). The leading opponent of a mandate has been AT&T, which has made numerous filings at the FCC on the problems interoperability would cause for its operations in the 700 MHz band. AT&T said in a recent filing (http://xrl.us/bn2ozw) at the commission an interoperability mandate “would cause significant harm to competition and to consumers, and would produce none of the benefits alleged by its supporters.”
Without interoperability $2 billion in 700 MHz licenses bought by small carriers remain unused and hundreds of millions of dollars that would be invested in deployment is “sidelined,” said Eric Graham, senior vice president at C Spire Wireless. Interoperability is key to getting LTE built in many small markets where it is unavailable today, he said.
"In light of the data roaming opinion yesterday (CD Dec 5 p1) we're now at the end of 2012, we're now, I think everyone would admit, at the end of what can be placed on the record on the lower 700 MHz NPRM and it is ripe for decision,” Graham said. The data roaming opinion makes clear that the FCC’s Title III authority also could be used to mandate interoperability, he said. “This interoperability issue is the one competitive issue that is left unresolved as we end the year.”
"It’s wonderful and I think it’s a good thing for us to try to work this out as an industry,” said Scott Wills, an advisor to Vulcan Wireless, which has also made the issue one of its top priorities. “What we've said to the FCC is, we agree with you and we think you can help facilitate an industry solution. There has to be a motivation to change and here we're talking about change. We're really talking about the restoration of something that was broken up.”
The FCC can accomplish its goals with a “light” regulatory touch, Wills said. “Simply require the restoration of interoperability,” he said. “That will bring all of the parties back to the table, back through the standards, band-specification process, to collaborate and come up with a band specification that is in fact an industry solution designed by all of the players in the lower 700 MHz band. ... The FCC needs to do something to create that motivation and incentive for industry to cooperate and collaborate on a solution.”
Michele Farquhar of Hogan Lovells, counsel to Vulcan, said interoperability proponents have refuted all of the claims that requiring a single band class for the lower 700 MHz band would drive up costs of deployment. Farquhar pointed in particular to slides presented at a meeting at the FCC last month by Vulcan and C Spire (http://xrl.us/bn4yt3). “In our meetings we have seen a very high level of engagement at a very detailed level,” said Farquhar, a former chief of the Wireless Bureau. “That’s been true throughout this fall. We certainly feel that this is an issue that’s ripe for decision based on the record that’s been established.” Vulcan has put lots of data into the record responding to FCC questions, she said. “We have been pleased both at the bureau level and at the legal advisor level with the level and depth of understanding,” she said.
"It has been demonstrated that a single band class mandate for the lower 700 MHz will result in significant interference into AT&T’s current LTE network deployment,” AT&T Federal Regulatory Vice President Joan Marsh said, responding to the small carrier arguments. “Such intervention into the marketplace would be unprecedented and would undermine the integrity and predictability of the wireless industry’s standards-setting process and threaten the reliability of existing 4G LTE services. Moreover, such intervention would yield none of the ‘interoperability’ benefits upon which the proposed regulatory mandate is falsely premised. ... While the record does not support a Band 12 mandate, there is broad agreement among the parties that the public interest would be served by prompt Commission action to phase out high-powered Channel 51 and E Block broadcasts that are incompatible with efficient use of Lower 700 MHz spectrum. Only real solutions such as this will solve the lower 700 MHz challenges.”