FCC Set to Recommend Revised Incentive Auction Band Plan

The new preferred plan flips the uplink and downlink directions over the previous “down-from-Channel 51 plan,” which broadcasters and carriers supported, industry officials explained. That plan had handsets transmitting in the top section of the band immediately adjacent to the lower 700 MHz spectrum, already in the hands of carriers, with base stations in the lower spectrum, a carrier official said. The revised plan would apparently reverse this, with base stations transmitting at the top and handsets in the lower spectrum. “What that would do is put a base station transmit next to the 700 MHz handset transmit band and you'd have an interference problem, you'd need an additional guard band,” a wireless industry official said. “I don’t understand why it would make sense, because it would create an interference problem with the 700 MHz band, so you'd have to build in another guard band as well as the duplex gap.”

"The Wireless Bureau will be issuing a PN ... tomorrow that seeks comment on some band plan concepts and how they address the issue of ‘market variation,’ including a ‘Down from 51’ scheme favored by several commenters, a new ‘Down from channel 51 Reversed’ concept and a TDD concept,” an agency official confirmed Thursday in an email. “The goal of the PN is to develop a record around these concepts and how they deal with the market variation question. The PN does not indicate that the Bureau has winnowed the field of options."

The notice is expected to state that “industry has reached a consensus on a band plan and on the size of the guard bands,” said an industry lawyer active in the proceeding. “This public notice is seen as an opportunity by the departing chairman ... to try to give a bunch of spectrum to unlicensed. What I gather the public notice says is, ‘Here’s the industry consensus plan, and here are seven other plans which we're to explain in detail and seek comment on them.'” Carriers and NAB both are trying to keep the FCC from approving the notice, the lobbyist said.

But a second FCC official said the notice mostly just follows up on a May 3 workshop on the 600 MHz band plan (CD May 6 p1). “It puts out five or six different variations of band plans,” said the official. “Some of them are ones that have been proposed before. Some of them are variations on things have been proposed before and says, ‘basically, we're seeking comment.'” The notice notes that one problem with a plan proposed by Verizon Wireless, AT&T and NAB is that it limits flexibility from market to market to adjust depending on how much spectrum is sold by broadcasters and those problems need to be addressed, an official said. “I think a lot of this is staff driven,” the official said. “I think they're worried that with the transition, it’s going to be a few weeks before they get stuff out again."

A third official questioned why the FCC would seek comment at this point on a new preferred band plan. The staff is proposing plans that were not part of the past discussions, the official said. “As far as I can tell, no one in the record suggests this,” the official said. “It requires you to have an additional guard band between the 600 MHz and the 700 MHz space that you don’t have from the ‘down from 51 proposal.'”

"What they're doing is bizarre,” said a former FCC official who is watching the auction closely. “They have a workshop 10 days ago that seemed very productive, lots of consensus on things, and they just didn’t seem to care about the consensus and had a pre-rigged item that now they're trying to heave out the door before the chairman leaves."

Genachowski also circulated an order approving Progeny’s proposed rollout of its E-911 location service (http://bit.ly/YWAePD), which has faced concern led by the Part 15 Coalition and advocates of unlicensed wireless. FCC officials said there is little chance the order will be approved through electronic voting anytime soon. Genachowski voted for the order when he circulated it, which is a standard practice of most chairmen.

Inovonics CEO Mark Jarman, a member of the Part 15 Coalition, a group of unlicensed Part 15 device users which occupy the 902-928 MHz band, said he is hopeful that “facts and data will overcome,” and that the other commissioners will not vote in favor of the order until there is further testing of Progeny’s service. The Part 15 Coalition has argued that a series of tests Progeny conducted last year in conjunction with Itron, Landis+Gyr and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association didn’t provide enough evidence of the true level of interference Progeny’s service would create for all unlicensed users (CD April 15 p5).

Inovonics, which deploys life-safety equipment like panic alarms, would like to know that the installed bases for its products “won’t experience unacceptable interference,” Jarman said. It would be a “grievous error” if the commissioners vote on the order now without further testing, he said. Inovonics wants the deployment of an E-911 locator service “as badly as everyone else,” but there should be no rush to approve Progeny’s service -- particularly when there is room for the service’s accuracy to improve, Jarman said. The timing of the other commissioners’ votes will depend on how much they trust the existing data, he said.

Progeny’s E-911 service is “definitely ripe” for an FCC ruling, said CEO Gary Parsons. The FCC has already thoroughly assessed the service’s merits, he said. Parsons noted that the agency’s proceeding on the service has had three periods of public comment and “multiple” rounds of testing over the last two years. Parsons countered criticism of the service’s testing. The testing the company already completed has involved multiple parties and vast numbers of devices, he said. Progeny is confident with both the need for its service and with its position as a “good spectrum neighbor,” he said.

The notice on the wireless competition report is considered less controversial, FCC officials said.