FCC Should Follow Industry’s Advice on 600 MHz Band Plan, Pai Says

"I support the ‘down from Channel 51’ approach that has been proposed by the wireless and broadcast industries,” Pai said. “Uplink spectrum should be located at the top of the band and should be separated from the downlink spectrum by a duplex gap that does not include any broadcast stations. Downlink spectrum, in turn, should be located between the duplex gap and channel 37 -- which, by the way, should not be relocated. If we clear more than 84 MHz of spectrum and go below Channel 37, we should devote that spectrum to supplemental downlink."

Pai conceded his recommendation differs from the main 600 MHz band plan proposed in the NPRM. “But there is an overwhelming consensus that the latter plan would lead to substantial interference problems,” he said. “In fact, that band plan received virtually no support from stakeholders.” Former Chairman Julius Genachowski said in September the FCC needs to learn from the record, Pai said. “Accordingly, it is time for the commission to move on from the NPRM and embrace the consensus ‘down from Channel 51’ proposal."

The FCC should also agree on a duplex gap that’s no larger than 12 MHz, Pai said. “That makes our job easy, since Congress instructed that guard bands be ‘no larger than is technically reasonable to prevent harmful interference between licensed services outside the guard bands,'” he said. “The duplex gap should be no more than 12 MHz. Indeed, having a larger duplex gap would actually cause problems involving antenna design for handset manufacturers.” The guard band between downlink spectrum and high-powered TV broadcasts should be about 10 MHz, he said. “I'll admit that my views on this issue have evolved since we adopted the NPRM,” he said. “At that time, I wasn’t sure that the guard band would even need to be 6 MHz. However, I've been persuaded by the evidence submitted, which indicates that the guard band needs to be about 10 MHz to prevent harmful interference between wireless carriers and broadcasters."

Pai indicated he’s more open-minded about unlicensed operations in the guard bands. “I will not support placing any television stations in the duplex gap,” he said. “But aside from that, I have an open mind so long as operations don’t harmfully interfere with adjacent licensed services. That’s what the law requires, and that’s just common sense. On this issue, it is time to move past the rhetoric and the slogans. If you want to use the guard band, conduct field tests, bring in your engineers, and present a use case that will work."

More decisions remain on other band plan issues, Pai said. “One question is whether to vary the band plan in each economic area, regionally, or not at all. At this point, I'm skeptical that a market-by-market band plan will work. The co-channel interference problem appears too difficult to overcome. On the other hand, a regional band plan could work. In that plan, paired spectrum would be the same across the nation, but the amount of supplemental downlink spectrum could vary on a regional basis."

Rosenworcel laid out a set of principles extending beyond more than just the incentive auction. Consumers should come first, she said: Simplicity is critical, she said. “Incentive auctions, traditional auctions, and secondary markets need to be considered together,” she said. “Consumers want access to more service. To serve them, carriers need access to more spectrum. The needs of carriers from traditional auctions are influenced by their expectations for incentive auctions."

The process for developing the rules should be an open one, Rosenworcel said. “It would be a good idea to hold a series of four public hearings on the incentive auctions,” she said. “We can use these sessions to explore four major aspects of the auctions -- the reverse auction, the repacking, the forward auction, and the transition process. We could ask the hard questions. What’s the right balance of licensed and unlicensed spectrum under the law? How do the forward and reverse auctions fit together? Sequential or simultaneous?"

The FCC should first move to auction 65 MHz of spectrum together next year -- the 1915-1920 MHz and 1995-2000 MHz band, known as the H block, the 1695-1710 MHz band, the 2155-2180 MHz band and an additional 15 megahertz of continuous spectrum to be identified by the FCC, Rosenworcel said. “Let’s make clear now that we aim to hold the incentive auctions in the fourth quarter of 2014, after we hold the traditional auctions,” she said. “There is good reason to do it this way. Carriers need a bit of time following the traditional auction of 65 MHz to reassess their spectrum needs before the incentive auctions begin. But more than that, by auctioning the 65 MHz before proceeding to the incentive auction, we will get a head start funding the nation’s first interoperable, wireless, broadband network for public safety. That’s a good thing.”

Unlike past CTIA shows, the CEOs of the carriers were largely absent from the morning keynote sessions. CTIA decided to take things “in a different direction” this year, an association official said.

During a Wednesday morning keynote, Gibu Thomas, global head of mobile at Walmart, explained the retail giant’s philosophy both as a seller of wireless service and in making its 4,000 U.S. stores user-friendly through company apps. “We've only begun to scratch the service of what’s possible here,” Thomas said. The company has been testing a program that lets consumers scan products with their phones as they put them in their shopping baskets, he said. “We as an industry have a lot of conversations about mobile wallets and mobile payments and we're paying close attention to these things,” he said. “It’s really early days. A lot of things will be tried, some will work and others won’t."

Walmart listens to its customers, Thomas said. “It doesn’t have to be always the cutting edge, augmented reality, whiz bang feature to get the kind of impact you want for your customer. It can be simple things that fits their everyday needs,” he said. “The ultimate measure of success is customer value.” But companies also need to “push the envelopes,” he said. “As the company that created the largest private satellite communications network to link our operations before the Internet came along and leveraged big data to optimize our supply chain before big data was cool, pushing the envelope is in our DNA. But the core purpose behind everything we do is driven by helping our customers save money."

Rovio Chief Operations Officer Harri Koponen discussed the company’s star product, Angry Birds, an app that has been downloaded 1.7 billion times. “Our company talks about what some people call customers, we call them fans,” Koponen said. “Fans you can’t fool. They are always on or off … and you are a lifetime fan. You don’t switch.” It’s also important to be recognizable, he said. “Every single person, wherever I go today, they recognize the brand."

Rovio sees carriers as natural “partners,” Koponen said. “What’s essential in the business of Rovio is the data needs to be there. You can’t play the game without data connectivity. You can’t watch the movie or animation without online connectivity.” Rovio makes sure its games can be readily downloaded, he said. “Believe me, operators, this is good business for you as well -- 2 minutes 52 seconds animation over the mobile data. … We just need to find out how to make these services so good that we don’t disrupt your cap ex and op ex plans.”

Michael Chasen, CEO of SocialRadar, explained how the startup and similar apps are changing how people learn and connect. The app, still in beta, tells people who they may know attending the same event, such as the CTIA show, by mining data from Twitter, Facebook and other apps. Chasen was also a founder of Blackboard Inc., which puts college instruction online. “Just like the Internet disrupted education, the next disrupter was always right around the corner,” Chasen said. “I can tell you that mobile is that disrupter. We've already seen disrupting of the consumer industries. We've seen how it’s disrupting music.” Broadcast and TV was changed forever by video on demand, he said. “Now it’s being disrupted again as people are watching and consuming so much of this media right on their mobile devices.”