FCC’s TAC Taking on Network Resilience Following Disaster, Cyberattack

"We want to focus on market-driven collaboration,” Gyurek said. “I think everybody on the team agrees that’s probably the best way to move forward,” he said. “There are practices in place. There are plans in place. I think part of it is getting the data out there and maybe a little better collaboration.” TAC will look at incentives to carriers for making their networks more resilient, he said. “Also, I think it’s really critical that we look at the measurements and metrics,” Gyurek said. “The real question up front was how do we ensure that [there is] network resiliency in five years, 10 years or 15 years and there has to be some way to measure that.”

TAC met for the first time in three years without Chairman Tom Wheeler, who was nominated as the next chairman of the FCC and is stepping aside form his role at the advisory group (CD June 12 p 16) though he remains a member. TAC member Dennis Roberson, vice provost and research professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, took over as acting chairman. Other new members were named. (See separate report below in this issue.)

One focus of the Resiliency Working Group report will be forecasting, Gyurek said. “If you have a Category 5 hurricane coming into a city, it would be nice to know how bad your network is going to get hit or how many problems you're going to have,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a perfect science.” Rural issues will be another focus, he said, as will communications with the public. “How do we get the information to consumers as well, because a lot of times consumers are left stranded in the dark and it’s not intentional,” he said. “They don’t have access, they don’t have connectivity, but how do you get that information out to them.” The report will also focus on collateral damage when power networks also go down, he said. “Obviously, that’s going to affect the ability to restore a lot of broadband networks. They do require power.”

The TAC Spectrum Frontier Working Group is exploring the use of bands in high frequency ranges, particularly mobile broadband at 30 GHz and the use of 60 GHz for unlicensed industrial, scientific and medical and how to accelerate the use of these bands in a time of spectrum scarcity. “If you take our use today and the demand that’s there, you're talking about not adding tens of megahertz, it’s literally hundreds and hundreds of megahertz” that will be needed, said task force Chairman Adam Drobot of OpenTechWorks. “A lot of stuff has been granted” in higher spectrum bands, he said. “It has all kinds of rules built around it and a considerable amount of spectrum is actually being turned back in, people are abandoning those licenses.” TAC needs to look at what the FCC can do to encourage build out in these bands, he said.

Another issue that needs more focus is international harmonization, since the bands are already in use for various purposes in other countries, Drobot said. “What is it that we do in the U.S. if 48 countries have already adopted a standard and what are the issues about that?” Drobot asked. “We're going to take a hard look at some of the stuff in the visible place,” he said. “The promise of smart antenna technologies,” raises questions, he said. “The first is what can you do to improve packaging in devices of this sort and end up with much better spectrum efficiency essentially. And then the next is, at higher frequencies we have more path loss, things of that sort … what can the technology do? Then again, how do the rules that the FCC has specifically deal with more complex antenna systems?"

"This is really important work,” said Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology. “One of the things to keep in mind is we're kind of on the verge to seeing the new wide-gig technology deployed. I think we're probably a year or two from seeing in consumer products. … Those rules at 57-64 GHz were put in place more than 10 years ago. So as we think about this we're not thinking about is it ready today, but are there things that we can see where we create opportunities that will encourage people to invest and develop technology."

TAC also got an update from its Commercial Off-the-Shelf Working Group, which is getting started on a report. “Essentially, we're looking for a lower cost solution for multiple wireless applications, whether it’s public safety, military, education, park service … telematics, healthcare,” said Shahid Ahmed of Accenture, chairman of the working group. “We will explore some of the specific use cases and segments in terms of what are the impediments, barriers of entry, what are the commonalities."

"One of the roots of the problem here is we've gone from kind of this command and control approach through the years of ‘I've got this particular application and so I'm going to allocate spectrum for that particular application and build devices just for that,'” Knapp said. “We don’t really have the luxury today, when somebody comes in, of saying, ‘Well, I've got this particular application and I need 10 MHz for it’ when we look and see that there’s technologies and systems and commercial services operators out there who could meet the same need and potentially more efficiently.” Part of what is required is a “mindset” change, he said.

Acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn stopped by the meeting for a briefing on the work TAC is doing at this point. “Your input and technical expertise are central to the commission in identifying key areas of innovation and developing informed technology policies supporting the United States competitiveness in this global economy,” Clyburn said. Former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski had been a regular visitor.