Unlicensed Spectrum Critical ‘Catalyst for Innovation,’ Wheeler Says

"Unlicensed spectrum has been, and must continue to be, the catalyst for innovation,” Wheeler said. “Therefore we must make sure that unlicensed spectrum is a key part of whatever set of decisions we make.” Unlicensed is also of growing importance to carriers, which are using Wi-Fi to move loads off their networks, he said.

"We're pro how do you use spectrum most efficiently for the common good of this nation, to drive economic growth and to make sure that we maintain world leadership in the application of spectrum-delivered services,” Wheeler said. “There are going to be tensions between broadcast and mobile. There are going to be tensions between licensed and unlicensed. Our goal, consistent with the Spectrum Act, is to continue America’s leadership in the spectrum world.”

Wheeler had talking points, but appeared to speak largely off the cuff. “Not only is it my first meeting, but it’s the first time I've been on this side of the dais,” Wheeler said. “It’s kind of nice up here.” Wheeler had warm words for Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp and made clear Knapp will still be around. “What a national treasure Julie is,” Wheeler said, saying after he was nominated “I called Julie and I said, ‘you are going to stick around, right?’ and he assured me that he was."

Wheeler stressed that he planned to run an open shop as chairman. “The reason we run an open and transparent process is that there is no such thing as a good surprise,” he said. “It’s the golden rule.” The FCC needs advice from industry players as it navigates through tough issues, Wheeler said. “Not all wisdom resides on the eighth floor and I can guarantee you it doesn’t reside in the corner office of the chairman.”

"You're going to deal with some tough issues today,” Wheeler told workshop participants. “You're going to help us work our way through this process.”

Knapp said when the Communications Act of 1934 was written it included a provision that said all spectrum must be licensed. But then, early on, someone developed the phono oscillator, an early baby monitor that used AM radio frequencies. “Everybody knew that it didn’t make any sense to license these things individually,” he said. “It took a few years and they came up with the idea that these are operating in what the engineers called the near field, and the near field is the magnetic field and the magnetic field isn’t radio and therefore we didn’t have to license them."

In 2010, the FCC approved rules allowing for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed operations in the TV band built around the use of databases, Knapp noted. “There’s been a lot of interest in this,” he said.

Last year, the FCC released its NPRM on the TV incentive auction, Knapp said. “Relative to unlicensed, the NPRM sought to provide substantial spectrum for unlicensed on a nationwide basis,” he said. “Under the rules that we have in place there are spots where there may be little or no spectrum for unlicensed [operations] because, for example, in downtown New York there are so many operations there really isn’t much white space to speak of.” The FCC has tried to guarantee that “wherever you are” white spaces devices could operate, he said.

"The challenge for all of us is not whether we have wireless microphones or unlicensed or medical telemetry, radioastronomy,” Knapp said at the end of the workshop. “It’s trying to figure out how we make the most efficient use [of spectrum] and accommodate all of these different desires to use the spectrum and all the good that comes with it.” Knapp said there are “very real engineering challenges” ahead as the agency works to get the auction rules right. “As we continue in the spectrum world to press the envelope on access methods and, yeah, we can do more than we did before and still have the confidence that things are going to work the way they're intended, is really the challenge for all of us,” he said.

The workshop had testimony from two panels of experts on technical questions before the FCC, as well as on early uses of white-spaces spectrum. Various industry players have disagreed sharply in the past on the proper size of the guardbands and duplex gap, which will be open to unlicensed use (CD March 15 p1).

The spectrum law requires that the guardbands be “technically reasonable” to protect carrier operations after the TV spectrum is sold in the auction, said panelist Tom Dombrowsky of Wiley Rein. “Adding in the unlicensed while certainly important is not something that should be overriding the licensed, paired spectrum that you get out of this,” he said. “At the end of the day the spectrum we're trying to get here is occupied by the broadcasters."

"What we've seen evolve in the last three, four years or so is people specializing and looking at the markets of machine-to-machine, whether this is the agriculture business or if it’s the narrowband telemetry-type communications, maybe oil and gas,” said Peter Stanforth, chief technology officer at Spectrum Bridge. “We've seen products that evolved kind of specializing for that.”

Microsoft has been involved in projects using unlicensed spectrum on four continents, said Paul Garnett, director in Microsoft’s Technology Policy Group. “We've done projects that really run the gamut in terms of applications and services delivered, everything from sort of the obvious, which is rural broadband access, we're doing that in Kenya and South Africa.” The Microsoft projects use white-space radios. “There are more and more products coming on market all the time,” he said. “What we're seeing is quite encouraging in terms of the throughput and range and latency capabilities of these radios, and you can deploy networks using white-space radios today with basically Wi-Fi hanging off the end, and enable consumers to gain access to the Internet who have never had it before.”

In Tanzania, Microsoft is deploying urban networks, built around college campuses, Garnett said. “The spectrum environment in an urban Africa is not the same as it is in the U.S. and there are interesting things we're going to learn from that.” In Singapore, “one of the most connected places on the planet,” people still want to use the white spaces built around “smart city” applications, he said. “They still want more ubiquitous, more available and cheaper bandwidth,” he said. “I think we should expect the unexpected from this just as we have experienced from other unlicensed bands and other unlicensed technologies.”

Garnett said that while devices and other equipment are being manufactured the white-spaces market has moved forward in “fits and starts” so far. “Part of the issue mainly is around regulatory certainty. … The fact is that there are big companies that are sitting on the sidelines today because they don’t see the regulatory certainty they need in order to move forward with investments."

Robert Rucker, vice president of the United Negro College Fund, said AirU, which uses white-spaces spectrum, can help in the deployment of broadband in underserved areas. “Underserved communities historically have not had the same resources and access,” he said. CTC Technology & Energy CEO Andrew Afflerbach, representing Garrett County, Md., said carriers serve much of the county but alternatives are needed in pockets that are generally poor and rural. “There isn’t a business case to build out,” he said. A project in the county will use white-spaces spectrum and three base stations, including one on a ridgetop next to wind turbines, to expand broadband coverage. “Individuals who live there will be able to get the resources that they need from school, the online textbooks and all the other things that are taken for granted in the more built-up areas in the rest of Maryland,” Afflerbach said.