Verizon Says 2.5 GHz Spectrum Must Be Added to FCC Spectrum Screen

"For nearly 40 years, the Commission has labored to tap the promise of the 2.5 GHz band -- a swath of spectrum originally dedicated for educational use,” Verizon said (http://bit.ly/NxgFZN). “Time and again, the Commission took steps to foster commercial opportunities in the band through licensing, flexible use rules, modernized technical limits, a band plan overhaul, and -- notably -- through increasingly liberalized policies allowing educational licensees to lease their spectrum to commercial providers."

Verizon recounted the history of the band, now licensed as broadband radio service (BRS) and educational broadband service (EBS) spectrum, ending in the consolidation of control of much of the spectrum under Sprint. “It is indisputable that the 2.5 GHz band spectrum is ’suitable’ and ‘available’ for mobile broadband today,” Verizon said. “All of [the] 2.5 GHz band -- BRS and EBS included -- is ‘capable of supporting mobile service.’ It is ‘licensed with a mobile allocation and corresponding service rules.’ And save perhaps for the 5 percent of EBS capacity that is reserved for educational use, it is not ‘committed to another use.’ The 2.5 GHz band is ‘available’ -- indeed it is in use for mobile broadband. It is time for the Commission to include the 2.5 GHz band in the spectrum screen.” Sprint doesn’t want the FCC to attribute such spectrum.

The Competitive Carriers Association, of which Sprint is a member, has “long called for updating the spectrum screen, and any such update must ensure that it is an effective tool to prevent harmful spectrum aggregation, not a shield to protect further consolidation efforts from the two largest carriers,” CCA President Steve Berry told us. “An update to the screen must take into account the characteristics of different bands, including the importance of access to low-band spectrum, to support increased competition. With several important auctions on the horizon, including the 600 MHz incentive auction, it is important for the FCC to act now to update these outdated rules."

NAB incentive auction pointman Rick Kaplan said Verizon’s arguments make sense. “On the merits, Verizon has a very strong argument,” said Kaplan, NAB executive vice president and former Wireless Bureau chief. “If the commission is going to weight spectrum a certain way, go and ahead do it that way,” he said. “But until it does, it probably should count all the spectrum that’s actually out there in its screen."

On another auction issue, the FCC issued a notice on a Feb. 25 meeting at the agency on the proper license sizes for the incentive auction. The notice said the commission was providing a summary rather than asking all of the parties at the meeting to do so. All of the FCC’s key auction staff was at the meeting, including acting Wireless Bureau Chief Roger Sherman and Gary Epstein, head of the Incentive Auction Task Force. Also attending were the four major carriers, U.S. Cellular, and associations representing smaller carriers, including CCA and the Rural Wireless Association. “The discussion focused on the proposal to license the new 600 MHz Band using Partial Economic Areas,” the FCC said (http://bit.ly/1caaiqz). “Parties presented their views on the PEA proposal, and reiterated their previously-stated positions on geographic area license size and package bidding generally.”