Increased Shared Spectrum Within 10 Years, Experts Say

Since spectrum is a finite public resource, it must be used more efficiently, panelists said. “Unlike any other natural resource, we know spectrum will be here forever basically until our atmosphere goes away,” said Stuart Timerman, director of the Defense Spectrum Organization at the Department of Defense. It will take time to find ways to use spectrum more efficiently, he said. Industry can’t throw away 80 years of slicing and dicing spectrum, use new technology and not expect anything to happen, he said: “You can’t move as fast as an election cycle because you’re dealing with technology, physics, funding.”

PwC principal Dan Hays questioned if auctions are the best way to allocate or assign spectrum. “This notion of big one-time auctions probably is a bit dated,” he said. “It’s high time for us to think about how a public asset is being used most effectively for the future.” The auctions have become very expensive, said Lawrence Krevor, Sprint vice president-legal and government affairs. “It questions what carriers can really afford to invest in networks and provide competitive services on a long-term basis,” he said. “It’s like a heroin addict,” said Mark Aitken, Sinclair vice president-technology. "Give me that next $25 billion shot, please."

The U.S. is facing a spectrum scarcity in both volume and quality, said John Dooley, managing partner at Jarvinian Spectrum Opportunity Fund. “The accumulative chorus of noise and interference is growing,” he said. “The effective throughput of spectrum is degrading.” There won’t be a magical solution to interference, and receiver standards are needed, Hays said. “This will be a multi-decade issue.”

“The next 10 years is going to be all about technology as a solution to the [spectrum] crisis,” said Tim Downs, vice president of emerging markets at Light Reading, who directed the conference. The shift to using more data and video also makes it important to regulate spectrum effectively, Hays said. “When it was voice and email, it was arguably pretty easy. Those were narrowband applicants,” he said. He questioned what would happen to spectrum allocated for broadcast if over-the-top services replace broadcast and cable.

Regulatory frameworks don’t exist to ensure efficient spectrum use, Hays said. “As the spectrum user community, we have a duty to think about spectrum issues much like we did years ago for recycling,” he said, suggesting spectrum use be reduced, recycled and reused. “Sharing isn’t going to solve the problem alone when you have massive rises in usage at different times of the day. The answer is going to have to be a portfolio approach, a mixture of licensed, unlicensed and shared spectrum.” Timerman cited the National Advanced Spectrum and Communications Test Network, set up in September, which lets industry test capable systems for efficient spectrum use.

Industry can combine several sharing options on a platform that enables consumers to consume what they want, Aitken said. “What’s critical to the future of this nation, consumers, government, wireless providers and broadcasters is that we begin to look at the need for heterogeneous networks for a hybrid future. For the harmonization of standards.”

Timerman suggested creating a national spectrum strategy to deal with spectrum issues in the future and said the DOD wants to work with the industry to find solutions. The DOD is almost ready to publish its road map for moving forward, he said. In the past, the DOD was secretive about its uses of spectrum because of classified information, he said. Industry came up with the idea of the DOD sharing sensitive information with a trusted agent to gain insight into DOD systems and make informed decisions, he said. “We’ve done a lot of damage pigeonholing ourselves into spectrum,” he said. “We’d like to find other ways to use spectrum, move throughout spectrum, to protect the U.S. and allow [businesses] to operate without the restrictions of the allocation chart.”

Broadcasting can look very different, Aitken said, suggesting it will be IP-packet based in the future. “Technologically, we can have a candidate ready by the end of this year. If we had the regulatory freedom, I’d postulate that we could launch these new kinds of services and deploy beta trials 18 months from now. The reality is it’s going to be a lot longer.” He said broadcasting should be involved with 5G. Sinclair intends "to be part of that market in both delivery and receive side,” he said.