Carriers Line Up Against Broadcasters, Unlicensed Advocates on Commencement of Operations Rule for Incentive Auction

The FCC’s proposed rules would have operations start when site activation and commissioning tests start in a market, using permanent base station equipment and permanent antenna or tower locations, CCA noted. “CCA respectfully requests that the Commission modify its proposal to provide that operations commence as soon as a 600 MHz Band licensee initiates [radio frequency] transmissions,” the association said. The FCC should also deem operations to start in the entire license area won in the auction rather than limit operations on a site-by-site basis, CCA said.

The multiple facility tests that carriers have to conduct can take 120 days or more to complete, CCA said. “Winning bidders in the incentive auction will have paid billions of dollars for exclusive license rights in the 600 MHz Band, and to deploy quickly on this spectrum will need to be able to operate tests without interference from secondary users,” the association said. “Providers need to be able to build out over the entire geographic area encompassed by their license because they cannot necessarily know which base stations will be effective, or should be prioritized, for their initial deployments.”

AT&T said there has been broad agreement with its proposal for a “straightforward and simple framework” for determining when operations are deemed to start. Don't “rewrite” the Spectrum Act, the 2012 law which gave the FCC the authority to hold the first incentive auction, AT&T advised the FCC. “The Spectrum Act affords almost no protections for secondary Low Power Television uses and expressly prohibits unlicensed services from causing harmful interference to licensed users,” the carrier said. “While some secondary and unlicensed operators may provide laudable services to the public, in Congress’s judgment such services are not to be protected during the 600 MHz band’s reallocation for exclusive uses.”

But Google said the FCC’s proposed approach “reasonably limits the time periods and areas in which 600 MHz spectrum will sit idle, enabling efficient use of this valuable resource.” Google is a leading proponent of spectrum for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use. “Halting unlicensed usage of 600 MHz spectrum at times and places in which licensees are not actually operating or conducting site commissioning tests is a recipe for warehousing, a result antithetical to sound spectrum management,” Google said. It also questioned why operations should start in an entire partial economic area (PEA) just because activation and commissioning tests take place in one corner. The entire state of Hawaii is a single PEA and Alaska, despite its massive size, is divided into just four PEAs, Google observed.

New America’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge agreed with Google that the FCC’s proposal gets the commencement rules right. The public interest groups said, “Thanks to the automated enforcement mechanism of the TV Bands Database, there is absolutely no downside or risk for licensees. The new 600 MHz band license holders would maintain all of their rights to use the public resource -- they would only lose the option to warehouse it.”

The FCC’s proposal to tie commencement of operations to site commission testing will keep spectrum from “lying fallow” because it doesn’t require LPTV and translators to be displaced until wireless companies “have made significant capital investments and are reasonably close to providing service,” NAB said. Such a policy ensures the spectrum is put to its “highest and best use” and not wasted, said the Association of Public Television Stations, Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS in a joint filing. Proposals to require that spectrum be vacated at the end of the post-auction transition period will lead to fallow spectrum, NAB said. “Despite holding licenses for years, many carriers have still not built out spectrum in rural areas due to economic infeasibility,” NAB said.

For the same reasons, notice that a 600 MHz band licensee has commenced operations should cover only the area that would be affected by interference from operating LPTV or translator stations, said NAB and the public broadcasters. The FCC should “allow television translator stations to continue serving their communities until their operations would pose a genuine impediment" to a wireless licensee’s service deployment, the joint public broadcaster filing said. “Should a translator on one end of a PEA be forced off the air merely because a wireless carrier commences limited operations in the opposite corner of that PEA?” NAB asked. “Such an approach is senseless and wasteful.” The FCC should also be receptive to waiver applications from translator stations seeking to operate beyond the 39-month deadline to cease transmitting, the public broadcasters said. “This approach appropriately recognizes that a translator station’s continued operation in a guard band or the duplex gap after the Post-Auction Transition Period could serve the public interest better than rigid adherence to artificial deadlines.”

The FCC is attempting to take steps to help low-power TV stations and translators ahead of the auction, slated for Q1 of 2016, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in a letter released Tuesday. “To help accommodate some of the needs of LPTV and TV translator stations, these stations will be permitted to remain on their existing channels during the transition period after the Incentive Auction, unless or until they are notified that they interfere with the primary service,” Wheeler said. “Licensees of operative LPTV and TV translator stations that are displaced by a broadcast television station or a wireless service provider, or whose channel is reserved as a guard band, will be permitted to submit an application for displacement relief in a special filing window.” He mentioned the proceeding that the FCC opened to address these issues, which the FCC expects to complete ahead of the auction, Wheeler said. The FCC foresees offering “a uniform number of spectrum licenses in most markets” in the U.S., Wheeler said.