US Push for Global Harmonization of UHF Band Makes Little Sense, NAB Says

“It’s hard not to believe the push for ‘harmonization’ is merely a pretext,” NAB General Counsel Rick Kaplan said Friday. “The U.S. didn’t wait for the rest of the world to do an incentive auction and we lead the world in 4G in a non-harmonized band. In addition, the U.S. delegation is not even seeking to harmonize. It’s seeking to go far beyond what our own FCC even authorized in its attempt to re-designate the entire UHF band. It makes little sense and is way out of touch with the rest of the world.”

Politics is a factor in the U.S. push on harmonization, said Richard Bennett, network architect and founder of the High Tech Forum. “Spectrum uniformity modestly reduces manufacturing and inventory costs for Apple and Motorola, so it’s nice to have, if not essential,” Bennett said Friday. “The FCC’s larger agenda is asserting global leadership in hopes that other countries will validate its policy directions generally.”

Former government officials said it's hard not to notice the increasing emphasis on spectrum harmonization in U.S. advocacy at the WRC.

Decker Anstrom, U.S. ambassador to the WRC, said there has been a shift and the U.S. is more focused on harmonizing spectrum for mobile broadband. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler stressed the importance of a harmonized world approach to broadcast spectrum during a recent news media call from Geneva (see 1511050041). “The U.S. is more focused on opportunities to harmonize,” Anstrom said Thursday. “Chairman [Tom] Wheeler laid that out very well at our first press conference about the economies of size and scope.”

The prospect of “truly global markets” is behind the change in U.S. focus, Anstrom said. The U.S. has high penetration of mobile broadband and increasing demand for service, Anstrom said. “But we have 3 billion, 3 billion people who are still unconnected to the Internet and that’s a massive global audience, which if we’re able to reach it efficiently we can then also ensure that operators will have a chance to offer [service] in an affordable fashion,” he said. “That obviously advances everyone’s objective of people having access at an affordable price.”

“What we’ve seen over the course of several WRCs is that once a band begins to be identified for IMT in larger numbers of countries, the evolution of that band is toward IMT,” said Julie Zoller, a State Department official and deputy head of the U.S. delegation to the WRC. In the past, a larger number of countries identified the 3.4-3.6 GHz band for mobile broadband, she said. “Now here we are at WRC-15 finishing the job … and going toward the more global solution.” Harmonization can be accomplished at one WRC or two or three WRCs, she said. “The more efficient route is to go for the global allocation.”

“International harmonization of spectrum bands has become increasingly important as the number of LTE bands has proliferated around the world, and the U.S. has reason to start the process earlier rather than later with this band,” said Fred Campbell, executive director of the Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. has some difficulty persuading other nations to adopt its 600 MHz band plan given its variable nature and its approach to the protection of unlicensed uses in the duplex gap.”

Equipment makers are increasingly trying to create a single, global SKU (stock-keeping unit) number “that can work in any market and carry all the major spectrum bands,” said Jan Dawson, analyst at Jackdaw Research. “Harmonization is always a good thing when it comes to achieving those economies of scale. The other benefit, of course, is roaming, which is becoming increasingly important when it comes to LTE.”

“It helps everyone if bands are harmonized as it means that the device will work globally and does not require electronics for two, three or 43 bands,” said Roger Entner, analyst at Recon Analytics. “The fewer the bands, the less power is needed, the longer the battery life of the device, the lower the bill” on materials, he said. “For handset manufacturers like Apple" fewer devices "lowers their manufacturing cost and the need to exactly forecast the demand for a device in a given geography. In the end, consumers win by cheaper devices that work in more places and use less power.”

Mobile technology brings many opportunities for consumers and economies, said Jonathan Spalter, chairman of Mobile Future. "To continue our nation’s mobile success story and compete globally, our innovators and investors must look beyond our national borders. At the WRC, we must be an advocate for pro-consumer, pro-innovation wireless policies that will continue to position us as a leader in this new global mobile frontier.”