US Got What It Wanted at WRC on Future of UHF Band, FCC Official Says
The World Radiocommuncation Conference (WRC) that meets in 2019 in Geneva will take on very different issues than the last WRC, which was in November. The future use of the UHF band for mobile broadband isn't expected to come back as a topic, government officials said Thursday during an FCBA brown bag lunch. Top issues from the U.S. perspective in 2019 will include mobile broadband in bands above 6 GHz, global aeronautical distress and safety services, and the 5 GHz band, said Julie Zoller of the State Department, deputy head of the U.S. delegation to WRC-15.
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“International harmonization lends itself to economies of scale, to interoperability, to being able to provide the same services in different regions,” Zoller said. She said Decker Anstrom was the first American to repeat as head of the delegation. “I know you’re thinking what I’m thinking and that is, will he do it again?” she said. “The answer is ‘no.’”
“It’s a never-ending process,” said Jennifer Manner, EchoStar vice president-regulatory affairs, a member of the U.S. delegation to WRC-15. “You come back and right away you have to start prepping in the U.S. so that the U.S. has positions.” “You said it exactly right, and it’s a little depressing,” responded Alexander Roytblat, WRC director at the FCC.
The FCC failed to get global agreement on its approach to the UHF band during the November conference, despite lobbying from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and other U.S. officials (see 1511050041). The FCC will soon start the world’s first incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum.
The U.S. has “demonstrated leadership” on mobile broadband, Roytblat said. Several countries would like to follow the U.S. lead on the UHF band, he said. “But there are political realities on the ground in those countries that sometimes preclude the regulators from being proactive” at the WRC, “where they would have to indicate their intention in the future,” he said. Other nations can follow the U.S.’ approach on the UHF band, Roytblat said. But it means there will be no ITU studies and no recommendations on how to use the band, he said. “That, I think, is to the detriment of the entire ITU membership.”
But the U.S. got what it needed on the UHF band on the whole at WRC-15, Roytblat said. The conference must not be seen as a failure, he said. “We have identified this band in the United States,” he said. “Our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, decided to go along with this identification as well as a number of other countries. Some countries were not ready to do so” but can later join the U.S., he said. “As far as the U.S. is concerned, we are done, we are identified in the band and that’s the most we can achieve because we don’t tell other countries what to do.”
Zoller said every WRC allows nations to join or be deleted from existing identifications. No specific items look at mobile broadband below 6 GHz at WRC-19, but work will be done in the various study groups, she said. WRC focus has moved on to higher spectrum bands, she said.
Once the U.S. starts to deploy broadband in the UHF band, following the incentive auction, and once devices and equipment are available for the 600 MHz spectrum, “it actually does become more attractive to other countries,” Manner said. “Technology moves along, and often that will move things.”