All Systems Go for March 29 Incentive Auction Launch, FCC Officials Say
The FCC is proceeding full speed ahead to begin the incentive auction March 29, senior commission officials said on panels at Wednesday's Telecommunications Industry Association conference. "We're excited. We're 20 days out. All systems are go," said Howard Symons, vice chairman of the Incentive Auction Task Force. Asked if there was a chance for a delay, Julius Knapp, chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, said, "We're still moving ahead for the 29th." Pressed by a reporter if there were some possibility for a delay, he said, "Not inside this building." Knapp said the FCC is focused on the "mechanics of the auction."
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The priority is on running the auction, Symons agreed. But the FCC has begun "to pivot" to preparing for the transition in which broadcast spectrum in the 600 MHz band would be repurposed for mobile wireless use and remaining TV station signals would be repacked, he said, noting the process is expected to take 39 months -- three months for broadcaster applications and 36 months to repack. That transition will be "challenging but manageable," he said, saying Chairman Tom Wheeler has indicated the Incentive Auction Task Force would continue post-auction, because the agency will need to marshal its resources across bureaus and offices.
Symons said the FCC also needs to complete two further proceedings. In one, the agency is proposing to preserve one vacant TV channel for unlicensed use in each area (or two white space channels in areas where a TV station is operating on a channel in the duplex gap), and in another, it seeks to facilitate channel sharing between primary (full-power or Class A) stations and low-power TV stations, he said.
The 600 MHz band post-transition will give wireless providers unencumbered spectrum that Wheeler has said is ideally suited for 5G mobile broadband uses, Symons said. The 600 MHz band is "not the only place" but a "great starting place" for 5G systems, where networks can be rapidly deployed, he said. Some carriers already had said they're looking at using the spectrum for 5G, he said.
Symons and others cited the increasing importance of spectrum sharing among many different parties, including federal government and industry spectrum users. Spectrum sharing has been around a long time and "is certainly here to stay," Symons said.
Industry parties aren't the only ones that want exclusive use of spectrum, said Frederick Moorefield, director-spectrum policy and programs at the Office of the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer. Many people inside the DOD want spectrum exclusivity, but that's not realistic, he said. "We have to find better ways of doing business," he said, calling spectrum sharing "the new normal."
Moorefield urged industry parties to look at DOD as a potential partner. "It behooves us all to work together," he said. The challenges don't belong just to industry or government -- It's everybody's problem, he said. "Let's come up with some ideas together." On 5G, he said industry needs to help the DOD better understand what the technology is all about. The sooner it does, the sooner he said he can help industry and the Pentagon collaborate: "I'm one of your biggest advocates in the building." He said the National Spectrum Consortium is looking to develop technologies that can be used not only by the military but also by other federal entities and industry providers.