Administration Still Plans To Identify 500 MHz for Broadband in 2016

Strickling said he has been talking with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler about the 500 MHz goal. The administration set a goal of making available 500 MHz of spectrum for broadband by the end of 2020. NTIA Associate Administrator Paige Atkins said the administration is about halfway to meeting its goal, already identifying 240 MHz. That's the same number NTIA reported last July (see 1507080035).

“We’ll be updating people over the upcoming months,” Strickling said. “I would just say that we’ll get this done only with the cooperation of industry, so I hope all of you are able to help support these efforts.” Strickling asked for particular help in 5 GHz bands being looked at for unlicensed use. “This is an area where industry support will help us greatly in terms of getting our analysis and testing conducted this year,” he said. CSMAC also can help NTIA as it works on high-frequency spectrum, Strickling said. The FCC spectrum frontiers rulemaking is “a very important proceeding” for 5G, he said.

Atkins said in a report to CSMAC that the AWS-3 transition is moving along quickly. “I think things are progressing and there’s good dialogue between the licensees and the agencies that are involved,” she said. As expected, most activity has been in the 1755-1780 MHz band, with more than 150 coordination requests submitted. Carriers pushed vociferously for reallocation of that band in the years before the 2015 AWS-3 auction.

On 5G, Atkins said it's important to recognize that it's not just one thing. “It’s envisioned as a breadth of technologies, an ecosystem of capabilities that will satisfy a very diverse set of requirements and require a very diverse set of characteristics and capabilities,” she said. All spectrum “is not equal” but different bands have a role to play, she said. “You need a mixture of low, mid and high bands.” Industry has said repeatedly that high-band spectrum is a “key gap” of what is available for 5G, she said.

“We’re very excited about spectrum frontiers proceeding not only to fill that gap … but to offer even more opportunities for a mix of licensed and unlicensed use, spectrum sharing, among industry as well as sharing between federal and nonfederal users and, potentially, dual-use technologies,” Atkins said.

Model City Public Notice Imminent

Atkins said the FCC and NTIA will soon release a public notice on a model city spectrum program, the subject of a joint NTIA/FCC workshop last April (see 1504150043). The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (see 1404070044) originally proposed the program as a way to test new spectrum systems in a city that agrees to expedite trials. “We think the model city will act as a catalyst and accelerator for advanced spectrum sharing technology by providing greater scalability” for trials, said Atkins. The model city program also will test bidirectional sharing, in which commercial licensees would be asked to share their underutilized spectrum with the federal government.

CSMAC member Dennis Roberson, Illinois Institute of Technology vice provost-research, questioned how many cities will want to participate in the program. “There’s effectively no funding,” he said. “It’s very hard to see how it’s going to proceed.” In the absence of funding, the interest of cities like Chicago “has really declined,” he said. “I will confirm there is no money, not that there may not be other funding vehicles,” Atkins said. “Based on the feedback that I have gotten, I think there’s still a lot of interest.”

CSMAC got updates from its five subcommittees. In addition to reports posted earlier in the week (see 1603140020), NTIA subsequently posted an update by the 5G subcommittee. NTIA had asked for guidance on differences between 5G networks in comparison with previous generations.

Mariam Sorond, Dish Network vice president-technology development and co-chairwoman of the 5G subcommittee, said there are multiple views on the topic. “There’s one view that says, ‘Here’s this particular standard, here’s this date … it’s up to the ITU,’” she said. “There’s also a different view that says, 'It’s going to come in phases.'” A final view says “5G is here today” and machine-to-machine communications are really 5G, she said.

5G Challenges

The 5G report “is going to be challenging because a lot of the things are not defined,” Sorond said. “We’re hoping that the NTIA would consider this as a start.” A final report will look at specific deployment scenarios, she said.

A report on bidirectional sharing sparked a lively discussion. CSMAC member Dale Hatfield, of Silicon Flatirons, said two-way sharing raises new interference enforcement issues. “Who is responsible for detecting the interference, remediating it and resolving it and so forth,” he said. “That may be band specific, of course, but nevertheless it’s something we probably should think about covering earlier rather than later.”

Mark Crosby, president of the Enterprise Wireless Alliance, a member of the subcommittee, said there is no mystery how public safety agencies want to use shared spectrum. The use cases are “day-to-day, mission-critical activities of agency personnel on the street, on the road, in forests,” Crosby said. Most were looking for access to 700 and 800 MHz spectrum, he said.

NTIA sees public safety as “low-hanging fruit” for sharing, Atkins said. “In general, everybody wants to do the right thing and if they can accommodate the requirement they’re willing to do that,” she said. “Whether we need something more formal in place … I think we need to look into that.”

The subcommittee hasn't yet plowed more fully into bidirectional sharing with the Defense Department, members said. Charla Rath, Verizon vice president-wireless policy development, said DOD questions are more difficult since the department wants co-primary access to auctioned frequencies. “It just raised a lot of pretty fundamental issues,” she said. “We’ve been circulating some ideas about how we might deal with it.”

Jeff Reed, director of wireless at Virginia Tech, explained the motivation for a report on whether evolving database and sensing approaches approved in the U.S. can be exported internationally. It could help the U.S. internationally to lead in the area, he said. “I think it could help with harmonization along the border and how we manage spectrum.”

"We appreciate NTIA's focus on delivering more spectrum,” said Scott Bergmann, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs. “The spectrum made available in the AWS and 700 MHz bands spurred major innovations in LTE deployment and played a significant role in enabling the U.S. to become the world's leader in 4G service. As we've said previously, we will need significant new spectrum resources to fuel our leadership in 5G.”

"Competitive carriers desperately need access to additional spectrum, and CCA has been supportive of efforts to identify and allocate additional spectrum for mobile broadband services," said Steve Berry, president of the Competitive Carriers Association. "Consumers’ insatiable demand for the public safety, health, educational, economic, and social benefits that come with mobile broadband makes it even more important for NTIA and the FCC to identify additional spectrum, both licensed and unlicensed, as soon as possible."