Slow Progress Expected on Bilateral Sharing Despite DOD Push
Bidirectional sharing, in which federal agencies could access some commercial spectrum, got a plug from the FCC’s top engineer this week, but progress has been slow on the issue, despite a multiyear push by DOD, industry observers said. The Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee approved a report on the topic in June (see 1606080050), but the net effect was to call for a multiday, multistakeholder workshop. CSMAC members and others told us Wednesday that bidirectional sharing raises many difficult issues that won't be addressed overnight.
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FCC Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp told CSMAC Monday (see 1608010044) he sees bidirectional sharing as an issue likely to get more attention. Some federal agencies are now saying, “I’m willing to share, but how about the other direction?” Knapp said.
DOD has long pushed for a focus on bidirectional sharing, as government agencies face additional pressure to move off spectrum bands (see 1509010059). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a blog post last year that the FCC would look at two-way spectrum sharing but has had little to say on the topic since (see 1508030071).
A final version of the CSMAC report emphasizes the difficulty of two-way sharing. “Institutional barriers at the FCC and NTIA, including the existing regulatory and legal structures are not designed to facilitate sharing,” the report said. “Our work here is designed as a first step towards addressing these issues; additional study and reform on the broader issues remains important to long term effective spectrum management.”
CSMAC’s Bidirectional Sharing Subcommittee “moved the ball forward significantly on this subject,” CSMAC member Mark Crosby told us Wednesday. “There is obviously more to accomplish to promote more active and fluid spectrum sharing, and I suspect that the topic will remain a critical point of discussion in future CSMAC agendas.” Crosby is president of the Enterprise Wireless Alliance.
Bidirectional sharing happens today, but as part of spectrum efficiency, all options must be on the table, an NTIA official said. The CSMAC subcommittee offered some initial recommendations in June and CSMAC is expected to continue to study the issue, the official said. DOD and the FCC didn't comment.
CSMAC member Michael Calabrese said during Monday’s meeting that one area of focus should be on whether there's a “framework” for “temporary and nonharmful access to any band for federal agencies.” Questions should include “what would be the framework for that, what would be the mechanism,” he said. Calabrese is director of the Wireless Future Program at New America.
“The FCC has already approved use-it-or-share-it access to vacant licensed spectrum as part of the new Citizens Broadband Radio Service at 3.5 GHz and in the auctioned 600 MHz spectrum post-auction,” Calabrese emailed Wednesday. “This required a database mechanism to ensure that opportunistic users would vacate when the licensees actually put the spectrum to use. There is no reason a similar framework cannot enable and streamline bidirectional sharing for federal users.”
A CSMAC member who has been active on the issue said there has been movement, with memorandums of understanding in place that provide a framework for more sharing. “The part that's harder is the type off dynamic sharing that has foiled commercial on commercial sharing as well,” like in the TV white spaces, the CSMAC member said. An industry official with clients who support sharing said DOD has been working aggressively on the issue, but the details are hard and sharing can take many different forms.
Former NTIA Administrator Janice Obuchowski said during Monday’s CSMAC meeting that little attention has been paid to whether “other levers,” such as shared access to technology, could encourage bidirectional sharing. Obuchowski, president of Freedom Technologies, said the proposed workshop needs to be “meaty and timely.” If it’s not timely, given the rapid movement on spectrum, “it’s going to be an academic exercise,” she said. Obuchowski noted that as a member of the subcommittee she had recommended instead of a workshop that the FCC and NTIA formally seek comment
“Sharing conversations rightly assume the spectrum federal users currently require to achieve their mission is in excess … not the other way around,” said Doug Brake, telecom policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. It's possible in some cases federal demand exceeds supply, “but I would think those situations are pretty rare,” Brake said. “Bidirectional sharing seems more about preserving options and offering a bargaining chip to get conversations about further commercial access moving than a real policy imperative.”
Spectrum sharing happens every day with mobile virtual network operators and the networks that support them, said Richard Bennett, free-market blogger and network architect. “The MVNO model is successful because it includes a primary spectrum manager, usually a mobile network operator, and a number of secondary users, the MVNOs,” Bennett said. “CSMAC is making spectrum sharing much more complicated than it needs to because it wishes to use an opportunistic model, where any party can access the spectrum at any time with limited or no coordination, instead of the managed model used by MVNOs.”