Carrier Anxiety Rises as Administration Moves Closer to Share-First Strategy on Spectrum
The Trump administration is sending the clearest signals yet that sharing is winning versus exclusive-use spectrum licenses. More will be known as decisions are made about various bands, but wireless industry lawyers said carriers may be disappointed by the administration's overall approach. NTIA held a symposium last week on the strategy (see 1806120056), including DOD and FAA officials. NTIA Administrator David Redl said for some bands, sharing may be the only option (see 1806130080). NTIA declined further comment.
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DOD’s focus “is to not allow a single hertz to be shifted,” said a former FCC spectrum official, noting Redl’s comments were the most direct yet on sharing under President Donald Trump. Other industry lawyers agreed Redl’s comments meant rising anxiety for carriers eager to access licensed spectrum.
“Since the supply of spectrum is finite, and all or nearly all frequencies in desirable bands have been assigned to users, there is no way to allow new uses in these bands without increasing sharing,” said Fletcher Heald's Peter Tannenwald. “The wireless industry has pushed hard for both relocation of existing users and forced sharing, and they have sufficient lobbying resources that they have made considerable progress with policymakers. Incumbents will always object to being forced to share, and newcomers will always complain that they are not being given enough ability to share.”
NTIA’s spectrum symposium was "light on content, but the presence of high-ranking military and Redl’s declaration that it’s harder for government to perform its mission in smaller allocations indicates that NTIA spectrum policy will continue along the path of ‘DOD first,’” said Richard Bennett, network architect and free-market blogger. “Instead of reassigning prime midrange spectrum to 5G, we may need to rely on millimeter wave for commercial networks. I suppose we should be happy the private sector is allowed to build networks at all, given the preference of some Commerce Department officials for government-owned networks.” DOD didn't comment. A leaked memo by a “senior National Security Council official” proposed that the U.S. build a national 5G network (see 1801290034).
The Obama White House recognized six years ago that sharing needs to become the norm, countered Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. “The administration’s continued support for sharing, rather than clearing, simply acknowledges the reality that there is nowhere to move DOD and other critical federal systems within any reasonable time frame,” he said. “DOD in particular has completely reoriented its approach to one of cooperation with opening unused capacity in federal bands for sharing.” If other agencies go along, “NTIA and FCC together can create far greater bandwidth abundance than if we were bogged down over battles to clear radar or other operations off slivers of spectrum,” Calabrese said.
Fred Campbell, former chief of the FCC Wireless Bureau, said it’s too early to draw many conclusions. “Like any other approach to spectrum management, sharing involves trade-offs,” Campbell said. “Without more details about how those trade-offs will be addressed, it’s too early to say whether carriers will be disappointed.”
Carriers prefer exclusive use licenses because of the certainty, said former Commissioner Robert McDowell. “In other circumstances, however, they have settled for sharing if that’s all they can get from federal users. Assuming that the administration is indeed leaning toward a continuation of previous sharing policies, it seems that the rule of thumb that any kind of federal user never wants to relinquish its spectrum has a remarkable ability to survive throughout the ages regardless of which party controls the White House.”
Spectrum sharing makes sense for consumers and helps keep costs low, said Carri Bennet, counsel to the Rural Wireless Association. “Concentrating exclusive use of spectrum in the hands of a few is dangerous path to continue down,” Bennet said. “It stifles innovation, increases prices for consumers and makes inefficient use of a scarce resource. Sharing spectrum is the future. One only has to look at the use that has been made of unlicensed Wi-Fi routers to provide connectivity to wireless devices.”
Automated sharing technologies are improving, “but we are only starting to learn whether or not they will be good enough,” Tannenwald said. “If mistakes are made, we don’t know yet to how much all spectrum uses will be degraded and how consumers will react.”