TAC Urges FCC Explore Regulatory Changes for Dynamic Antennas; 5G Has Unknowns

A hot topic at the meeting was the future of smart antennas, from the launch of adaptive phased array antennas to the use of metamaterials to produce steerable antenna arrays at low cost.

“It is hard to overcome the basic physics of antennas,” said Marty Cooper of Dyna, co-chair of the Antenna Technology Working Group: “They have to be longer in a big area. There’s not much that has happened there.” But the combination of physical antennas and signal processing is evolving rapidly, he said. Using a combination of antennas and processing, “we are able to carve out areas and cover the areas very precisely to contain the RF to do the kinds of sharing we’ve never thought about before,” Cooper said.

The technology places new demands on the FCC, said Julius Knapp, chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology. Transmitters always had an antenna port, he said. “You’d connect to the port, you’d measure the power, you’d measure the out-of-band and the spurious emissions and you were done,” Knapp said: “As the antenna technology is being integrated with the devices, there is no port.”

The new antennas require more sophisticated testing, Knapp said. “How do we deal with this in a way that ensures all of the steps that are put in place to control interference are maintained without building up so many tests at so much cost and so much delay that we’re impeding the introduction of technology?”

A working group report recommended the regulator issue a notice of inquiry on modifying equipment certification rules for a new generation of antennas, said Greg Lapin of ARRL, the other co-chair. The FCC should ask if the maximum power flux-density limits that exist in the rules are necessary to prevent interference, he said. The report also recommends the agency look at whether its rules should be changed to make more use of dynamic antennas.

The report also notes rules for very high-band spectrum prohibit any use of some frequencies to protect passive systems, Lapin said. That area is getting increased attention at the FCC (see 1903130057), which recently approved rules for using bands above 95 GHz (see 1903150054). Footnote US246 to the U.S. table of allocations lists 23 bands where no transmissions are allowed to protect passive services.

“In the rest of the world, the ITU has recommended to give upper bounds of interference power at the receivers instead of telling you how much you can transmit or that you can’t transmit at all in certain frequencies,” Lapin said: “That would allow development at these higher frequencies.”

The report says the FCC can’t regulate the appearance of small cells, Lapin said. “The FCC does have a loud voice,” he said: “If that … bully pulpit could be used to convince the industry” appearance is important, “it would be better for all of us.” Lapin said the document recommends the FCC issue a notice to gather input on aesthetic issues. “We have already heard from communities that are making rules banning 5G antennas because they’re worried about the appearance,” he said. “We’ve heard from people who just don’t want them around.”

5G

A report by the 5G IoT Working Group describes the 5G landscape, said Brian Daly of AT&T, co-chair. The committee “looked a lot at the 5G opportunities and challenges, especially the potential barriers to deployment,” Daly said. “We looked at opportunities such as massive IoT, including … edge compute and slicing and intersection with massive IoT and what slicing services are and what it means for networks and customers.”

Among the barriers is the time it takes to deploy the small cells needed for 5G, Daly said. “Transport, obviously is another big issue -- backhaul, fronthaul and crosshaul." Owners of buildings need to understand what they can do to ensure their buildings are small-cell ready, he said.

Another big focus is the status of 5G standards and recent delays, Daly said. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) release 15 was split into three “drops,” starting with an early release in December 2017, he said. The “mainline” drop last June contained standards for “enhanced mobile broadband, he said. The final drop was supposed to be released last year but wasn’t completed until this month, he said.

Release 16, the second half of 5G standards, was targeted for this coming December but delayed until March 2020, Daly said. “There’s just so much material going into these releases, so many new features and capabilities … it’s challenging to get it done in the original time frame,” he said. 3GPP has started release 17, which is likely in 2021, he said.

The FCC is “comfortable with the unknown,” Knapp said. “The policies that are set up are designed to facilitate people to innovate and invest.” Some come to the FCC and ask what technology will look like in three or five years, he said. “I joke, ‘I don’t know what it’s going to be like in the next two months,’” he said. It’s good to look ahead but a problem with the IoT is nobody knows what will happen, Knapp said: “I don’t know that there are answers,” he said: A lot of things happened “in the last 10 years that nobody knew were coming.”

FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry said TAC’s recommendations were key to high-band spectrum auctions, including the 24 GHz auction now underway, and other areas from the 3.5 GHz band to the tech transition. “This TAC isn’t crafting think pieces that get filed away,” Berry said. “You are developing action items that help to drive the commission's work to promote technological innovation.” The group is proving “indispensable,” he said.

Gross proceeds in that 24 GHz auction hit $1.51 billion with 26 rounds complete.