DOD-NAB Deal on 2025 MHz Band a Sign of Progress on Spectrum Sharing, Stakeholders Say

The DOD-NAB deal “has been a long time in the making, and I think it shows the government is recognizing that spectrum is an incredibly important national resource and we have to reallocate it constantly to meet current and future market demands,” said former FCC Chief of Staff Blair Levin, an Aspen Institute fellow and Gig.U executive director. “The system we were looking at when we were doing the National Broadband Plan was not doing that effectively. This is the first big breakthrough in which a combination of forces has resulted in a significant allotment of new spectrum. I think it justifies a lot of decisions that were made not to rush into settling it in other ways.” The deal is “clearly a positive development” given that both DOD and NAB are “key spectrum stakeholders who are now working together to resolve these issues,” said Mark Uncapher, Telecommunications Industry Association director-regulatory and government affairs. “It’s an important step in the process.” An FCC spokesman said the agency welcomes NTIA’s announcement, filed as a letter to the FCC, and recognizes “that continued coordination among NTIA, other federal agencies, industry, and the FCC will be key to freeing up federal spectrum and achieving the goals established by Congress in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act."

The deal shows that both DOD and broadcasters have progressed significantly in their stances on spectrum sharing, said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. “I cannot stress enough the importance of seeing the military being cooperative in this fashion to share spectrum and to clear spectrum, given that even just a few years ago there was an expectation that it would take 10 years to clear it,” Feld said. “There’s been a very significant culture change that has taken place in the last two years that is very important for the future of spectrum management.” Broadcasters, meanwhile, “have never been particularly willing to share their spectrum before,” he said. “That they're willing to share with the military when there isn’t anything obviously in it for them is also a sign of this broader culture change -- that people are getting more comfortable with the idea of sharing on a non-interfering and non-competing basis."

The agreement also shows the federal government is “looking at sharing as something that goes both ways,” Feld said. NTIA said in its letter to the FCC Monday that it agrees that there should be opportunities for DOD to maintain limited access to the AWS-3 bands on federal lands so long as federal use does not impede the bands’ commercial uses (http://bit.ly/1ifWyNm). “They're much more inclined to share if they can get access to spectrum that’s been repurposed for commercial use on a non-interfering basis,” Feld said. “There are uses for the feds trying to clear spectrum if they don’t have to fully clear it in order to auction it, if they can still retain some kind of non-interfering access to facilitate that and make it happen."

Feld said he believes the FCC should now consider moving an auction of the 1755 MHz band ahead of the broadcast incentive auction. “If you're concerned about funding [the Public Safety Bureau] and FirstNet,” the 1755 MHz auction would provide “money in the bank,” he said. “If the question is if you're going to make enough money in the incentive auction to pay off FirstNet ... it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have the AWS-3 auction and pay off FirstNet before you have to go to the more risky incentive auction.” No matter how the two auctions are scheduled, the FCC will need to provide enough of a time gap “so that those carriers that don’t have huge amounts of cash on hand will have time to go to the financial markets and get the capital they'll need to participate,” Feld said. It may be premature to decide how the 1755 MHz band “should be sold, when it should be sold, how it affects the incentive auction,” Levin said. “But it’s not premature to start talking about those issues because they will come up pretty quickly. I think [FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler] has assembled a great team to address those issues."

Implications for 5 GHz Band

The NAB-DOD deal poses new questions and considerations for the high-profile 5 GHz band of spectrum. NTIA had mentioned the DOD-NAB agreement prevents DOD from placing its aeronautical mobile telemetry systems in the 5150-5250 MHz band in the future. The FCC would thus be more flexible in opening the 5 GHz band for unlicensed use. The 5 GHz band has attracted much attention among industry and lawmakers; a House Communications Subcommittee hearing on the band was held earlier this month (CD Nov 14 p12).

"We are pleased that the Executive Branch agrees with the FCC that the economic and social value of 5150-5250 MHz lies in unlocking its potential for Wi-Fi,” said Mary Brown, Cisco director-government affairs, in an email. “At present, the band is used for Wi-Fi, but at relatively low power levels, and its use is restricted to indoor deployments.” Brown described an “explosion” in Wi-Fi use, particularly outdoors, which means the FCC has to “examine whether those rules can be modified and improved to support a more robust use of Wi-Fi in the future."

The question of interference has loomed large in the band. Satellite provider Globalstar recently held “a series of meetings with the FCC to express our concerns regarding the proposed rule changes to permit outdoor deployment of UNII-1 [Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure-1] access points and the impact that would have on our satellite system,” Globalstar General Counsel Barbee Ponder told us. Globalstar had plans to file a white paper with the FCC Wednesday providing “the full technical analysis of the detrimental interference to Globalstar’s system that will occur with outdoor deployment of UNII-1 devices,” Ponder said.

Comcast took a shot at Globalstar’s concerns in its testimony at the Nov. 13 House hearing. “With DOD’s announcement that it does not need to use the spectrum, the only UNII-1 incumbent is Globalstar,” said Senior Vice President Tom Nagel in written testimony (http://1.usa.gov/187Ahre). “While Globalstar’s operations are certainly important, it does not make sense for our country to reserve 100 MHz for the private use of a single company that uses it for four feeder link locations in the entire country, serving a very small group of customers with a highly specialized satellite handset service -- especially when the record shows that the FCC’s proposed rule changes would allow Globalstar and Wi-Fi to share without any harmful interference.” Comcast backed opening the U-NII-1 band for unlicensed use without further delay.

House Republicans are watching the 5 GHz band closely. “Just as we're pushing with the government-owned spectrum, to see if we can free up more there that could go to auction or maybe used for some other purposes, 5 gig is really an important band for Wi-Fi and for these unlicensed uses, and I think there’s a lot of opportunity there,” House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told reporters at a press meeting in mid-November, before the NTIA announcement of the NAB-DOD agreement and following his subcommittee’s hearing. “I'm a fan of the unlicensed; I'm a fan of what can be done there in innovation technology.” But he cautioned against giving away valuable spectrum, given its taxpayer value. In a joint statement this week (http://1.usa.gov/1jKNHP9), Walden and House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., called the DOD-NAB agreement “the progress we've been striving toward as part of our monthly discussions with the DOD, NTIA, and the FCC,” citing the licensed spectrum this will free up to meet commercial demand “while protecting the missions of our men and women in uniform.” Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, mentioned the 5 GHz hearing on a recent episode of C-Span’s The Communicators and emphasized questions of “taking up too much spectrum on the defense side” as well as a need to plan five to 10 years out.

Cisco analysis has shown half of U.S. Internet traffic begins or ends on a Wi-Fi network, a figure which will rise to two-thirds by 2017, Brown said. “Not only is demand skyrocketing, but the Wi-Fi technology itself is changing -- moving from 40 MHz wide channels to channels that are 80 or 160 MHz wide,” Brown added. “That’s why the FCC is examining the entire 5150-5925 MHz band for Wi-Fi, and whether Wi-Fi can successfully share with incumbent radio systems in the various sub-bands.”