The FCC is giving fixed satellite service earth station operators in the 3.6-3.7 GHz band until Oct. 17 to register with the agency. The FCC noted the registration was required for grandfathered stations as part of its work on the citizens broadband radio service band. The deadline for this year was Dec. 1, 2021. “We recognize that this is a relatively new process and so, to avoid any unnecessary service interruptions, we are providing a one-time grace period for any FSS earth station licensee that failed to submit its 2022 annual registration,” said a Thursday notice: After Oct. 17 “registrations that have not been completed for 2022 may be deactivated or deleted, and the site will no longer merit protection by the Spectrum Access System administrators.”
CBRS
The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) is designated unlicensed spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band created by the FCC as part of an effort to allow for shared federal and non-federal use of the band.
The FCC Wireless Bureau approved a one-year waiver extension of rules for the citizens broadband radio service allowing the NFL to continue operating a coach-to-coach communications system in the event of a localized internet outage in stadiums during games (see 2207120055). The bureau gave the NFL only part of what it sought. “While we find that a grant of a conditional waiver would be consistent with the underlying purpose of the rule and serve the public interest, we decline to grant the waiver for the requested three-year period,” said a Wednesday order in docket 21-111: “We will instead restrict it to a period of one NFL season as Petitioner has not demonstrated a need for a longer waiver period.”
State broadband offices are adapting to much larger sums of cash than they had in years past, due to recent federal laws, said a Tennessee official at a virtual Broadband Breakfast event Wednesday. Building broadband “to and through” anchor institutions can sometimes be the best option to reach rural communities, said New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) and the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition in a Wednesday report.
The FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology certified Sony Thursday for a five-year term as a spectrum access system administrator in the citizens broadband radio service band in American Samoa. Sony was previously approved to operate in the contiguous U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Guam, the FCC said. The FCC also approved new environmental sensing capability sensor deployment and coverage plans for Guam, submitted by Federated Wireless.
The FCC granted 2,431additional priority access licenses in the citizens broadband radio service band, the first awarded since December. The grants follow adoption of “consent decrees and subsequent amendments made by the Applicants consistent with those consent decrees” addressing concerns raised by the commission (see 2207150034), said a Tuesday order by the Wireless Bureau. The licenses were awarded to Cable One, NorthWestern, SAL Spectrum, Shenandoah and UScellular.
Commenters raised concerns on a proposal by the University of Utah for an FCC waiver of citizens broadband radio service rules for its POWDER (Platform for Open Wireless Data-driven Experimental Research) platform, used for wireless research. Comments were due Monday in docket 22-257. The university asked for a waiver to use software-defined radio equipment to interact with the spectrum access system operator “within the POWDER Platform Innovation Zone” and for other exceptions to rules for the band. The university said it uses the platform as a “living laboratory that allows research in a real-world, spectrum realistic environment.”
The NFL asked the FCC to approve its proposed waiver extension of rules for the citizens broadband radio service allowing the league to continue operating a coach-to-coach communications systems in the event of a localized internet outage in stadiums during games. The league noted only NCTA filed comments and supported the extension (see 2207120055). “Before seeking an extension … the NFL engineering team conducted extensive due diligence to see if an alternative approach was available, but after considering many options and consulting with both vendors and staff, the League concluded that a waiver was necessary for these very limited circumstances since a technology ‘work around’ was not available,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 21-111.
Shenandoah, UScellular and NorthWestern agreed to abide by a consent decree with the FCC, ending investigations into whether the carriers violated the four priority access license per market requirement of the agency’s citizens broadband radio service rules. Shenandoah agreed to implement a compliance plan and either amend its long-form application “to remove all licenses that, if granted, would cause it to exceed the four-PAL aggregation limit in an identified market” or amend the form “to remove enough PALs in each identified market to avoid exceeding the four-PAL aggregation limit,” said a Friday notice: “Frequencies that would have been authorized for use with a PAL had Shenandoah or other similarly situated applicants not amended an application pursuant to the Consent Decree may be authorized for use by another eligible licensee with another PAL at a later date and, in the interim, remain immediately available for use pursuant to the applicable General Authorized Access (GAA) rules.” The notice was by the Office of Economics and Analytics and Wireless Bureau. The USCellular and NorthWestern agreements were similar.
NCTA supported an NFL request for a waiver of rules for the citizens broadband radio service allowing the league to continue operating a coach-to-coach communications systems in the event of a localized internet outage in stadiums during games. Any relief granted “should continue to be narrowly tailored to the NFL’s specific and unique circumstances to avoid creating a de facto exemption from the Spectrum Access System connectivity requirement” for CBRS operations “at special events, including sporting events,” said a filing by the group posted Tuesday in docket 22-111. Comments on the request were due Monday (see 2206300037).
The FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology approved Amdocs, Federated Wireless, Google, Key Bridge and Sony as spectrum access system (SAS) administrators to support spectrum manager leasing for priority access licenses in the citizens broadband radio service band, in a Tuesday order. All have been approved as SAS administrators but needed separate clearance to support PAL leasing, the order said.