FCC TASK FORCE WRESTLES WITH BALANCING UNLICENSED SPECTRUM USES

Copps touted unlicensed spectrum model, saying it had “produced results at a time when there are few bright spots in telecom.” But he said there needed to be clearer definition of harmful interference. “Our current obscurity on what constitutes harmful interference leaves incumbents and new licensees and manufacturers without the certainty that they need to conduct their business, resulting obviously in under-investment, protracted and wasteful regulatory proceedings and time-consuming litigation.” Better pinpointing what harmful interference means might not produce “perfect engineering definition,” Copps said. “But I believe that we could come up with a clearer legal standard.” Citing more flexible spectrum uses such as software defined radio, he said Commission should ensure that rules “encourage such innovation through flexibility and by allowing competition rather than undermining it, by now allowing our rules to be used as the tools of stagnation and consolidation.” Quick FCC response to task force report in NOI is needed “to determine what changes to spectrum policy should be made,” he said. “We must have that kind of Commission follow-through, because otherwise we will be left in muddy waters and the hard work done here will be wasted.” Copps also said he liked idea of continuing task force to keep agency and its bureaus “focused on spectrum priorities.”

Several panelists cited need to ensure that regulatory restrictions on unlicensed spectrum didn’t allow incumbent users to erect barriers to entry based on competition concerns rather than technical problems related to interference. Incumbents such as large wireless carriers and broadcasters weren’t present on Thurs. panels, but will have representation in next 3 workshops. Because regulators can’t predict future innovations, “the most important thing for the government to do is to set up an environment where competition and technology development can develop without fear of retaliation from those whose ox might be gored by the next great idea of how to use spectrum,” Stanford Law School Prof. Larry Lessig said.

“Wi-fi’s success creates the temptation to impose service rules that tend to protect or lock in Wi-fi or any other current technology,” said Michael Calabrese, dir. of public assets program at New America Foundation. He said some of comments received by task force on policy changes suggested service rules to protect development of systems such as 802.11 at 2.4 GHz. “It may well be that we decide we need some dedicated space for unlicensed wireless networking,” he said. “But ideally those rules of the road should not be shaped to prefer any particular application and especially no current technology. We probably do need protocols and etiquette to facilitate wireless networking but they should be as open and mutual as possible.”

FCC Office of Engineering & Technology Chief Edmond Thomas told reporters after morning session Thurs. that he was surprised that first panel didn’t put heavy emphasis on more spectrum needed for unlicensed operations. Instead, many wireless developers and academics stressed extent to which technology innovation would help carve out more capacity, particularly if regulators provided incentives to encourage spectral efficiency. “The spectrum out there itself does not limit us in anyway,” consultant David Reed said. “As you add systems to a network [that are] sharing the same region of spectrum, theoretically the capacity does grow without limit. The question is, does it grow as fast as the number of users. That’s the answer we don’t know.” Citing ability of technological solutions to handle increased demand, several panelists rejected idea that there was “meltdown” in unlicensed spectrum such as 2.4 GHz. “I think the marketplace has done a great job at producing solutions to these issues,” said William Chamberlain, vp-engineering & product development, Cobra Electronics. “There’s no real fundamental limit where we can’t invent our way out of this, so we ought to create new incentives.”

Several technologists said existing spectrum allocations had capacity that was lying fallow, in some cases because of regulatory constraints. “I am currently not an advocate for more spectrum for unlicensed spectrum according to the current spectrum management paradigm,” Dandin Group CEO Dewayne Hendricks said. “I don’t think we've really farmed adequately the spectrum that we've allocated for unlicensed already.” He cited failure of past unlicensed allocations, such as 30 MHz set aside for unlicensed PCS, which he said had been underutilized. “The problem I see for the current unlicensed bands in terms of this meltdown issue is not that you have a meltdown per se, but the fact that you have incompatible sharing partners in those bands.” At 2.4 GHz, for example, there are 4 licensed services that can claim interference at FCC, leading to potential shutdown of unlicensed operations, he said. “The license-holders have bigger rights in those bands.” Others pointed to ability of wideband technologies that can underlay existing operations to make better use of existing spectrum. “However, the way that regulations are written about interference, the regulations refer to interference in the transmitted domain, not in the receiver domain,” Reed said. “So we are in the position of having a legal definition of interference that says interference happens even when nobody is there to notice it.” That is particularly relevant in rural areas where broadcast and other spectrum isn’t congested and would lend itself to other applications without creating interference if regulations allowed it, he said.

One common theme in first of task force’s workshops was need for etiquette or protocol to help facilitate co- existence of different systems in unlicensed spectrum. Some panelists called on FCC to create forum in which such rules of road could be drafted and others pointed to example of role that Internet Engineering Task Force played in helping Internet architecture to evolve. Speaking to reporters after Thurs. morning panels, Thomas said FCC had been “very reluctant” in past to take on role of selecting etiquette under such scenarios. In other areas, he said he was “surprised there was not a loud outcry for more spectrum” for unlicensed applications. In response to questions, he said he was pleased with opening session of workshops, with challenge of task force now being to whittle down diverse set of views to set of recommendations for FCC. “There’s a lot of meat to it,” he said of first round.

Asked about potential changes needed in Part 15 rules by Michael Marcus, associate chief for technology at OET, Patrick Leary of Alvarion suggested rules that would reward spectrum efficiency by allowing higher power levels. Proxim Chief Technology officer Kevin Negus said that in Part 15 world, “as you narrow your beamwidth, your EIRP limitation is moving. That is just a fundamental conservation of energy or conservation of interference concept that incentives radio manufacturers to be much more efficient.” Art Reilly of Cisco said there was need not only for more unlicensed spectrum, but for bands set aside specifically for data networking with rules related to etiquette techniques “that would be helpful in mitigating interference situations.” But Reilly cautioned he wouldn’t want to see FCC rules that would spell out such etiquette rules in great detail, with marketplace allowed to set standards.

“As that space becomes filled, how are we going to get the rest of the beachfront liberated from the tyranny of the licenses,” asked Mark Cooper, dir. of research for Consumer Federation of America. “That’s the better question. Certainly don’t kill the experiments of today. If you do conclude there is a better way to organize the space, then you have the really big question of how are you going to get the incumbents out of their existing space.” Citing significant technological advances in transceivers, he said that effect of high antenna gain could be changed “on the fly” to be reconfigured to avoid interference, he said. “We should have in the regulatory domain the flexibility to access power and bandwidth depending our ability to do that. As we narrow the beam, we lower our interference footprint.”