POWELL SAYS SPECTRUM DEBATES SHOULD MOVE BEYOND ‘SELF-INTEREST’

Task force Powell created earlier this year held 4 workshops in 8 days as part of gathering information to provide recommendations to FCC by late Oct. on potential spectrum policy changes. Final workshop focused on spectrum rights and responsibilities. In opening daylong panel discussions, Powell said of unwillingness of companies to embrace competition: “That is the biggest red herring and garbage I have ever heard.” Intransigence in that area shows up in some cases when interference arguments are made in spectrum policy debates, he said. “You will find constantly a lack of principle at times in the context of the course of this debate,” he said. Powell outlined 4 “critical” elements for policy changes, led by more efficient spectrum use. “The real challenge is how to get more out of spectrum that 80% of the time lies fallow,” he said. Answer relies on “empowerment of technology” that allows for more innovative uses of spectrum, he said, citing potential areas such as sharing, software-defined radio, receiver standards. “We have had a major ideological struggle this year with very different constituencies -- the Department of Defense and others -- about the basic notion that somebody could be in your backyard and that is okay as long as you can protect against technical interference.” Interference concerns often are well-founded, but sometimes are “red herrings” that mask underlying concerns about sharing spectrum, he said.

Powell said there also was need for: (1) Shift away from command-and-control-based regulatory models to market- based mechanisms. (2) Govt. and commercial sector to improve “the balance and the processes used” for reconciling critical govt. needs with commercial uses. He said “at minimum” better process for management of those challenges was needed. He also called for better consensus on concepts for spectrum use: “Is sharing off the table or part of what will always be a legitimate consideration?” He lauded NTIA for taking on “nasty” challenges in last year, including 3G and ultra- wideband. (3) Foster “air for innovation and oxygen for things that none of us can predict right now.”

“I have never worked on an issue that has so much smoke and nobody can find the fire,” Powell said. Point of task force is to provide “grist” to focus debate on spectrum reform, in part by providing specifics on what changes are needed. “It is still somewhat murky to me exactly where reform comes from,” he said: “It’s clear to me that it will require some legislative change.” While FCC clearly will be “champion” of such changes, because of legal constraints agency faces it will have to partner elsewhere in govt. to bring about reform, he said. “This year there is a sense that somehow the stars all have aligned,” Powell said: “I think that things have finally started to come together in a way that presents a unique and important opportunity to exploit how some of the changes could provide a chance to put some of those concepts into practices.” As wireless technology becomes “indispensable” to average consumer, grass-roots support of users becomes “the 4th man on the field” that has helped elevate profile of those spectrum users to policymakers, Powell said. But one challenge accompanying elevated interest is lack of specificity about what spectrum reform means, he said. “You have seen that manifested in the number of congressmen and women and senators who suddenly want to be spectrum management reform guys,” Powell said. “The problem is, they don’t really know what that means. I spend many days talking with legislators, many of whom want to champion this and you say, ‘Senator, what do you mean,’ and they say, ‘I don’t know, something is wrong, right?'”

Comr. Abernathy told task force that “interference protection remains one of our most paramount concerns” as issues such as bundles of user rights are defined in context of flexibility. Licensing goal of agency should be to “maximize the efficiency of commercial spectrum used by propagating as many rights into the marketplace as possible while protecting the licensed user from interference.” She described “continuum between 2 paradigms” of full property- like rights model to pure commons model.

Participants largely agreed that some hybrid of approach between commons model for spectrum, akin to existing Part 15 rules was needed, as well as property rights model of existing licenses. Discussion frequently turned to examples of spectrum flexibility such as software-defined radio and what FCC and markets could do to accelerate such technological changes. Washington lawyer David Siddall, former adviser to ex-FCC Comr. Susan Ness, cited example of PCS spectrum, which FCC didn’t mandate in licensing rules. Another theme was how Commission could craft policies for rural vs. urban areas, particularly because so much less spectrum is congested in less densely populated areas. AT&T Wireless Spectrum Policy Dir. David Wye said agreement appeared to have emerged that mixed model between property rights and commons approach to spectrum was appropriate. “The question is what is the balance between these 2 bundles of rights?” he asked.

Panelists cited both areas where they said FCC needed to ease regulatory mandates to provide more flexibility and areas where more proactive measures might be needed, such as receiver standards. FCC needs to create more commons-type spectrum that could be used for experimental approaches, Intel Communications Policy Dir. Peter Pitsch said. “It needs to create a simultaneous exchange that defines rights and creates voluntary opportunities for spectrum to be moved to higher valued uses,” he said. U. of Pa. Prof. David Farber cited extent to which proliferation of unlicensed wireless networks such as 802.11 had been “keystone” in way computer deployment was done now. “It’s just becoming ubiquitous,” he said. It has elevated wireless to something visible to everyone and has made technology cool to young consumers. “Agile radios and software-defined radios will be an extremely important technology in the future,” Farber said. “One of our opportunities is to make the policy match the technology in this area.” He also stressed need for regulators to begin to address security more in context of those new technologies.

Across govt. agencies, there also is need to more closely align policies between FCC and NTIA, Motorola Telecom Regulation Dir. Steve Sharkey said. “We have a system now that is a difficult system to work with,” he said, citing issues such as lack of consistent policies between govt. and commercial users of spectrum. “The Commission and NTIA have certainly made strides in working together -- I think we have a long way to go,” Sharkey said.