WCA MAY ASK FCC TO RECONSIDER LONG-AWAITED MDS-ITFS BANDPLAN ORDER
The Wireless Communications Assn. is considering a petition for reconsideration following release Thurs. of FCC’s order setting new rules for the 2495-2690 MHz band. Among WCA’s concerns is that a bandwidth sharing plan for the 2496-2500 MHz band could cause enough anxiety among investors to negate in part FCC efforts to spur more investment in wireless broadband. The fight pits WCA against GlobalStar, main user of the space.
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An industry source said Thurs. wireless broadband providers have concerns about at least 2 other aspects of the order as released. The Commission approved the order June 10 but released only statements and a press release providing bare details. Wireless broadband providers learned late in the game that FCC would order them to share space with satellite at 2496-2500 MHz, the industry source said, suggesting that FCC’s conception of how this would work may prove unrealistic.
“This was a proposal the Wireless Bureau came up with at the 11th hour,” the source said. “We were not expecting sharing. We were expecting that the spectrum would be allocated specifically for our use. The Commission position is that they [satellite] can operate in rural areas and we can operate in urban areas. The reality is that their satellite beam covers the entire country… It’s not the whole bandplan, but it’s a significant piece of it. Our ability to move depends on having a bandplan that’s settled.”
A Globalstar spokesman said it was unclear why interference is a concern for fixed wireless: “We won’t really know until [the systems are] deployed, but our signal is so weak compared to terrestrial it’s hard to understand how they would suffer interference.”
The industry source identified 2 other possible problems with the order. First, it requires an operator to pay for all ITFS providers in an MEA as opposed to a market-by-market transition. That requirement could prove daunting since MEAs take in huge geographic areas. “If you're a licensee in a small market you have to put in down converters at schools, provide every ITFS receiver site with a downconvertor,” the source said. “If you make it so expensive that the small guys can’t do it you've got to wait for the big guys.” Second, the Commission failed to provide a mechanism for multichannel video programming distributors to easily opt out of the transition.
Under the order as released, these operators must go to the FCC individually for a waiver. The source cited WatchTV in Lima, O., which has 13,000 wireless Internet subscribers and would appear to offer the type of service the FCC wants to encourage. Under the order it will have to go to the FCC and ask to continue to operate as it has, the source said.
NY3G, a group hoping to build a wireless broadband network in N.Y., said it was disappointed that the Commission chose to study a problem it brought to the FCC rather than order an immediate fix. The group asked the FCC to include language in the order that will require ITFS providers to surrender spectrum in a few cases where talks between new entrants and incumbents have faltered (CD June 10, p.8).
“The New York City area should be a leader in this technology, not a laggard,” said John Hearne, pres. of the NY3G Partnership. “For years, NY3G has sought to deploy a wireless broadband service in the nation largest market, using spectrum awarded to us in 1985. However, NY3G’s plans have been blocked by a grandfathered co-channel licensee in the same spectrum -- the Diocese of Brooklyn -- which needs only a little of the spectrum it was granted in 1963 to broadcast educational programming. The interference between these two competing uses of spectrum has never been fully resolved, despite our best efforts to negotiate an equitable solution.”
GlobalStar said previously coordination was easier with fixed operators than with mobile because the fixed links can be located. Globalstar doesn’t expect the stronger terrestrial signals to interfere with its customers, either, the spokesman said.
Besides the fact that the fixed services are unlikely to “be in the unpopulated areas where GlobalStar phones are used,” the spokesman said a customer receiving the downlink signal from the satellite and in the path of the stronger terrestrial signal would at most experience a “broken” signal. He said it was more likely that the signal would simply switch to another channel -- as terrestrial operations cn, too. However, “the practical effect of these things almost always is smaller” than it is in theory, he said. “It really doesn’t happen that often.”
Stephen Coran, an attorney who represents wireless broadband operators, said the order is a mixed bag. “The FCC is placing a premium on a rapid and nationwide transition to the new band plan as the engine for investment and innovation,” he said: “While the broad outlines of the order are favorable, the requirement to initiate transitions in every MEA in 3 years -- under the threat that licenses will be involuntarily exchanged for auction vouchers -- may actually have the unintended consequence of slowing the transition. In 3 years, those who opposed open eligibility for ITFS may yet come to embrace it as an alternative to losing their licenses.”