FCC Opens Access to New Spectrum in 3650-3700 MHz Band

The FCC said it expected the streamlined licensing mechanism it adopted to encourage multiple new entrants and speed expansion of wireless broadband services, especially in rural areas, by wireless ISPs and other entities with limited resources. “In addition, it will provide additional flexibility for a variety of base- station-enabled mobile terrestrial operations and protect incumbent grandfathered satellite earth stations and federal government radiolocation stations from harmful interference,” Powell said.

The FCC set no limit on the number of licenses to be granted. It said each licensee would be authorized to operate on a shared basis with other licensees on all 50 MHz of the band. But it said licensees would be excluded from operations in geographic areas where grandfathered fixed satellite service (FSS) and federal government stations are vulnerable to harmful interference. Fixed facilities won’t be allowed in those areas and mobile devices won’t be able to operate there because “all mobile equipment must be able to receive a usable signal from a fixed transmitter before itself transmitting,” Comr. Copps explained: “This will ensure that they cannot wander into restricted areas.” He noted that the restricted areas would “significantly reduce the ability for the 3650 band to bring competition into parts of the country, but avoiding harmful interference to government and satellite operators is critical.”

The FCC said licensees would have to register all system base stations electronically with the FCC to be able to locate each other’s operations and to avoid interfering with grandfathered stations. The Commission said it expected such types of licensing and registration to allow it to monitor the use of that spectrum as new technologies and services develop. The FCC said new fixed and mobile stations sharing the band would have to use “contention-based” protocols to minimize interference: “This approach is a reasonable, cost-effective method for ensuring that multiple users can access the spectrum.” The Commission also said all licensees would be obliged to cooperate and avoid harmful interference to one another.

Unlike the unlicensed bands, the FCC allowed higher power use in the 3650 MHz band and established tools for licensees to use to avoid or correct interference. The agency allowed fixed stations to operate with a peak power limit of 25 watts per 25 MHz bandwidth and mobile stations with a peak power limit of one watt per 25 MHz bandwidth. To avoid interference, the FCC said: (1) Each licensee must include technology within its network designed to avoid interference possible when multiple high power systems operate along side one another. (2) Each licensee must know the location of all other licensees due to the registration system. “While there is no first-in-time interference protection, licensees can engineer their systems to avoid mutually destructive interference between new and existing systems,” Copps said.

The FCC said it kept the existing allocations for the band, grandfathering previously licensed stations and entitling them to interference protection from new wireless licensees. The Commission also established circular protection zones for incumbent operations of 150 km for FSS earth stations and 80 km for federal govt. stations. New terrestrial licensees may not operate within those zones unless they negotiate agreements with the incumbents, the agency said.

The FCC also ruled against eligibility restrictions other than those addressing statutory foreign ownership, and in-band or out-of-band spectrum aggregation limits. It said licensees would receive 10-year licenses with the right to renew and would be free to assign and transfer their non-exclusive nationwide licenses and to assign, transfer or share base stations. It said it would announce the initial filing date for the 3650 MHz band licenses in a future public notice. The licensing and operating provisions for the 3650 MHz band will be located in Part 90 of the Commission’s rules.

“The system we create today is much like the system we use in the unlicensed bands,” Copps said: “Entrepreneurial, municipal and mesh networks can begin operation without the heavy financial burden of an auction and competition will not be limited by the use of exclusive licenses.” Copps said auctions and exclusive licenses proved successful tools in other bands, but “these devices do not always best serve every band, technology and business plan.”

The Media Access Project (MAP), Free Press and the New America Foundation praised the FCC action, but said the final order should ensure that community wireless networks “will really have access to the spectrum on equal footing with commercial WISPs.” MAP Senior Vp Harold Feld said the Commission took a “huge step in making wireless broadband available to people who don’t have access to DSL and cable broadband, or who can’t afford it.” NAF Senior Research Fellow Jim Snider cautioned: “We won’t know for sure if this is a good thing until we see the details. The exact balance stuck between licensed and unlicensed advocates is not yet clear. If the first few people to set up systems can block new entrants, then we are back to the old site-licensing model with its army of lawyers and lobbyists playing king of the hill.”

The FCC also denied several petitions to reconsider an earlier decision in the proceeding that set the existing FSS, FS and MS allocations and said the new FSS stations should be allowed on a secondary basis.