The FCC should use Basic Trading Areas (BTAs) as the geographic a...
The FCC should use Basic Trading Areas (BTAs) as the geographic area for organizing transitions to the new band plan at 2.5 GHZ, Wireless Communications Assn. International (WCA)recommended. During an ex parte meeting with FCC officials last week, WCA…
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stressed that since a 1996 FCC decision to auction Multipoint Distribution Service authorizations based on BTAs, “the industry has structured around BTA boundaries more than any other geographic area.” Utilizing any other units for transitions would “cause proponents to transition regions that are larger than necessary to achieve interference- free service,” the group said. WCA also said it doesn’t back auctioning cancelled BRS BTA authorizations based on any other unit, and predicted “the educational community would likely resist utilizing larger geographic units” for the EBS white space auction because most educational activities are local. But AWS said it’s ambivalent about “the geographic areas to be used for re-auction of BRS spectrum returned to the FCC in exchange for bidding credits or assistance in digitizing and migrating legacy analog video services to the Middle Band Segment (MBS).” WCA also: (1) Opposes EBS members’ proposals to stay the geographic licensing rules pending complete transition to the new band plan. (2) Supports imposition of the traditional Part 27 “substantial service” requirement and safe harbors, plus new rural safe harbors on BRS and EBS licensees under the new regulatory regime.