Carriers Oppose Small-Cell Aesthetics Proposal at TAC
Wireless carriers resisted creating a group of industry and municipal stakeholders on the aesthetics of small-cell deployments, at Wednesday’s meeting of the FCC Technical Advisory Committee. The appearance of small cells isn’t a technical issue, said AT&T Assistant Vice President-Standards and Industry Alliances Brian Daly. “If it’s not a technical issue, is it really under the purview of the TAC?” Daly said the matter should be left to local authorities. The advisory council also discussed small cells and 5G deployment, terminology and antenna technology.
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Aesthetics was the most contentious. Carriers repeatedly pushed for federal rules to pre-empt local regulations on deployment, but on this want to “keep it local," said Carnegie Mellon professor Marvin Sirbu. “The inconsistency is striking.”
The multistakeholder body would be part of a proposed recommendation from the TAC’s antenna working group to the FCC, said WG Vice Chair Gregory Lapin, chair of the ARRL RF Safety Committee. The multistakeholder group would be created by an FCC public notice and have the task of arriving at a set of agreed-upon best practices for small cell deployment in order to facilitate local approvals. Local governments have been able to find loopholes allowing them to get around commission rules against local government impediments to deployment. Guidelines stemming from a group “could be used to convince local zoning to quickly approve plans,” Lapin said.
Such a process would take too long, said carrier representatives. The stakeholder group “could slow down 5G deployment,” Daly said. There are “significant concerns” with such a plan, said CTIA Chief Technology Officer Thomas Sawanobori. The process would be “arduous,” and if local governments anticipate that such guidance is coming, “they might want to wait,” Sawanobori said. The proposal could drive costs up, he said. Carriers and equipment makers are working out the issue, said Verizon Vice President-Public Policy David Young. Aesthetics isn’t a technical matter and so “not appropriate for TAC to pursue,” Young said.
“It’s impractical for people to think there’s not going to be any pushback” on 5G deployment, said Russ Gyurek, Cisco director-IoT, supporting a PN. Local resistance is going to have “a significant impact on deployment,” he said.
Wireless representatives disagreedwith another presentation from the antenna working group, from Dyna Chairman Martin Cooper. “There is a question about what problems 5G is solving,” said Cooper. Consumers want lower cost broadband and more coverage, but 5G is focused on higher speeds and lower latency, he said. “Perhaps our carriers are focused so much on the future deployment and spending a huge amount of effort on that, without considering that the consumer will not benefit from 5G technology for some time.” The FCC should encourage carriers to concentrate on lower frequencies and lower cost options, he said.
Carriers plan to offer 5G at all frequencies, Daly said. Low cost and coverage aren't the only things driving broadband deployment, he said. “I don't know what low latency is going to do for me or for all those people in the rural areas or in the ghetto ever,” said Cooper. There is also an epidemic of confusion in the industry about the precise meaning of many of the technical terms used in 5G, Cooper said. The TAC should issue a white paper defining the terms, he said.
The FCC should encourage the use of dynamic antennas, also called “smart” antennas, at lower frequencies, Cooper said. Smart antennas are cheaper than passive antennas, and allow a much more-effective use of spectrum, Cooper said. Since they move around, regulating such antennas could be difficult for the FCC, he said. Since they aren’t fixed, a failing smart antenna can “dramatically interfere” with other signals, said Visual Link Internet President Mark Bayliss.
TAC’s next and final meeting of 2019 is Dec. 4, when WGs vote on recommendations to the FCC.