Broadcasters and Aviation Interests Raise Concerns on Upper C Band
CTIA expressed support for a possible auction of upper C-band spectrum, though broadcasters, aviation companies and some commenters were more skeptical, warning of harmful interference with other operations, among comments that were due Tuesday on the upper C-band notice of inquiry, which the FCC approved in February (see 2502280032). It explores the 3.98-4.2 GHz band's future.
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Spectrum like the upper C band is critical to maintaining U.S. competitiveness in wireless, CTIA said in comments posted Wednesday in docket 25-59. “Now is the time to advance this inquiry and move swiftly to propose rules for repurposing Upper C-band spectrum, ensuring that the agency can quickly advance this spectrum to auction once its general auction authority is restored,” the group said: “The Commission should aim to provide the maximum amount of terrestrial 5G access that can co-exist with safe radio altimeter operations.”
New CTIA President Ajit Pai called on Congress to restore FCC auction authority, so the agency can hold the upper C-band and other auctions. “Making more mid-band spectrum available for 5G will power faster networks, create jobs, and strengthen America’s economy,” said Pai, who was chairman when the FCC authorized the initial C-band auction.
In the original C-band deployment, “AT&T and other stakeholders worked closely with the aviation industry to establish a robust framework through which lower C-band deployments and radio altimeter operations successfully coexist,” the company said: “That inter-industry collaborative effort continues today and is now shifted to assessing co-existence between mobile use in the Upper C-band and safe operations of radio altimeters.”
“Virtually every U.S. television household views content transmitted via C-band” fixed satellite service (FSS) operations, NAB warned. All major U.S. TV networks and many smaller ones “rely on the Upper C-band for distribution of content to affiliate stations as well as to [multichannel video program distributor] head-ends,” it said: “Alternatives, such as fiber or operation in other satellite bands, may supplement C-band satellite delivery in some circumstances -- but cannot provide sufficiently reliable service at the same scale as C-band satellite operations.”
Companies that use the upper C band to deliver TV programming noted that they have had to repack their operations “into just 200 MHz of spectrum at 4.0-4.2 GHz, with only a 20 MHz guard band.” Considering “the complexities of that very recent transition, the Content Companies are concerned that the Commission is contemplating further massive disruption to the repacked Upper C-band,” they said. The filing was signed by A+E Global Media, Fox, NBCUniversal Media, Paramount Global, TelevisaUnivision, the Walt Disney Co. and Warner Brothers Discovery.
Honeywell International called for the FCC to work with the FAA to avoid issues around interference with radio altimeters that use the adjacent 4.2-4.4 GHz band. Altimeter interference concerns plague early deployments in the C band following the initial C-band auction (see 2502120046).
While the 3.7-3.98 GHz band reallocation “was able to eventually be addressed, on a temporary basis, by the combination of fairly straightforward radar altimeter equipment retrofits and additional voluntary technical mitigations self-imposed by the licensees, this is certain to not be the case for any subsequent reallocation of the 3.98-4.2 GHz band,” Honeywell said.
Lockheed Martin warned that “current filtering solutions can in no way be expected to mitigate for all aircraft configurations and operational uses the added noise and potential for interference that would result from expanding high-power commercial wireless deployments to the radio altimeter’s band edge.” The FCC should consider use of the band for low-power wireless use, which poses fewer interference concerns, the company said.
WISPA said the FCC shouldn’t just consider selling the spectrum through an auction for exclusive use. The group's members weren’t “able to compete meaningfully for licenses” in the initial C-band auction, and the three largest mobile carriers received 5,274 of the 5,684 licenses offered, WISPA said: “While there is little doubt that the C-band has enabled 5G development for the largest mobile carriers, that does not mean that the Commission should undertake the same or similar process by uprooting FSS users and clearing the band, a long process that depends on the Commission obtaining auction authority.”
New Street’s Blair Levin told investors Wednesday that the Trump administration has moved slowly on a pro-growth telecom and media agenda.
“There has been a bit of movement on spectrum, such as with the Upper C band and the 37 GHz proceeding and we expect more in the months ahead, particularly as the Pentagon has been reformatting its plans to free up more spectrum,” Levin said: “While we do not anticipate any major government allocation of spectrum to be completed for at least several years, we do think that there will be materially more spectrum activity at the FCC than there was under [former] Chair [Jessica] Rosenworcel.”