WASHINGTON-FreeSpace Communications and the Industrial Telecommunications Association are at it again. The two parties are each urging the Federal Communications Commission to let them have access to the guard bands the FCC recently developed to protect public-safety operations in the 700 MHz band.
ITA does not believe that cellular-type architectures can be used in the guard bands without causing interference to public safety systems. It cites recent examples of other interference in the 800 MHz band between cellular-type architectures and public-safety operations.
This is the exact opposite position taken by FreeSpace, which is developing a concept that will allow high-speed wireless Internet access. The company, which does not have the spectrum it needs, says it can meet any technical restrictions placed on the guard bands.
The FCC said earlier this month it will auction 30 megahertz of spectrum being made available with the transition to digital TV for advanced fixed and mobile wireless services.
There will be two licenses in six economic area licenses in the commercial band. One license will be a block of 20 megahertz of spectrum (a pair of 10 megahertz blocks), and one block of 10 megahertz (a pair of five megahertz blocks). The FCC will allow bidders in the auction to win both licenses in each area.
The FCC also is creating two guard bands to protect public-safety systems from interference. One license will be four megahertz (a pair of two megahertz blocks) and one license will be two megahertz (a pair of one megahertz blocks).
Because of a debate on the best way to protect public-safety operations, the FCC said it would seek further comment on technical and operational issues for six megahertz of spectrum it is setting aside to protect public safety.
These comments are due by the end of business today. Originally this deadline was Jan. 25, but due to the snowstorm that paralyzed the Nation’s Capital last week, the FCC gave an extension to parties wishing to comment.
ITA believes its history as a frequency advisory committee and its members’ history of working with public-safety agencies put it in the best position to keep the guard bands from going fallow, while at the same time protecting the public-safety operations.
“ITA has developed the necessary tools that would enable the FCC to ensure that interference potential is being monitored and addressed. These tools were developed through years of experience and could not be easily replicated or implemented by a commercial carrier that would likely view frequency coordination as ancillary-and perhaps an impediment-to its fundamental business operations,” according to a copy of ITA’s comments obtained by RCR.
FreeSpace says in its filing it gave the FCC two options on how a technology could meet the technical perimeters.
The FCC “could adopt two sets of rules for guard-band operations. One set could take the FreeSpace approach, with stringent out-of-band emissions and power limits as well as frequency coordination procedures. The other set would permit more relaxed power and emissions limits but place strict limits on base station deployment. The winning bidder in the auction of the guard bands would then, in its long-form license application, select the set of rules under which it would be required to operate,” FreeSpace said.
In a submission last Friday, FreeSpace said its “proposals for the guard bands would exceed the benchmark of protection, and, moreover, would exceed any proposal by the private mobile radio industry to protect public safety.”
At the heart of the debate is access to spectrum.
Entities employing private wireless systems and the organizations that represent them-ITA, the Land Mobile Communications Council and the Personal Communications Industry Association-have been fighting for access to more spectrum. This may be the last opportunity to get spectrum.
FreeSpace faces a similar dilemma. It needs spectrum for its system to work but does not believe it can prevail in an auction against large wireless companies vying for the other 30 megahertz.
In addition to protecting public-safety operations, there are 100 broadcasters still in this band that the FCC says will need to be protected from interference until the transition to digital TV is complete.
The FCC plans to auction off the original 30 megahertz on May 10 and the guard-band spectrum shortly thereafter, said Thomas Sugrue, chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
Recently, the FCC proposed opening bids for the commercial 30 megahertz. The proposal is for the bidding for the 10-megahertz blocks to open at $40 million with bidders posting $14 million upfront. The amounts double for the 20-megahertz blocks.
As the FCC battles with the guard band problem, U S West Wireless has raised another issue.
The FCC’s rules envision a licensee using one section of the spectrum for the uplink and one section for the downlink. But U S West says its technology, and the presence of TV broadcasters in the band, may make it necessary for it to use the same portion of the spectrum for both up and downlinks.
U S West has discussed this possibility with FCC staff but has not filed any documents asking the FCC to change or waive its rules.
