WASHINGTON–FCC Chairman Michael Powell on Wednesday called for the Federal Communications Commission to set an “interference temperature” as a way of using underutilized spectrum.
“The time has come to consider an entirely new paradigm for interference protection. … There may be a clear quantitative application of what is acceptable interference for both license holders and the devices that can cause interference. Transmitters would be required to ensure that the interference level – or ‘interference temperature’ – is not exceeded. Receivers would be required to tolerate an interference level,” said Powell.
In a speech given Wednesday at the Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Powell outlined his vision for spectrum policy.
One part of Powell’s vision is that spectrum is not scarce or at least not as scarce as it once was. “Scarcity will not be replaced by abundance; there will be places and times when services are spectrum constrained. However, scarcity need no longer be the lodestar by which we guide the spectrum ship of state,” he said.
Powell uses as evidence of less scarce spectrum a test that was conducted by the Spectrum Policy Task Force and the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology. These tests measured the use of spectrum in five major U.S. cities, he said, not naming the cities.
“The results showed that while some bands were heavily used, others either were not used or were used only part of the time. In appeared that these ‘holes’ in bandwidth or time could be used to provide significant increases in communication capacity, without impacting current users, through [the] use of new technologies. … Indeed it appears that most of [the] spectrum is not in use most of the time,” said Powell.
The wireless industry praised Powell’s effort, even while reserving judgement on the final outcome of his spectrum policy vision and cautioning that any future spectrum policy must take into account what has happened up to now.
“Chairman Powell is to be saluted for speaking out about the elephant in the room that has been in full view but ignored for so long – the absence of a spectrum policy for the nation. The question is: what kind of policy will fill that void?” asked Thomas Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. “Any spectrum policy will also have to deal with the fact that while the government has not had a plan, that has not inhibited it from making determinations upon which were based both corporate and consumer spending decisions.”
