WASHINGTON-Government spectrum managers are being challenged like no time before in efforts to clear the way for next-generation mobile phone and wireless broadband services-as well as rectify serious interference problems-through messy licensee relocation and frequency re-banding processes.
Indeed, relocation and re-banding glitches have tended to pit top Federal Communications Commission wireless policy initiatives against one another and create new competitive and economic issues that otherwise do not exist in the marketplace.
Even as the advanced wireless services auction moves closer to completion, relocation issues associated with the AWS 1710-1755 MHz and 2110-2155 MHz bands are nowhere close to being resolved.
Likewise, the promise of wireless broadband services awaits the resolution of regulatory and technical issues associated with the reconfigured 2.5 GHz band.
Sometimes relocation and re-banding are so convoluted and complex that they cut across a variety of wireless telecom services in a way that invites conflict.
“As the commission is well aware from previous WCA filings … the wireless broadband industry is greatly troubled by the commission’s failure to clear the broadcast auxiliary service and mobile satellite service from the 2465-2500 MHz band that has been designated as replacement spectrum for broadband radio service channel 1 licensees being involuntarily relocated from 2150-2156 MHz band,” the Wireless Communications Association International told the FCC. “For that reason, WCA supports adoption of the proposal advanced in the petitions for reconsideration submitted by the Society of Broadcast Engineers and BellSouth Corp. that are designed to reduce the levels of interference that BRS channel 1 licensees will face once they are involuntary relocated from the 2150-2156 MHz band to 2496-2502 MHz.”
Insofar as both BRS channel 1 and 2 licensees being subject to involuntary relocation to make room for AWS operations, WCA has proposed that the comparable facilities to which a wireless broadband incumbent is entitled include increased throughput; that BRS licensees have the same relocation rights as licensees in other services confronting involuntary relocation; that BRS incumbents be entitled to compensation for internal costs in line with the 800 MHz re-banding process and that F-block AWS auction winners reimburse incumbents for costs associated with moving.
Re-banding is a key to the controversial, complex process to fix interference caused by Sprint Nextel Corp. and others to 800 MHz public safety radio systems.
The regulatory relocation-re-banding challenge could create an economic opportunity for trade groups, like wireless trade association CTIA, and wireless infrastructure association, PCIA. Each has expressed an interest in serving as a clearing house for 2.1 GHz BRS/microwave relocation.
WCA said its supports PCIA recommendation that licensees have multiple clearinghouse entities from which to choose.
The increased reliance on relocation and re-banding, while important, represents only two options the FCC and Bush administration have been examining to address present and future spectrum needs at a time when wireless services and applications are huge growth engines in the telecom and high-tech sectors that compete in the global marketplace.
However, momentum to improve U.S. spectrum management in the United States has slowed considerably. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is far less ambitious than his predecessor, Michael Powell, about reforming spectrum policy and promoting new wireless technologies that make better use of the airwaves.
Moreover, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which advises the White House on telecom policy, has been in low gear since the departure of former head Michael Gallagher earlier this year. John Kneuer, nominated by President Bush in May to succeed Gallagher, is still awaiting a confirmation hearing late in this legislation session of Congress.
