The FCC set to promote 5 blocks of high-band spectrum at upcoming WRC event
The Federal Communications Commission is looking at both low-band and high-band spectrum resources in its attempt to bring more capacity to a domestic wireless market eager to push beyond “4G” toward proposed “5G” network technologies.
In a blog post, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said the government agency is looking to roll out a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking later this year focused on the use of “higher-frequency bands for mobile” services. Wheeler said the NPRM will look to provide a flexible regulatory framework designed to allow “maximum use of higher-frequency bands by a wide variety of providers, whether the service they provide is mobile, fixed or satellite.”
“I anticipate that we will explore a range of regulatory strategies depending on the specifics of each proposed higher frequency band, including licensed, unlicensed and hybrid shared models,” Wheeler wrote.
In support of that initiative, the FCC will look to engage the international community at the upcoming 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference to harmonize spectrum allocations in select frequency bands above 6 GHz. The bands to be proposed by the U.S. for eventual inclusion at the WRC event in 2019 include the 27.5 GHz-29.5 GHz bands; 37 GHz-40.5 GHz bands; 47.2 GHz-50.2 GHz bands; 50.4 GHz-52.6 GHz bands; and the 59.3 GHz-71 GHz bands.
The FCC last year began looking at spectrum bands above 24 GHz, or the so-called “millimeter wave” bands, to support mobile data services.
“Studying all of the spectrum above 6 GHz would be unfocused and would be resource intensive while identifying too few bands for study risks the possibility that none becomes viable. Accordingly, we need to identify enough bands likely to yield a successful outcome,” Wheeler explained. “We will consider these bands, or a subset of the bands, in further detail in an upcoming NPRM, with the goal of maximum use of higher-frequency bands in the United States by a wide variety of providers.”
The FCC earlier this year moved to free up 150 megahertz of spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band for use by commercial operators for small cell deployments, with some also set aside for unlicensed uses.
While high-band spectrum is expected to be a focus for the WRC event, Wheeler touted the FCC’s upcoming 600 MHz incentive auction as key to providing low-band spectrum for next-generation network services.
“In much the same way that 700 MHz paved the way for America’s world-leading deployment of 4G, so could 600 MHz accelerate U.S. deployment of 5G,” Wheeler said.
The 600 MHz incentive auction is currently scheduled to begin during the first quarter of next year.
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