WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission proposed last Thursday to make 255 megahertz in the 5 GHz band available for unlicensed devices. The FCC praised the proposal, which suggests that devices built to use this spectrum deploy dynamic frequency selection to avoid government systems.
The proposed rules have been expected since earlier this year when the FCC, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Defense reached agreement on use of the 5 GHz band for unlicensed devices.
Global use of the 5 GHz band is on the agenda to be discussed at next month’s World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva.
Spectrum for unlicensed devices is needed, said Neil Mulholland, chief executive officer of PrairieNet. Mulholland participated in a policy panel discussion last week on unlicensed spectrum. When Nancy Victory, assistant commerce secretary for communications and information, asked panel participants if there was a message they wanted to deliver to federal policy-makers, Mulholland called for more spectrum for unlicensed uses.
PrairieNet combines licensed fixed-wireless and unlicensed technologies to deliver broadband services to rural America.
But it is not just data that can be delivered via unlicensed spectrum, said Thomas Lee, managing director of wireless services for J.P. Morgan. Lee said that just as in 1993, the current wireline industry probably didn’t expect its customers to cut the cord in favor of mobile phones, the licensed-wireless industry should watch out for unlicensed technologies replacing them, both for data and voice.
Unlicensed voice technology will grow as college students mature, said Lee. “In 10 years we will have a new generation of policy-makers and they are the early adopters,” said Lee. “They are used to cheap-free-broadband, and I bet the notion of getting mobile voice calls over that broadband will be very attractive to them so you will see integration between 802.11 and some type of voice over IP.”
Although he is skeptical, Theodore Schell, chairman of Cometa Networks and general partner of Apax Partners, conceded the remarkable growth of mobile phones. “In the last 10 years you went from cellular penetration at 12 percent with phones that weighed a pound to the extraordinary system we now have,” he said.
Schell, Lee and Mulholland participated on a panel at the Roundtable on Unlicensed Wireless Technologies sponsored by the FCC, NTIA and the State Department.
While Schell agreed with Lee to the extent that technology adapts to consumer wants and needs, he does not see unlicensed voice services replacing licensed mobile-voice services because there isn’t a business case for the widespread deployment of unlicensed wireless voice technologies to compete with licensed wireless voice technologies.
This view was shared by Robert Kubik, manager of spectrum and regulatory policy at Motorola Inc., and Mark Whitton, chief technology officer of wireless networks for Nortel Networks Ltd.
“Will 802.11 replace cells? No,” said Kubik. “You are going to spend so much time going from cell to cell in the handover. You will not have quality.”
“I can see it as a backup,” said Whitton. “But as a primary service, I think that is a tougher sell.”
One reason unlicensed will not replace licensed for voice is that it would be overkill, said Veronica Haggart, vice president of strategic relations for Xtreme Spectrum, an ultra-wideband chip developer.
Policy-makers are fond of unlicensed technologies because they-FCC Chairman Michael Powell chief among them-see it as a way for government to get out of the way of spectrum management.
The FCC’s action on the 5 GHz band was previewed later at the roundtable when Edmond Thomas, chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology, touted it even though he wasn’t supposed to. Thomas said (and the theme was repeated again at the FCC meeting) that the 5 GHz unlicensed action was prompted by the FCC’s Spectrum Policy Task Force.
This did not please one of Thomas’ fellow panelists. “The FCC’s Spectrum Policy Task Force Report is a step backward,” said Thomas Hazlett, senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute of Policy Research. “It takes the blocks system to a new generation.”
