WASHINGTON-The mobile-phone industry, stung by two government reports last week that largely rule out use of the 1700 MHz and 2500 MHz bands for third-generation wireless systems, managed to win a commitment from Commerce Secretary Donald Evans to work with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and congressional leaders on a complex, high-stakes spectrum issue that could put national security and commercial interests of the Bush administration on a collision course.
Indeed, what began as a technical exercise-prompted last fall by President Clinton’s directive to assess 3G spectrum availability-is about to turn into an all-out political brawl that likely will dwarf all spectrum battles that have come before it.
Given the diverse stakeholders-including mobile phone, military and federal government, religious, educational and Internet users of the airwaves-meeting the government’s July deadline for securing 3G spectrum will be a Herculean challenge likely involving months of political bloodletting in the nation’s capital.
Last week, that process began with the release of two 3G-spectrum reports described as “final” but in reality very much open to negotiation.
“Make no mistake: we are committed to working together at the highest levels to meet the challenge of finding the spectrum needed to serve the private sector’s needs, as well as the needs of our nation’s defenses and other critical government services. The NTIA report issued today sheds additional light on the challenge we face, yet it is but one early step in an ongoing, comprehensive process,” said Evans in a prepared statement.
In its final report, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration-a unit of the Commerce Department-said limited sharing of the 1700 MHz band between the military and 3G mobile-phone carriers might be possible under certain conditions. Wireless industry studies have come to the same conclusion.
An accompanying Department of Defense analysis-upon which the NTIA report was partly based-concludes full sharing of the 1700 MHz band with mobile-phone service providers is not feasible.
Assistant Defense Secretary Arthur Money, who oversees command, control and communications, responded to the Evans’ statement with one of his own: “The findings in the DoD report are based on the principle that these essential military capabilities (satellite control, precision-guided weapons data links, tactical radio relay and air combat training systems) must be preserved … The department believes, that before government spectrum is reallocated for 3G services, the case must still be made that these services cannot be accommodated within non-government spectrum already allocated or readily for wireless operations.”
Commerce Secretary Evans and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, according to officials, are well aware of the 3G spectrum controversy, but have yet to meet to discuss the matter.
Last Thursday, mobile-phone industry leaders met with Evans for a half-hour to voice concerns about DoD’s reluctance to surrender the 1700 MHz band to mobile-phone carriers. Attending the meeting were Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association President Thomas Wheeler and senior officials from Sprint PCS, Motorola Inc., AT&T Wireless Services, Cingular Wireless, L.M. Ericsson, Qualcomm Inc., VoiceStream Wireless Corp., Nokia Corp., Nortel Networks, Verizon Wireless and the Telecommunications Industry Association.
The meeting followed a high-tech summit hosted the day before by President Bush. Industry leaders highlighted the 3G spectrum issue to administration officials at the gathering.
The mobile-phone industry has known for weeks that the DoD spectrum analysis on 1700 MHz sharing/band segmentation and the NTIA report likely would not be very favorable to carriers. With this information in hand but lacking the ability to influence the process because President Bush has yet to fill the top NTIA post and other key policy positions, industry lobbyists have been scrambling in hopes of getting senior members of the new administration to focus on the issue. And take control of it.
Last week, industry found that individual in Commerce Secretary Evans.
In particular, mobile-phone lobbyists got Evans to agree not to be bound by technical conclusions reached under an aggressive timetable established by the prior administration. In essence, the wireless industry bought time to negotiate what, if any, 3G spectrum it can recover from the Pentagon and other federal government agencies.
“We continue to believe reasonable people can fashion a spectrum policy that assures our ability to compete on the economic as well as the military battlefield,” said Wheeler.
Getting there, though, will be tough-if not impossible-within the current timelines. The Federal Communications Commission wants to complete a rule making in July that identifies precisely what frequency bands are available for 3G services. The agency then expects to begin work to complete writing 3G auction and service rules by year’s end. The 3G auction is scheduled for June 30, 2002, with licenses issued by September that year.
DoD, already negative on 1700 MHz sharing, threw up several potential obstacles to relocation. The Pentagon said complete relocation of military radio systems from the 1700 MHz band to other frequencies would require certifiable comparable spectrum. Moreover, the Pentagon said it could take a decade or more to complete the relocation process and cost more than $4 billion.
Because other federal government systems may have to be moved to other frequencies, too, the total cost and time required for relocating incumbent 1700 MHz federal users to other frequency bands could be even be greater.
NTIA, for its part, said it plans to finish writing relocation rules this year. Mobile-phone carriers-already financially burdened with spectrum acquisition and network buildout costs that run into the billions of dollars-are required by law to reimburse the Pentagon and other federal agencies for government spectrum auctioned for commercial wireless use.
The wireless industry is floating ideas on Capitol Hill that could lead to legislation that, for example, might set aside a percentage of 3G auction revenue for 1700 MHz relocation. “We are definitely pursuing that as a way forward on this and to give DoD and industry greater certainty regarding the timing and cost of relocation,” said Steve Sharkey, of Motorola’s government affairs office here.
The World Radiocommunication Conference last year identified the 698 MHz-960 MHz, 1755 MHz-1850 MHz and 2500 MHz-2690 MHz bands for 3G, an Internet-friendly mobile-phone technology capable of providing voice, high-speed data, video and other multimedia services to wireless consumers in future years.
In addition to lobbying the Evans and White House officials, industry-emphasizing the huge domestic and global economic implications of a 3G technology that could shape the next generation of the Internet-also has appealed to House and Senate lawmakers with telecom policy and appropriations oversight.
That lobbying has triggered congressional letters to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, urging him to consider 3G-military sharing and relocation as a win-win reform as part of his top-to-bottom Defense Strategy Review.
RCR Wireless News learned last week that a draft of the DoD review was given last Monday night to Gen. Peter Pace of the U.S. Marine Corps, commander in chief of the U.S. southern command, and possibly to other military top brass who were on Capitol Hill much of last week briefing lawmakers on military readiness-including the need to keep the very 1700 MHz spectrum sought by the industry.
It is unclear to what extent radio spectrum issues will be addressed in Rumsfeld’s DoD review. On a related front, indications surfaced last week that the General Accounting Office might be looking into the 3G spectrum issue.
While the mobile-phone industry was scoring po
ints with Commerce Secretary Evans last week, top U.S. military commanders were busy building support for keeping the 1700 MHz band in open hearings and closed-door meetings with the Senate Armed Services Committee lawmakers and others.
As for the 2500 MHz band, the news for the wireless industry Friday was even worse.
In its final report, the FCC concluded that neither sharing nor relocation of users of the 2500 MHz band-heavily occupied by religious, educational and fixed wireless Internet licensees like WorldCom Inc. and Sprint Corp.-is workable. The FCC said there is no alternative frequency band to accommodate a relocation of 2500 MHz users and that the cost of doing so-even it were it possible-could be as high as $30 billion.
“We applaud the FCC’s understanding of the importance the long-term planning now coming to fruition through the partnerships of both commercial providers and educators to bring advanced broadband services to the public promptly through MMDS (multichannel multipoint distribution service) and ITFS (instructional television fixed service) fixed wireless technology,” said Andrew Kreig, president of the Wireless Communications Association International.
Likewise, the Catholic Television Network-which operates on the 2500 MHz band-said it was pleased the FCC’s report “found that the educational community should be allowed to retain its spectrum.”
CTN said it was “profoundly disappointed” by Verizon Wireless’ emergency petition, which asked the FCC to defer granting 2500 MHz fixed wireless licenses this week. Verizon said such FCC action would be premature, “given that the very spectrum addressed by those license grants is the subject of a major but uncompleted reallocation proceeding.”
