I've read through a lot of the information on the Incentive auction, listened to some of the workshops and meetings on Youtube, checked out some websites that aren't at fcc.gov and continue to have the feeling that no one has any real idea what it all means. I mean, we are talking about billions of dollars changing hands, broadcast channels moving or disappearing. One mysterious task to me (as a user in a previous life of optimizing software) is the reconfiguration (hopefully to be finished in 39 months) of the 100 MHz or so of newly released spectrum into contiguous blocs using "optimization software". That's like saying I'm traveling on transportation equipment.
This process could be a bonanza for telecom lawyers.
Updates and Analysis of FCC Spectrum Management and Auction Policy
Monday, April 11, 2016
Saturday, April 9, 2016
How will the so-called independent verifier for Lifeline work?
At their March 31 meeting the FCC commissioners had a spirited if partisan exchange of views about expanding the Lifeline subsidy to apply to the cost of broadband internet services for qualified low-income citizens. Although the commissioners seemed to agree that applying the subsidy to the cost of broadband was a good idea they parted ways over the budget for the subsidy. Listening to commissioners' statements it appeared that the budget issue was primarily a way to get at the issue of what two commissioners felt was the susceptibility of the program to "waste, fraud, and abuse". A better approach is to focus on the mechanics of the verification process (currently verification is done by the phone service provider) to make it as accurate and timely as possible. One commissioner brought up the issue of the extra $25 given to residents of tribal lands, particularly in the state of Oklahoma as a particular example of a poorly designed allocation of funds.
I will particularly be interested in the application of the subsidy to residents in HUD multi-family housing. Will they be able to combine their subsidies to allow the property to implement a property-wide wi-fi system.
From the FCC press release:
I will particularly be interested in the application of the subsidy to residents in HUD multi-family housing. Will they be able to combine their subsidies to allow the property to implement a property-wide wi-fi system.
From the FCC press release:
National Eligibility Verifier removes the opportunity for providers to enroll ineligible subscribers...Refines list of federal programs that may be used to validate Lifeline eligibility to those that support electronic validation, are most accountable, and best identify people needing support (SNAP, SSI, Medicaid, Veterans Pension, HUD Federal Public Housing Assistance, Tribal), along with income-based eligibility...Increases transparency by making program data publicly available and understandable, including subscriber counts by provider and uniform disclosure of annual subscriber recertification data
Monday, March 28, 2016
Today's the day.
The initial commitment portion of the reverse auction (1000) begins today (March 28, 2016) and I'm very curious to see eventually how much broadcast spectrum gets made available.
Initial commitments must be submitted during a window that will open at 10:00 am Eastern Time (ET) on March 28, 2016, and close, as previously announced, at 6:00 pm ET on March 29, 2016...
A reverse auction applicant must make an initial commitment for each of the stations for which it wishes to become qualified to bid in the clock rounds of the reverse auction.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on March 3, 2016 Held a Hearing on Federal Communications Commission actions. ...
The hearing was a fascinating combination of issues, agendas, and politics. Senators from states such as Montana and Nebraska with significant rural populations focused on service to remote areas. Other senators chased after issues such as communications between the White House and FCC commissioners and satellite vs. ground based uses.
Who's on first or who coordinates the coordinators...
The FCC's recent notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) proposes the creation of new rules for the 28, 37, 39 and 64 – 71 GHz bands making them available for licensed, unlicensed and a shared uses for both local area and wide-area networks. This spectrum frontier about 24 GHz is seen as a future home of 5G with its potential for greater capacity and speed to support next-generation phones. The NPRM seeks comments on the use of these bands to that can adapt to the pace of technological change and increased consumer demand.
The 500 MHz Initiative: A 2010 Presidential Memorandum directed the Secretary of Commerce, working through NTIA, to collaborate with the Federal Communications Commission to make available a total of 500 megahertz of Federal and non-federal spectrum over the next 10 years for mobile and fixed wireless broadband use.
Federal Communications Commission (from NTIA website): The FCC is an independent Federal regulatory agency responsible directly to Congress. Established by the Communications Act of 1934, it is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. Its jurisdiction covers the 50 states and territories, the District of Columbia, and U.S. Possessions.
The FCC is directed by five commissioners appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for five-year terms, except when filling an unexpired term. The President designates one commissioner to serve as chairman. As the chief executive officer of the Commission, the chairman delegates management and administrative responsibility to the Managing Director. Certain other functions are delegated to staff units and bureaus and to committees of commissioners. The commissioners hold regular open and closed agenda meetings and special meetings. They also may act between meetings by "circulation," a procedure by which a document is submitted to each commissioner individually for consideration and official action. The Commission staff is organized by function. There are six operating Bureaus and 10 Staff Offices.
NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management (OSM) is dedicated to protecting the vital Federal government operations that use spectrum while also supporting the growth of commercial wireless broadband and technologies in America. Many federal agencies rely on the use of spectrum, a limited resource, to execute their core missions. There is also increasing demand for spectrum to meet the wireless broadband needs of consumers and businesses, paving the way for continued innovation and economic growth.
OSM principally manages the Federal government’s use of the radio frequency spectrum, ensuring that the America’s domestic and international spectrum needs are satisfied. To achieve this, OSM receives assistance and advice from the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) and carries out this responsibility by:
Portal Opens for AWS-3 Spectrum Sharing Coordination NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) recently launched a new online site that enables commercial entities and federal agencies to coordinate spectrum use in the 1695-1710 MHz band, one of three bands recently made available by auction for Advanced Wireless Services (AWS). The new NTIA portal fulfills an important requirement to enable sharing in the 1695-1710 MHz portion of this prime spectrum.
Although many federal incumbents will eventually relocate out of the AWS bands, relocation is not feasible for agencies that operate meteorological satellite Earth stations in the 1695-1710 MHz band. To make this band available for sharing, the Federal Communications Commission devised rules that require commercial auction winners to successfully coordinate with federal incumbents prior to operating in geographic areas (coordination zones) around these stations, which will continue to operate indefinitely.
Federal incumbents , including the Air Force, Army, Navy, Department of the Interior and National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, turned to ITS to create an online spectrum coordination portal for spectrum sharing in the 1695-1710 MHz AWS-3 band. A team of 10 ITS developers, documentation experts and quality assurance personnel worked over a period of five months to develop the portal. The solution was designed to be cost efficient, modular and scalable, combining commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software into an advanced web-based architecture. Hosted by NTIA, the final product is a customized web-based database storage software solution that manages the flow of information between commercial wireless operators deploying broadband wireless networks and federal agencies who have meteorological satellite Earth station operations in the identified coordination zones.
The portal enables the commercial operators and incumbents to exchange information and communicate about radio communication engineering issues to enable successful sharing. It is available for use seven days a week, 24 hours a day at https://rfcp.ntia.doc.gov.
The 500 MHz Initiative: A 2010 Presidential Memorandum directed the Secretary of Commerce, working through NTIA, to collaborate with the Federal Communications Commission to make available a total of 500 megahertz of Federal and non-federal spectrum over the next 10 years for mobile and fixed wireless broadband use.
- Presidential Memorandum
- Ten Year Plan and Timetable to Make Available 500 MHz of Spectrum for Wireless Broadband
- An Assessment of the Viability of Accommodating Wireless Broadband in the 1755-1850 MHz Band
Federal Communications Commission (from NTIA website): The FCC is an independent Federal regulatory agency responsible directly to Congress. Established by the Communications Act of 1934, it is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. Its jurisdiction covers the 50 states and territories, the District of Columbia, and U.S. Possessions.
The FCC is directed by five commissioners appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for five-year terms, except when filling an unexpired term. The President designates one commissioner to serve as chairman. As the chief executive officer of the Commission, the chairman delegates management and administrative responsibility to the Managing Director. Certain other functions are delegated to staff units and bureaus and to committees of commissioners. The commissioners hold regular open and closed agenda meetings and special meetings. They also may act between meetings by "circulation," a procedure by which a document is submitted to each commissioner individually for consideration and official action. The Commission staff is organized by function. There are six operating Bureaus and 10 Staff Offices.
NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management (OSM) is dedicated to protecting the vital Federal government operations that use spectrum while also supporting the growth of commercial wireless broadband and technologies in America. Many federal agencies rely on the use of spectrum, a limited resource, to execute their core missions. There is also increasing demand for spectrum to meet the wireless broadband needs of consumers and businesses, paving the way for continued innovation and economic growth.
OSM principally manages the Federal government’s use of the radio frequency spectrum, ensuring that the America’s domestic and international spectrum needs are satisfied. To achieve this, OSM receives assistance and advice from the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) and carries out this responsibility by:
- establishing and issuing policy regarding allocations and regulations governing the Federal spectrum use;
- developing plans for the peacetime and wartime use of the spectrum;
- preparing for, participating in, and implementing the results of international radio conferences;
- assigning frequencies;
- maintaining spectrum use databases;
- reviewing Federal agencies' new telecommunications systems and certifying that spectrum will be available;
- providing the technical engineering expertise needed to perform specific spectrum resources assessments and automated computer capabilities needed to carry out these investigations;
- participating in all aspects of the Federal government's communications related emergency readiness activities; and
- participating in Federal government telecommunications and automated information systems security activities.
Portal Opens for AWS-3 Spectrum Sharing Coordination NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) recently launched a new online site that enables commercial entities and federal agencies to coordinate spectrum use in the 1695-1710 MHz band, one of three bands recently made available by auction for Advanced Wireless Services (AWS). The new NTIA portal fulfills an important requirement to enable sharing in the 1695-1710 MHz portion of this prime spectrum.
Although many federal incumbents will eventually relocate out of the AWS bands, relocation is not feasible for agencies that operate meteorological satellite Earth stations in the 1695-1710 MHz band. To make this band available for sharing, the Federal Communications Commission devised rules that require commercial auction winners to successfully coordinate with federal incumbents prior to operating in geographic areas (coordination zones) around these stations, which will continue to operate indefinitely.
Federal incumbents , including the Air Force, Army, Navy, Department of the Interior and National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, turned to ITS to create an online spectrum coordination portal for spectrum sharing in the 1695-1710 MHz AWS-3 band. A team of 10 ITS developers, documentation experts and quality assurance personnel worked over a period of five months to develop the portal. The solution was designed to be cost efficient, modular and scalable, combining commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software into an advanced web-based architecture. Hosted by NTIA, the final product is a customized web-based database storage software solution that manages the flow of information between commercial wireless operators deploying broadband wireless networks and federal agencies who have meteorological satellite Earth station operations in the identified coordination zones.
The portal enables the commercial operators and incumbents to exchange information and communicate about radio communication engineering issues to enable successful sharing. It is available for use seven days a week, 24 hours a day at https://rfcp.ntia.doc.gov.
Monday, March 14, 2016
Is the FCC's bureaucracy falling behind
As the pace of technical innovation and video and broadband expansion bumps up against the finite amount of radio spectrum, the FCC's regulatory workload is also expanding both in complexity and quantity. A short list of FCC managed stuff include the upcoming spectrum auctions, the push back from satellite communications companies and groups against the reassignment of spectrum to terrestrial mobile applications, the post auction repacking, the continuing debate over "net neutrality", the endless parade of normal FCC actions, as well as the FCC's task of permitting the entry of new large corporations such as Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook as potential telecom players. Not too far over the horizon are 4.5 and 5G.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Update on FCC's spectrum frontiers Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
The FCC proposal to adopt new rules to make spectrum bands above 24 GHz available for mobile and other services was adopted back in October of 2015 with public comment period ending in January (later extended to February). This is the so-called "Spectrum Frontiers" rulemaking and FCC Chairman Wheeler has indicated that a decision on the final rule should be made by the end of the summer 2016. Companies such as Google want a Spectrum Access System to be used for the 37 GHz band whereas big wireless carriers (e.g. Verizon) would like the licensing to be done as it was in the past. On November 19, 2015, the Satellite Industry Association (SIA) wrote that analyzing spectrum sharing with mobile wireless services should be based on a separate review for each band as current and future satellite operations differ depending on the band. In particular, satellite companies have stated their desire to keep the 28 GHz band free of new ground-based signals.
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