Updated on January 17th, 2012
In his remarks at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the debate over the spectrum crunch has been settled: If we don’t authorize incentive auctions and make more spectrum available, “consumers will face slower speeds, more dropped connections, and higher prices.” He also said the United States would lose the international wireless race and would pay the price in lost jobs, investment and innovation. That’s the bad news. The good news is broad, bipartisan agreement in Congress that we need to get incentive auctions done. Although the House and Senate differ on the details, they have both passed bills that would provide the additional spectrum the FCC Chairman believes will prevent the dire consequences he outlined in his remarks. Game over, everyone wins, right?
Not so fast. The Chairman also said “getting it right is as important as getting it done.” By “getting it right,” he means doing it the FCC’s way rather than the way Congress has proposed. Chairman Genachowski took issue with provisions in the House bill that would prohibit the FCC from allocating cleared spectrum bands for unlicensed use by companies that didn’t pay the price required to clear those bands, and would prohibit the FCC from rigging the auction results by limiting the ability of certain companies to win. Even assuming the FCC would do a better job making such decisions, I can’t agree that doing it the FCC’s way is more important than doing it at all when the FCC Chairman says doing nothing would kill jobs, harm consumers, and hurt our global competitiveness. (For a more detailed look at the substantive issues, see posts here and here.)
As AT&T said on its policy blog last week, “it would be a disservice to the Nation if the FCC is so adamant about preserving and enhancing its own power that it would risk killing this crucial legislation.” The House and Senate have already compromised on the key issue that held up the legislation last year, which was the reallocation of the D Block to public safety. We can’t afford to further delay the deployment of a nationwide, interoperable public safety network or the availability of more mobile spectrum while we argue about the extent of the FCC’s regulatory authority. It’s time to embrace the public safety compromise forged in Congress and declare victory.
No Comments |
TAGS:
AT&T D-Block mobile spectrum wireless
Updated on July 13th, 2010
Dana Barrett: “What is that thing you’re doing?”
Dr. Peter Venkman: “It’s technical . . . .”
Ghostbusters (1984)
So far I’ve successfully resisted the urge to comment on the 700 MHz D Block issues percolating at the FCC (although I did reference the FCC’s report in an earlier post). After coming back from my traditional 4th of July holiday, however, I’ve succumbed to the temptation to opine on the FCC’s “D Block Capacity Report.”
Others have already analyzed the Report in detail. (For Andrew Seybold’s comprehensive analysis, click here.) And I’ll try not to repeat their analyses in this post. Instead, I focus on the framing of the Report and, perhaps most importantly, what the Report doesn’t say.
The FCC frames its D Block capacity Report as a “technical” analysis intended to determine whether 10 MHz of spectrum is sufficient to meet public safety’s communications requirements in various scenarios. But, of course, this purported “technical” analysis is based as much on economic and policy assumptions as it is on engineering. It has to be: Because capacity is impacted by issues like cell density, which is in part a matter of economics, capacity isn’t solely a technical issue.
The FCC appears to concede that whether 10 MHz of spectrum is sufficient for day-to-day operations depends in part on how much money public safety has to deploy and maintain the network. (See Report at pages 5-7.) Indeed, the Report relies heavily on the potential economies of scope and scale that public safety would enjoy if the D Block is licensed to a commercial operator. (See Report at pages 16-17.) But the report erroneously assumes that the “benefits associated with sharing an LTE band class (Band Class 14) with the commercial D block licensee would evaporate” if the D Block were given to public safety. Isn’t it just as likely that public safety could use its access to an additional 10 MHz of spectrum (which, according to the Report, public safety doesn’t need) as an incentive to entice a commercial licensee into a mutually beneficial, voluntary partnership with public safety? Unfortunately, the Report doesn’t address this question or other alternative scenarios involving both economic and technical analysis.
Ironically, the FCC is clearly relying on significant relationships developing between public safety and commercial partners through roaming and priority access regimes. (See Report at pages 11-12.) However, the FCC apparently wishes to impose roaming and priority access requirements on commercial licensees as a matter of regulatory fiat, rather than allow them to develop through cooperative agreements between commercial licensees and public safety (using the D Block as leverage). It appears the FCC is more comfortable with imposing regulation on commercial licensees (who will be forced to allow public safety to access their spectrum and commercial resources) than giving more spectrum to public safety and relying on voluntary sharing arrangements. Regardless of its merits, this preference is one of policy and economics that has been given a dubious “technical” patina.
No Comments |
TAGS:
D-Block public safety spectrum