CSMAC Asked to Help Government Meet Broadband Spectrum Goals
NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling Tuesday asked the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee to refocus its efforts on helping the agency identify spectrum to meet the administration’s goal of providing 500 MHz for broadband in 10 years. At the final meeting of the current CSMAC, the group also approved final versions of two sometimes controversial reports on “incentives” for getting more government spectrum into play for commercial use and on the benefits of unlicensed spectrum.
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"We want to take this committee and turn it into a support group to help us” in the search for new spectrum bands for broadband, Strickling said. “We want to do it in a way that’s respectful of the missions that are being currently performed by federal agencies. … We and the agencies themselves understand the compelling need we have to find this additional spectrum.” The committee can provide the most help on technical and business questions, he suggested.
Strickling said NTIA is trying to attract more members with technical and engineering background to become members of CSMAC. He warned that all of the current members may not be reappointed to another term.
NTIA Associate Administrator Karl Nebbia told CSMAC that NTIA plans to identify by the end of January the first band the government will target for reallocation for wireless broadband. NTIA needs advice from CSMAC as it figures out how to make more spectrum available, he said.
Prioritization of various bands has been an early focus of the agency, Nebbia said. “We don’t want to spend a year on a band” that doesn’t meet the agency’s requirements, he said. “We're finding it very challenging.” Frequencies that are very low or very high on the band are of less interest, he said. “For many it seems like, looking at LTE, that 20 MHz becomes a key factor,” Nebbia said. “We're looking at bands that have 20 MHz, at least, available. … That’s a key issue."
Industry’s focus has been on making just one band available -- 1755-1780 MHz -- Nebbia said. “Is there a larger plan here that we're able to work?” he asked. “Those 25 MHz may suit some goals, but they don’t suit” most spectrum needs. Nebbia also said the industry has not made clear what tradeoffs it could accept between spectrum sharing and exclusive use.
NTIA has to look closely at each band to understand potential relocation costs, whether there’s spectrum available to move current users to it, technological issues and international hurdles, Nebbia said. Transition times are also critical, he said: “We know if we're dealing with some of the geo-satellites we may be dealing with transition times on the order of 20 years.”
CSMAC member Janice Obuchowski, a former NTIA administrator, said she welcomed the mandate to help NTIA identify spectrum for broadband. “We're all capable of debating a lot of issues that really won’t solve the problems that we need to solve,” she said.
CSMAC Co-chairman Dale Hatfield, former acting NTIA administrator, warned that the group needs to maintain its independence. “I think it’s very important that NTIA play a great big role in defining the problem,” he said. “I get a little bit concerned that if we're not careful we might become an extension of NTIA and reflect the answers they want to hear."
White House aide Phil Weiser told CSMAC during brief remarks that the group has a big role to play in providing expert advice on spectrum issues. Getting advice from experts is one of the major challenges of “open government,” he said. “We don’t have all the answers,” he said. “The revolution that’s happening in 4G is coming at a stunning pace and if we don’t get spectrum out to the marketplace and if we don’t try to ride that revolution we're missing a huge opportunity."
The CSMAC approved a report on incentives for clearing government spectrum, which calls on the NTIA to study fees for government spectrum use. The report was the main focus of the last two CSMAC meetings (CD Dec 14 p2, Nov 9 p1) and has led to hours of sometimes contentious debate among members of the group. Nebbia asked for clarity on what the report actually recommends after dozens of changes. “I had understood that the working group had not come to a conclusion of strongly recommending spectrum fees,” he said.
"Although I think we are concluding that [fees] would be beneficial, we've raised a whole series of questions that are unanswered about the details of implementation and we've raised a number of concerns about possible side effects” said CSMAC member Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation, an author of the report. “There needs to be further study.”
"I think we're not talking about an absolute decision that fees in all instances are appropriate,” said CSMAC member Jennifer Warren of Lockheed Martin.
CSMAC after a lengthy debate also adopted a report on unlicensed spectrum. “The report assumes the continued existence of unlicensed use and suggests steps that could lead to more efficient unlicensed uses as well as enhanced sharing among users, licensed and unlicensed,” said a lead paragraph of the report, in language the committee wrote on the fly during its meeting.
The report suggests that traditional licensed technology where “a base station interacts with a handset, by creating a frequency channel for the exclusive use of the handset,” is not necessarily the most efficient use of spectrum. “This process results in wasted energy and unused spectrum capacity that may prevent others from sharing the radio spectrum, the report said. But CSMAC members added language Tuesday noting that “there have been cases where technological advances have mitigated this concern.”
The report recommends that the Department of Commerce put in place “an organizational effort” to investigate “effective ways of using spectrum more efficiently and sharing spectrum more effectively with unlicensed operations.” But after several members raised objections, the CSMAC Tuesday deleted language from the report calling on NTIA and the FCC to create a National Spectrum Technology Roadmap.
Hatfield expressed frustration as the discussions ground on Tuesday. “It seems like we're rearguing some pretty fundamental things here,” he said. “We don’t have time to do that. … We're out of time, literally.”
Hatfield and Bryan Tramont of Wilkinson Barker indicated Tuesday they do not plan to serve additional terms as co-chairmen of the group.