The New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute joined the Consumer Federation of America, Public Knowledge, and Free Press in submitting comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on an amendment of the Commission's rules with regard to commercial operation within the 3550 - 3650 MHz band. Read the full text of the comments here (pdf).
PISC strongly supports the Commission’s effort to convert this very substantial but grossly underutilized swath of spectrum into an intensively-used small cell band in a manner that not only protects military and other incumbent systems from interference, but also builds a foundation for more extensive private sector sharing of underutilized bands with an automated governing mechanism (a “Spectrum Access System”). The Commission’s three-tier access system strikes the right balance, we believe, between protecting incumbent operations and facilitating private sector usage on a spectrally-efficient, small cell basis. The Commission’s NPRM is a critical first step in a long-term effort to reorient the nation’s spectrum policy toward use rather than exclusively reserved non-use of capacity on the public’s infinitely-renewable spectrum resource. As we noted in our initial comments, the proposed Citizens’ Broadband Service and refinement of a Spectrum Access System is potentially a landmark in the Commission’s progress away from static ‘command and control’ licensing rules and toward more flexible and spectrum-efficient approaches that begin to harness the full potential of the nation’s spectrum resources.
PISC strongly believes that however the Commission defines eligibility for Priority Access, it is vital that it establish a forward-looking, three-tier framework that ensures a robust degree of opportunistic access (General Authorized Access) on a nationwide basis. A substantial portion of the band should always be available for General Authorized Access (“GAA”) in every market. In addition, GAA users should be able to opportunistically access unused spectrum capacity in the band across the entire 150 MHz, subject to protecting Federal incumbents and secondary Priority Access licensees.
Finally, PISC supplements its initial comments by outlining additional reasons why the sort of two-tier, exclusively-licensed version of the Spectrum Access System (SAS) proposed in comments filed by Qualcomm and Nokia is both unnecessary and counterproductive relative to the public interest purposes of this small cell band. What Qualcomm and Nokia call an “Authorized Shared Access” licensee (ASA) is functionally identical to the Spectrum Access System proposed by PCAST and by the Commission in the NPRM, except for two major differences that, at least for this band, make it vastly inferior to the Commission’s proposal to permit open registration of any eligible Priority Access use and to include an underlay of General Authorized Access on an opportunistic basis. While the NPRM proposes separating the band management function from control of the spectrum, thereby expanding on the concept of the TV Bands Databases as privately-operated but neutral traffic regulators, the winning bidder(s) in the auction for exclusive ASA licenses would dictate the scope, terms and price of entry to the band, as well as its potential use. As the ‘owner’ of the spectrum, the ASA licensee has a strong incentive to extract rents, not maximize overall use of the band.
This proceeding is foundational. As the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (“PCAST”) concluded, by improving on the concept of the commercially operated TV Bands Databases, the Spectrum Access System(s) certified to facilitate shared use of the 3550-3700 MHz band can be the platform and infrastructure for a spectrum “superhighway” of private sector sharing of underutilized federal bands. PISC urges the Commission to keep this larger policy goal in mind as it determines the best balance between opportunistic and exclusive licensing – and the type of spectrum access management system that will serve the broader public interest in the long term as both necessity and technology push toward more intensive band sharing, particularly with federal operations on underutilized bands.
