Spectrum – Page 11

What’s A POTUS SOTU Shout Out On Wireless Worth?

Harold January 26, 2011 January 26, 2011Life In The Sausage Factory, Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

Last night, the wonkiest corner of telecom policy experienced its 15 picoseconds of fame when President Obama invoked spectrum policy in his State of the Union (SOTU) Address. In nerdness terms, this would be like James Franco and Anne Hathaway pausing before the Best Picture Oscar to announce this year’s Nebula Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Needless to say, I am uber-pleased to have the geekiest of Presidents acknowledge the wonkiest of my issues. But does it do any actual good? I explore this below . . . .

After 10 Years of Struggle, Low-Power FM Will Give Thousands of New Communities A Chance To Get Their Voices On The Air.

Harold December 20, 2010 December 20, 2010How Democracy Works, Or Doesn't, Life In The Sausage Factory, Media Ownership, Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

Ten years ago, the FCC did a startling thing. It recognized that much of the rise in “pirate radio” came from frustrated demand for small, local licenses of the sort the FCC had simply stopped distributing many years before. So the FCC offered a deal to the “pirate” community: stop transmitting illegally and the FCC would create a low-power radio service. Despite fierce resistance by commercial broadcasters at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) (and, to their eternal shame, National Public Radio, which can be just as much of a bad incumbent as its commercial sisters), the FCC adopted rules to allow 100-watt radio stations to operate on a non-commercial basis. These stations would operate on a “secondary” basis to full power stations, required to protect these stations from any interference. To create space for these new community Low Power FM (LPFM) stations, the FCC would relax the “third adjacent” spacing requirement, a mechanical rule for spacing radio station transmitters far enough apart adopted in the early days radio to ensure no interference. The FCC studied the matter and concluded that relaxing this rule would not cause harmful interference to existing full-power stations.

Needless to say, the full-power broadcasters did not give up so easily. But neither did the supporters of LPFM. It’s a story worth celebrating not merely for the result, but for what it teaches us about staying in the struggle for the long-haul.

FCC Google “Spy-Fi” Investigation To Establish Network Neutrality Authority? Thanks Scott!

Harold November 22, 2010 November 24, 2010Series of Tubes, Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

Scott Cleland is mad at Google. This is not much of a surprise. Scott Cleland spends much of his time mad at Google and wishing terrible things would happen to them. This time, Cleland wants the FCC to investigate and punish Google for their collecting user data while sending their truck fleet to find open hot spots as part of their “street view” project. The FCC has confirmed it is investigating Google’s conduct. Cleland hopes the FCC will throw the book at Google.

I’m also hoping the FCC will act. But having pondered this for awhile, I’m not sure Cleland understands precisely what an FCC action against Google would mean for issues like network neutrality and regulation of wireless broadband access. Briefly, it would require the FCC to either assert authority over all unlicensed spectrum and passive reception under some combination of Section 301 (47 USC 301) and Section 302 (47 USC 302a) of the Act, or authority over wireless broadband pursuant to Section 705 (47 USC 605). While this does not trouble me, evil pro-regulatory big-government free-market hating Socialist that I am, I am rather surprised to see those (like Cleland) who usually want the FCC kept at arms length begging the FCC to charge into the fray and extend its authority over Google, especially when such an expansion of authority would extend to network neutrality regulation as well.

More below . . . .

Genachowski Enters FCC In 12-Step Program To Stop Consumer Abuse

Harold October 15, 2010 January 22, 2013Cable, Life In The Sausage Factory, Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

�The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem.� So goes the self-help clich�. For regulatory agencies, the first step is admitting that industry has a problem and that the wonderful happy world of the unregulated market � no matter how wildly competitive it might or might not be � doesn�t always protect consumers and that in fact, sometimes, free market dogma to the contrary, you actually reach the best result for everyone by having government set basic rules of disclosure and enforcement (the classic paper on this being George Akerlof�s oft-cited �The Market For Lemons�). The recent experience with the meltdown of the financial services sector and its ongoing tribulations provide rather vivid proof that �trusting the market� and waiting for �proof of a problem.�

Which brings me to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski�s latest app release for Genachowski 2.0 � the Relaunch. With network neutrality on the backburner until after the election, Genachowski has taken the opportunity to get the agency on track with its substantive agenda. In addition to moving forward for the second month in a row on significant National Broadband Plan Items (White Spaces last month, CableCARD and Mobility Fund this month), Genachowski has started taking the FCC in the welcome direction of consumer protection.
Continue reading

Broadcasters Try To Embed Denial of Service Trojan Horse In White Spaces Rules

Harold September 21, 2010 September 21, 2010Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

The official agenda for the FCC�s September Open Meeting on Thursday lists the broadcast white spaces as one of the items. This Order will resolve the details left hanging from the 2008 Order (although it now appears that it will not select the database operator), finally allowing development of this technology and forming the foundation for the next generation of unlicensed wireless technology.

Or maybe not. Even more than usual, this Order relies on getting all the details right. The limitations and interference mitigation mechanisms have left very little in the way of usable spectrum in the largest urban markets most attractive to manufacturers. Lose what�s left and you lose national markets necessary to interest developers and achieve economies of scale. Do anything further to drive up cost of manufacture or add a new layer of uncertainty and would-be developers � who have already been at this for [8 years] and poured millions of dollars into prototypes and pilot projects -� will likely pull the plug and walk away. Anyone who remembers such promising technologies as ultrawideband should recognize the death by a thousand cuts approach favored by incumbents.

[We’re having some technical issues here at Wetmachine, so I can’t link back to my previous posts on White Spaces. Sorry about that. Hopefully it will get resolved soon.]

What Do WiMax, WiFi, Bluetooth and VOIP All Have In Common? A Very Active “Afterlife.”

Harold July 7, 2010 July 7, 2010Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

With the rise of LTE, we find great woe and tearing of hair among the supporters of WiMax. Intel, long a WiMAX booster, closed it’s Taiwan WiMax office and it seems you can’t swing a dead iPad these days without hitting another story about WiMax’s woes and its upcoming demise in the face of LTE.

Mind you, I can remember back in 2004 when the WiMax posse (as I liked to call them) swore that WiMAX had slain wifi and all those folks investing in wide-area mesh networks using sad little unlicensed wifi had wasted their money because WiFi was dead! dead! dead! This, of course, will come as news to both Cablevision and AT&T, both of whom announced major wifi network builds in the last few months.� And, of course, Wifi itself previously “killed” bluetooth, which is why it is so hard to find bluetooth enabled devices anymore.

Genachowski's Secret $15 bn Piggy Bank, or T-mobile Triumphs Over M2Z.

Harold March 5, 2010 February 24, 2013Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

I’ve been rather pressed for time, hence have not had much chance to blog on the FCC’s recent spectrum policy announcements for D-Block and the broadcast migration offer. Combine these two speeches with Genachowski’s recent statement in an interview that the NBP will finance the $25 billion via existing programs and it is clear that the FCC will adopt the T-Mobile’s “asymmetric auction” proposal for the AWS-2 and AWS-3 band, leaving M2Z high and dry. The only question is whether or not there will be spectrum caps to keep AT&T and Verizon from snarfing the good stuff, but do not expect the NBP to touch something as “controversial” as spectrum caps even by veiled implication the way the DoJ did in its comments.

Mind, this is another example of the “spectrum auctions are the crack cocaine of public policy” problem. The thirst for revenue pushes all other considerations out the window. I’m not convinced the T-Mobile approach is wrong (especially if subject to spectrum caps), and I think the D-Block finesse was extremely clever. But when revenue sits in the driver’s seat, policy invariably takes a wrong turn somewhere along the road. But it is difficult to imagine how Genachowski could resist a $15 bn secret cash cow to fend off accusations that Democrats are once again writing checks against our children’s future blah blah blah.

I unpack all this below. . . .

Wireless Bureau Wisely Decides To Not Play Referee In 3.65 GHz Band

Harold February 3, 2010 February 24, 2013Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

I have a fondness for the 3.65 GHz band for a number of reasons. In the first place, I was heavily involved in the the fight over the rules. For another, it seems to be filing an important niche in the wireless broadband ecosystem. So I was pleased when the FCC’s Wireless Bureau resisted the invitation to get involved in interference disputes in the band. OTOH, it also highlights the value of having a referee with jurisdiction in case something does go wrong.

I know I’m getting to this late, as the decision came out at the end of December, but it’s been a busy time. More below . . .

FCC Issues Excellent Wireless Microphone Order — Perhaps NAB Will Rely Less on Scare Tactics and Celebrity Letters Now.

Harold January 18, 2010 February 24, 2013Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

Time to clear up a little piece of unfinished business for which I and this humble blog can claim some modest responsibility. The FCC finally issued it’s long awaited Order on wireless microphones stemming from this blog post and the subsequent complaint/Petition for Rulemaking by the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (to which a special shout out to the folks at New America Wireless Future is due, given the fantastic amount of work they did on assembling evidence and helping draft the document).

As one can tell from this FCC press release describing the details, we pretty much got what we wanted — although not entirely and not in the way we expected. But, as I noted in this press statement in my role as Legal Director of Public Knowledge, we’re very happy with how things turned out. Briefly:
(a) all wireless mic users are now granted legal status, this is done pursuant to the FCC’s Part 15 rules for unlicensed rather than the “license by rule” that we suggested, but my only regret about that is I didn’t think of it when we filed.
(b) Everyone using wireless microphones needs to clear out of the 700 MHz band by Jun 12, 2010 — one year after the DTV transition and 15 months after the original date proposed by the FCC. Given how the Broadway people have been telling the FCC for months how they are off the 700 MHz band, this should not be too much of a hardship — especially for those who had no right to be there in the first place.
(c) The FCC will invest a boatload of its own resources, and gin up the FCC 2.0 machinery, to get the word out to folks and help consumers, churches, etc. handle the transition.
(d) The FCC will require that wireless microphones have signs and labels going forward to make sure that people understand the difference between licensed users and unlicensed users.

In addition, the FCC is having a further notice of proposed rulemaking that will:
1) Set the rules for the new Part 15 unlicensed wireless microphones.
2) Will examine whether to expand the class of Part 74 Subpart H eligible licensees to see if they should expand the class to give interference protection to some set of users — which would include who gets to be in the database of licensed services protected from operation of TV white spaces devices.

Yeah, that kicks the can down the road rather than saying flat out “anyone who was using a wireless microphone illegally is not entitled to protection against the TV white spaces devices, which went through the legal process and got approved.” But I can most definitely live with that. For one thing, I am confident that in an evidence-driven FCC which places consumer interests first, as demonstrated by this Order with its unprecedented investment of FCC resources for outreach (which we had not even dreamed of requesting except in the most general way of offering to help), will focus on the real question of whether or not there is interference and if so how to strike the appropriate balance between allowing new technologies and protecting existing users. Hopefully, this will inspire white spaces opponents to focus on engineering rather than trying to use scare tactics and celebrity “star power”.

More below . . .

Could the FCC Structure A Broadcaster Clearance Auction Without Congress? Yeah, actually . . .

Harold December 8, 2009 February 24, 2013Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

Progress and Freedom Foundation has recently published this piece by Adam Theirer and Barbara Esbin on how encouraging a deal between broadcasters and wireless providers to reduce the spectrum used by broadcasters and auction more spectrum for wireless use would serve the public interest. The piece raises some good points. For one thing, it is happily free of the “broadcasters are obsolete and we ought to take their spectrum back” rhetoric that often accompanies these proposals (not from PFF, I should add, but from a number of others). But the paper is woefully short on specifics. It touts the value of such a deal (freeing up spectrum for wireless) and lays out some general approaches, then urges the FCC and Congress to broker a deal between the broadcasters and the wireless industry through a number of possible auction mechanisms.

And now, the FCC has issued a public notice in the National Broadband Plan soliciting input on what they should think about using broadcast spectrum as part of the national broadband plan.

This got me thinking. Is there a mechanism the FCC could use, consistent with existing law, which would allow for the sort of broadcast band clearance the FCC would like to see? And, as a bonus, could this also clear some space for white space use? After some consideration, I hatched the scheme below. It is somewhat slower than than the wireless industry would like. I expect it would take about 5 years to finish the transition. But that is not bad given that it took 4 years to manage the DTV transition and auction from the time Congress set the hard date in 2005 to the end of analog broadcasting in June 2009. Also, my plan would allow continuing gradual build out, and combines some sticks to go with the carrots.

I’ll add that I’m not convinced this is worth doing. I think the current obsession with broadcast spectrum as the solution for the upcoming spectrum crisis suffers the same myopia as focusing on offshore drilling to cure the energy crisis — it defers the crunch but doesn’t solve the underlying problem. Wireless demand is going to continue, and we need to fundamentally change how we manage spectrum access (rather than spectrum allocation) to remain on a sustainable path for growth. I also point out, as we discovered while doing the broadcast white spaces proceeding, that there are a lot of non-broadcast uses in the existing television bands that are not broadcast users. These secondary services are going to get awfully squeezed if we crunch the broadcast bands further.

All that said, a well constructed auction could free up a nice chunk of spectrum in the short term that could promote wireless services and competition — especially if it came with a spectrum cap so VZ and AT&T didn’t hog all the good stuff again.

More below . . . . .