backhaul – Wetmachine

White Spaces Wrap Up: Exclusive Licensing, Or The Part 101 Poison Pill

Harold November 3, 2008 - 4:22 pm November 3, 2008Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

As we enter the last 24 hours before the critical and transformative November 4 vote (no, not this one, the FCC vote!), a last battleground has emerged. While the broadcasters and wireless microphone guys have generally not generated any traction, a final possible hitch has shown up on the question of higher power for rural providers. While I applaud the sentiment, this has become the last ditch effort to sneak a “poison pill” into the Order by keeping alive the hope/fear of exclusive licensing in the band.

As I have long warned, the potential last-minute threat to unlicensed in the band would not come from broadcasters, whose interference claims have been discredited and who have stooped to rather ridiculous smear tactics, or even from wireless microphone manufacturers and their vast horde of politically powerful pirate users. No, I have always believed that at the last minute, the real flank attack against the public interest would come from the licensed wireless guys pushing for licensed backhaul.

Which is why I am unsurprised to find the last potential stumbling block toward the finish line, after five years of unprecedented testing and investment, comes from a push for some kind of exclusive licensing scheme, either as an immediate set aside in the existing order or as part of a further proceeding.

I call this the “Part 101 Poison Pill.” Part 101 of the FCC’s rules governs high-power point-to-point transmission links of the sort used by telecommunications companies for transmitting significant distances. Part 101 is different from cellular licensing, in that it can accommodate multiple users on a “first in time, first in right” basis. Whoever comes in later must protect everyone who comes in earlier, which essentially makes it a very high-cost game of “king of the mountain.”

What makes exclusive licensing, even the relatively more open licensing such as Part 101, such a poison pill for unlicensed?

See below . . . .

White Spaces and the CTIA Game Changer

Harold April 16, 2008 - 11:22 am April 16, 2008Spectrum, Tales of the Sausage Factory

The idea of auctioning the broadcast white spaces, rather than opening them for unlicensed use, is not new. It started out as an NAB “poison pill” back in 2005, when we looked like we might be making progress on getting a pro-white spaces amendment in the DTV transition bill that ultimately became the Digital Tranisition Act of 2005. When the FCC reinvigorated the proceeding in 2006, the NAB managed to get the FCC to put the question of licensed v. unlicensed in the Further Notice. But the NAB doesn’t want any neighbors, either licensed or unlicensed, and has focused its efforts until now on trying to kill the whole idea rather than on trying to promote licensing and auctions rather than unlicensed.

But the idea of licensing the white spaces for cellular or backhaul has gained new life recently, particularly after the 700 MHz auction. Both Verizon’s Steven Zipperstein and analyst Coleman Bazelon recommended this in their testimony at the House Telecom Subcommitte hearing on the 700 MHz auction. That comes on top of a serious filing by CTIA on the benefits of auctioning some of the white space and leaving a smidge so that unlicensed technologies can continue to develop.

We’ve now gone from NAB poison pill to serious issue. The proposal has not yet gained traction, but it does not do to underestimate CTIA and its members because, particularly after the 700 MHz auction, a number of its members really need that spectrum. This has the potential to change the game radically, including shifting alliances as the threat becomes more credible.

Analysis below….

Breaking News: Frontline Bites the Dust

Greg January 8, 2008 - 6:27 pm January 8, 2008Econoklastic, General

Frontline Wireless LLC, which submitted an incomplete application to participate in the FCC’s Auction 73 for the 700 MHz band as Licenseco LLC and which was expected to be a major competitor for the D Block nationwide commercial-public safety broadband license, has folded and is “closed for business.”

Industry rumours suggest that Frontline’s bidding entity, Licenseco LLC, failed to make a required upfront payment deadline on January 4.

Speculation focuses on several possible explanatory scenarios. Frontline has changed its business plan several times and, frankly, I was never completely convinced that it would bid when push came to shove. Verizon’s belated embrace of open attachment rules — the Carterfone condition which the FCC has imposed on Auction 73 — gave many of Frontline’s Silicon Valley backers what they wanted without having to hazard the auction or undertake the encumberance of deployment requirements if they prevailed at auction. The possibility that Google might bid the reserve price on C Block to force Verizon and AT&T to concentrate on battling it out for the C Block REAGs while Google seriously bid on the less expensive D Block to acquire a nationwide third broadband pipe and implement its nondiscriminatory, wholesale open access business model may have had something to do with Frontline’s decision to pull out. The possibility that AT&T may have been interested in D Block for national backhaul could have presaged a serious challenge has also been mooted as a factor in Frontline’s decision.

It’s likely that some of Frontline’s backers and associates — Fortress Investment Group’s Backline bidding entity and Cellular South in particular — will remain in the auction, but Frontline’s demise creates extremely interesting possibilities for D Block competition in the auction.

Part III of the 700 MHz series, Bidding Strategies of the Major Actors, coming soon…

3650 Band Up for grabs again

Harold August 11, 2005 - 11:59 pm February 24, 2013General, Tales of the Sausage Factory

Haven’t posted much, as I’ve been busier than I can imagine, and a big computer crash in our office from last weekend into Tuesday put me waaaayy behind.

Fortunately, my good buddies and folks who actually deploy stuff (as opposedto us lawyers) Sascha Meinrath and Steve Ronan (both involved with CTCNet, as well as Sascha’s role with CUWN have sounded the alarm for me.

Tales of the Sauasage Factory: Delay in Unlicensed in Broadcast Bands

Harold August 26, 2004 - 12:03 pm February 24, 2013Tales of the Sausage Factory

‘Lo all. I’m back from vacation which included mud, wireless connectivity, poetry on the field of battle, and more mud. Eventually, I’ll get the mud dried out and have more to say about the real cool Community Wireless Networking summit I attended. But first, some breaking wireless news.

The FCC has granted a 90-day extension for comment in the proceeding to allow unlicensed activity in the broadcast bands. The IEEE and the broadcasters had asked for a 6-month delay. I have some rather harsh words about the IEEE and its all too usual combination of hubris and political naivette that remind me way too much of ICANN and will no doubt get me in trouble. But what the heck?