“Unlicensed access to white spaces is the potential “rocket fuel” for broadband in underserved communities.”
– Professor Harold Feld
The FCC (live video) on Wednesday is expected to announce rules for the 700MHz band, one of the most important wireless spectrum auctions in the foreseeable future, reports C/Net.
It determine how they divvy up licenses and auction them off, changing the shape the competitive communications market for decades to come. On the 700MHz band, signals travel about four times farther than cellular which generally uses frequencies around 1.9 GHz.
Mobile operators, as well as companies in other industries such as cable and satellite TV, are expected to bid on licenses (pdf). The auction is likely to generate between $10 billion and $15 billion in revenue for the government.
“This auction is incredibly important,” said Harold Feld, senior vice president of Media Access Project, a nonprofit law firm representing a coalition of public interest groups before the FCC.
“Pretty much everyone agrees this is the last big piece of spectrum to be auctioned off for the foreseeable future. And if you don’t get the rules right, the existing players could control the auction and then nothing in our wireless broadband future will change. But if they do get them right, there is great potential for some dynamic innovation.”
Incumbent cellular operators, say critics, are more interested in controlling the spectrum than providing competition. Verizon, for example, is a partner in the $10B Integrated Wireless Network project which will link some 80,000 federal agents across the United States with 700 MHz radios.
Cellular operators (like Verizon) could take control of the commercial frequencies. But competitive price and service pressure is more likely to come from newcomers like Frontline Communications (above) and Coalition for 4G in America (below), say some consumer advocates.
These approaches would divvy up frequencies directly adjacent to the 24 Mhz dedicated to public service. They argue for shared spectrum in public/private partnerships with more “open” service and the ability to use a variety of 3rd party devices. The E Block would be a neutral network and lease access on a wholesale basis.
Cellular operators claim that the 60 MHz of commercial frequencies is best utilized by leaving it to the marketplace. Winner takes all.
Joe Farren, a spokesman for CTIA, an industry trade group representing the cell phone industry, agrees the spectrum auction rules are important. But he believes that no special parameters need to be implemented to protect new entrants. “The overall suggestion that the wireless market is not competitive is unsupported,” he said.
A coalition of groups, including Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and others, recently sent a portable 802.22 device to the FCC for testing. But that’s for the unused (and probably unlicensed) use of the spectrum. A different matter.
The commercial auction, with more power and less interference, is where the money is.
The FCC’s 9th Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, proposed that 12 MHz of the 24 MHz dedicated for first responders be designated for broadband, and that a single licensee should be awarded this spectrum on a nationwide basis.
The Frontline proposal would add 10 MHz of “dual-use” in the upper 700MHz band. If that concept takes hold, then bids for those frequencies may be open to everyone. Perhaps some restrictions may apply, giving points to Alaska native, service-disabled, woman-owned or small business enterprises.
