Unlicensed

Computer giant Microsoft has teamed up with RTO Wireless to provide broadband access to more than a quarter million people in rural New York state and Maine. It is the latest project in the company's Airband Initiative to connect rural areas to broadband partnerships with Internet service providers, and energy companies and others. The goal is to close the rural digital divide by July 4, 2022, including by making use of unlicensed spectrum in the so-called TV white spaces between TV channels.

Leading off our August agenda will be 5G, the next generation of wireless connectivity. We’ll finalize the rules for the auction of airwaves in the 28 GHz band and the auction of the 24 GHz band, which will follow immediately afterward.  These will be the first auctions of high-band spectrum for 5G services, but they won’t be the last.  Specifically, I’m excited to announce my plan to move forward with a single auction of three more millimeter-wave spectrum bands—the 37 GHz, 39 GHz, and 47 GHz bands—in the second half of 2019.

The Federal Communications Commission took steps to make additional high-band spectrum available for advanced wireless services. These actions are building blocks of the nation’s 5G future and critical to continued US wireless leadership. Pushing more spectrum into the marketplace for the next generation of wireless connectivity will contribute to economic growth, job creation, public safety, and our nation’s global competitiveness.

The Supplementing the Pipeline for Efficient Control of The Resources for Users Making New Opportunities for Wireless (SPECTRUM NOW) Act has been introduced to ensure there is enough money to fund efforts to get federal spectrum users to give up spectrum or share spectrum with commercial users. Sens Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) in the Senate, and Reps Doris Matsui (D-CA) and Rep Brett Guthrie (R-KY) in the House have introduced the bipartisan bill.

"[May 1] the bureau initiates a proceeding to further examine the feasibility of opening up 3.7 – 4.2 GHz for commercial use. I have repeatedly called for freeing up this band for commercial purposes and I am pleased to see this important step forward in our process, as it will complement and not delay the Commission’s ongoing work on the matter. I want to thank Congress for their leadership on this spectrum band, particularly Senators Thune and Nelson for raising this issue in the MOBILE NOW Act."

There are two general approaches to expanding access to high-speed broadband in small towns and rural areas: with wires (fiber) and without (fixed wireless). Because trenching fiber is very costly in low-density areas, there is a growing recognition that “wireless fiber”–otherwise known as fixed wireless access–can provide broadband at high capacity (100/10 Mbps or better) at a fraction of the cost and also far more quickly.

Several organizations representing the interests of rural telecommunication and electric cooperatives recently met with Federal Communications Commission staff to discuss rules for the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS)—namely, that they want the rules to remain much the same as they were crafted in the first place.

The Federal Communications Commission is poised to make a directive on 5G, the next-generation, high-speed wireless standard, that could significantly affect local government control of infrastructure. Two cities, San Jose (CA) which lies in the heart of Silicon Valley, and Lincoln (NE) an innovative university and capitol city, both could be profoundly affected if the FCC decides to “cut red tape” with modifications to small cell antenna deployment rules.

The Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC) says a study backed by the likes of Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Intel, Qualcomm and others is badly flawed and should not be relied upon to allow for an array of unlicensed devices in the 6 GHz band. Earlier in 2018, representatives from Apple, Broadcom, Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Facebook, Google, Intel, MediaTek, Microsoft and Qualcomm met with Federal Communications Commission representatives where they presented a study, prepared by RKF Engineering Solutions, that analyzed sharing between unlicensed operations in