Money Could Grease The Wheels For 3G's Rollout - FCC
By David McGuire, Newsbytes
individual.com
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.
While the current tenants occupying two swaths of
prime, government-owned airwave real estate still
appear unwilling to make way for third-generation (3G)
wireless projects, piles of wireless industry money
could help make them amenable.
Or so a top government official suggested today.
"Money makes things not a zero sum gain anymore,"
said Tom Sugrue, the Federal Communications
Commission's wireless bureau chief. "If the spectrum
is worth $10 billion to the mobile (industry) and $5
billion to the Defense Department ... a solution may not
be out of our grasp."
Sugrue joined representatives from the wireless
industry, federal agencies and incumbent government
airwave holders for a panel discussion on the state of
the government's 3G spectrum hunt.
Industry representatives echoed Sugrue's
assessment.
"There are things in play called dollar bills that should
be able to facilitate an endgame," Motorola Inc.'s Vice
President Rich Barth said today.
In October 2000, then-President Bill Clinton, in an
executive memorandum, charged the Commerce
Department, the FCC and the Defense Department
with finding ways to reallocate radio band spectrum
that currently is used by government agencies and by
non-governmental airwave users.
The plan for that search, which is posted online at
ntia.doc.gov
, contains input from all three agencies and outlines
"the necessary steps that will result in the licensing of
third- generation wireless systems by September 30,
2002," according to the Commerce Department.
But a pair of government reports released last week
painted a pessimistic picture for spectrum hunters,
indicating that the incumbent users of those airwaves
are none to eager to part with their
government-bestowed bounty.
According to the reports, the quality and integrity of
the services currently provided over the targeted
airwaves - which are used by the Defense
Department and several different education and
religious groups - would be severely degraded by
interference if shared with commercial providers. The
reports also point to the difficulties in displacing the
occupants to other sets of airwaves.
The first report, issued by the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration
(NTIA) - a branch of the Commerce Department -
look at the 1710- 1850 MHz band used by the
Defense Department and various federal agencies.
The NTIA said the DoD could identify only a few bits of
spectrum within that band that could be shared with
commercial services without interfering with the
systems already in use. Those include sensitive
satellite tracking and data relay services.
The other report, issued by the FCC, dealt with the
2500-2690 MHz band, which is set aside for fixed
wireless cable and video services often used by
schools and hospitals. The FCC notes that if 3G
providers were to share the band, large geographic
distances would be needed between 3G systems and
incumbents to avoid excess interference or service
disruptions.
Leslie Harris, who represents a group of organizations
currently using the 2500- 2690 MHz band, spoke on
today's panel arguing that the airwaves used by her
clients play a critical part in plans to develop
next-generation distance- learning services in
schools throughout the country.
Although she said her clients would be willing to sit
down with government officials and wireless industry
executives to discuss spectrum issues, she warned
that they do not want to vacate their spectrum patch.
Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association
(CTIA) official Steve Berry said following the event that
Congress could play an important role in the spectrum
hunt by setting some rules of the road for the
"long-term process of how we allocate spectrum."
Newsbytes Correspondent Brian Krebs contributed to
this report.
Reported by Newsbytes.com,
newsbytes.com . |
