What's Wrong with the FCC?
Commentary 4Mobility
By Andrew M. Seybold
18 February 2002
What's Wrong with the FCC?
The Federal Communications Commission is beginning to look and sound like an organization that has lost touch with reality. Further, it seems to be willing to let the NTIA (National Telecomm and Information Agency) push it around (and the NTIA doesn't seem to have a clue about the real world either). When the NTIA isn't pushing on it, Congress is flexing its muscles and the FCC keeps caving in. What am I talking about? Read on!
First is the issue of the FCC not refunding the down payments for the NextWave spectrum re-auction. This auction was held more than a year ago and the issue of NextWave's spectrum and the re-auction looks like it may be decided by the Supreme Court. In the meantime, NextWave claims that it's turning on 60 markets using the disputed spectrum. The refusal of the FCC to return this money should be viewed as criminal at the very least. Reports in the news indicate that Verizon Wireless, which posted a $1.7 billion down payment in the re-auction, is losing $25,000 per day in interest, as well as the use of the money. Verizon isn't alone in this situation.
Next is the issue of number portability for wireless customers. Forcing wireless operators to enable numbers to be moved from one system to another will cost them a lot of money and cause untold technical problems. These costs will end up being passed along to customers---the trend toward lower prices will reverse and prices will rise again. When I move to another house or relocate my business out of one exchange into another, I can't take my number with me. If I leave my Baby Bell and opt for AT&T's new cable dial-tone service, I get a new number. If I move back to my Baby Bell I can't take that number with me. Why should I be able to take my wireless number with me?
Most recently, the FCC approved the use of Ultra-Wideband radio systems on frequencies above 3.1 GHz. UWB is a new technology with lots of promise, but it's unproven in the real world and many fear that it will create interference with existing services. The FCC compromised by permitting UWB systems to be deployed above the commercial public wireless spectrum and the GPS system which, I suppose, is a prudent thing to do. But meanwhile, the military establishment, which was fighting to keep UWB from being commercialized at all, is working with UWB vendors to implement it in its frequency bands and doesn't need the FCC's approval. It appears that the Feds think it's okay for them cause interference (if there is any) to the commercial folks but not the other way around.
And, of course, no tirade against the FCC would be complete without talking about how poorly it has handled TV channels 60-69. The auction for this spectrum has been delayed at least four times and even when it does happen, unless the FCC has the stomach to do battle with the NAB and others within the broadcast industry, it will be asking the commercial wireless industry to buy spectrum that can't be used until at least 2006. The Public Safety community will get a portion of this spectrum, but the FCC did nothing to ensure that some is used to provide inter-agency communications between federal, state and local agencies. Instead, it's doing battle with the DOD to share spectrum in the 134-144-MHz band.
Many commercial wireless operators need new spectrum for their 3G and beyond systems. There is a potential solution on the table brokered by the CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association) and being looked at by Congress that would take some of the DOD's spectrum and sell it to commercial interests, using some of the money to relocate the affected DOD services. But unless I miss my guess, the FCC will once again bow to the NTIA and the DOD and find some reason that this won't work either.
Did I mention the mess that has been made out of the E911 process? Deadlines come and go, leaving the decision about what type of location service to use up to the various operators. E911 was developed so that those who don't know where they are can report an emergency without having to worry about trying to describe their location. It has to be obvious that local wireless users are more likely to know where they are than users who are traveling outside their own area. Yet under the E911 mandate I might end up roaming onto a network that doesn't use the same type of E911 technology that is built into my phone.
Here's a radical idea. What if ALL spectrum---federal, state, regional and local public safety as well as commercial---was regulated by the same agency? What if this agency was responsible for all spectrum usage? What if, instead of reacting to whoever has the most clout with the FCC, NTIA or Congress, we had a government body that reviewed all spectrum usage and put together a ten-year plan for how to allocate it and make it available to those who need it. What if this agency made sure that the best interests of all concerned were met?
There are many new technologies that could help solve the spectrum issues. On the commercial side, we will soon have wireless phones that will support GSM/GPRS/cdma2000 and WCDMA or UMTS. These phones will operate on multiple frequency bands, and while they will cost more than single-band, single-technology phones, they will solve the problem of incompatible technologies. And this is just for starters. With software-defined radios and over-the-air computer control, we could have a combination of static and dynamic spectrum allocations. This isn't a new idea, it's been floating around for a long time and the FCC intends to implement a form of dynamic allocation using the 700-MHz guard-band spectrum. But I'm talking about doing this on a wider scale.
One idea I proposed five or six years ago was to give the Public Safety community a block of spectrum (700 MHz?) and make sure that every two-way radio installed in this band could be reconfigured on the fly. During a high-speed chase, a police car moving from one jurisdiction to another would be able to communicate directly with other police cars. During a major disaster, a few simple programming changes would allocate channels for those at the scene regardless of whether they were federal, state or local. During times of peace, some of the military spectrum could be used for commercial purposes, and during times of unrest, some of the commercial spectrum could be used by the DOD.
All it would take would be to have a central agency responsible for ALL spectrum. This agency would make sure that this finite resource is used in the most efficient ways. It would allocate spectrum on an as-needed basis and then re-assign it as appropriate. We have or will soon have the technologies to make this possible. I realize that what I and many others are suggesting is so logical that it will never happen.
But what if it did? What if, for once, we stepped back and took a long, hard look at all of the spectrum we have---not just what the FCC controls, but all of it. What if we took some time to plan how to make the best possible use of it? What if we used a combination of static and dynamic allocations, expanding and contracting the amount of spectrum available to a given agency or service depending upon circumstances?
For the most efficient communications, the differences between one-to-one and one-to-many communications requirements must be understood. Some believe that one-to-one communications such as we now have with wireless phones is fine for all of our communications requirements. This simply isn't true. Cops on the street need to know what's going on around them, fire engines responding to a fire need to be able to hear what's going on, and during a disaster, when minutes count, the efforts all of the responding agencies need to be coordinated.
Spectrum is a finite resource. The Federal Government shouldn't be fighting over who needs it more; it should be coordinating its use. Everyone needs spectrum. |
