While many details were lacking, the Chairman confirmed his previously shared intentions that the FCC adopt rules to move existing satellite operators and earth stations outside of the 3700-4000 MHz range to make way for a public auction of the lower 280 megahertz of spectrum in that range, beginning as early as December 8, 2020. The top 200 megahertz of the C-Band (4000-4200 MHz) would be available for repacking the earth station operators currently in the lower 300 megahertz.

The Chairman’s remarks and summary also proposes what he calls “accelerated relocation payments” designed to create incentives for an early migration from the lower portion of the band. His proposal would entitle satellite operators to receive these payments if they clear the lower 100 megahertz of the C-band in 46 of the top fifty Partial Economic Areas by September 2021 and the remaining 180 megahertz of the C-band by September 2023. Apart from the general statements about timing, the exact mechanics and conditions for satellite operators’ receipt of the payments were not spelled out except that there would be accelerated relocation payments from the winning bidders outside of winning bid payments to the FCC/US Treasury and there would be no pro-rated accelerated relocation payments. He also explained that satellite operators may be entitled to total accelerated relocation payments of up to $9.7 billion. Because of questions about the Commission’s authority to do so, without Congressional action, the Chairman explained that satellite operators would not receive a percentage of auction revenues.

Chairman Pai recommitted to a framework by which winning bidders would also reimburse satellite operators for “every single reasonable cost” of relocation, noting that “[a]mong other things, new satellites will need to be launched, and filters will need to be placed on earth stations,” estimating total relocation costs of $3-5 billion.

The Chairman also explained why he is not waiting for Congressional action before moving to adopt rules, despite continued calls from Capitol Hill that the Commission do so. First and foremost, in order to maintain what Chairman Pai called the U.S. leadership in 5G, he believes the time to move and make available significant mid-band spectrum for advanced flexible use applications is now. He also expressed a confidence that there are no legal impediments to his proposed rules. He explained his view that, under the Communications Act, “we have the authority to modify the licenses of C-band incumbents, which would still be able to provide the same level of service to their customers that they do today,” noting the Commission’s general auction and rulemaking authority, and hearkening to the FCC’s court-tested Emerging Technologies Framework precedents by which the Commission has required winning auction bidders to pay for the relocation of affected incumbents. While dismissing arguments that the Commission should wait for Congress before acting, Chairman Pai welcomed Congressional action that would direct some of the auction proceeds to address national priorities like rural broadband, closing the “digital divide,” and Next-Generation 911.

Commissioner Carr’s statement expressed “strong support” for the Chairman and what he termed the “right decision.” Commissioner O’Rielly was “incredibly excited” to see the C-Band draft circulated and the item moving forward at the February meeting, noting that he “still need[ed] to review the particulars.” No comments were posted by the two Democratic Commissioners.

The Chairman’s preview was silent on the technical details regarding protection of incumbents and other services, such those in adjacent bands, e.g., radio altimeters in the 4200-4400 MHz band, and the matter of whether the upper 200 megahertz of the C-band would be made available for point-to-multipoint, or P2MP, operations, as advanced by several tech companies and public interest groups. The draft report and order likely to be issued today will merit a close review from all interested stakeholders, and the Commission will continue to take ex parte meetings and receive submissions until the Sunshine Notice for the February 28 Open Meeting is issued, which is expected on February 21.

You will find more information on the most significant proposed December meeting items after the break:

998 Crisis Hotline: The draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would seek comment on designating 988 as the dialing code for a national suicide and mental health crisis hotline. The proposed rules would require telecommunications carriers and interconnected VoIP service providers (including one-way interconnected VoIP service providers) to transmit all 988 calls to the hotline. If adopted, the proposed rules would give service providers 18 months to complete any necessary equipment upgrades/replacements to enable 988 hotline dialing. The FCC would note that 988 currently is not assigned as an area code and presents fewer hotline implementation issues when compared to other potential three-digit codes. However, the FCC would request input on whether other hotline codes should be considered as well as the costs, timeframe, and technical challenges presented by its proposal.

Unlicensed Use of Mid-Band Spectrum: The draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would request input on repurposing the lower 45 megahertz of the 5.850-5.925 GHz band, which currently is reserved for short-range vehicle-related communications, for unlicensed operations like Wi-Fi. The FCC would argue that much of this band has gone unused since it adopted service rules over 20 years ago and that other vehicle-related communications technologies have been deployed in other frequencies in the interim. The FCC also would observe that unlicensed operations already are permitted in adjacent frequency bands and throughout the 5 GHz band, creating potential spectrum harmonization benefits. The proposed rulemaking would reserve the upper 30 megahertz of the band for vehicle-related communications and would ask whether a portion of this band segment should be allocated to newer Cellular Vehicle to Everything (“C-V2X”) operations, which enable a broad range of vehicle safety services over drivers’ mobile broadband networks such as automated driving applications. The item also would ask for comment on transition and protection mechanisms for incumbent operations should the FCC designate certain spectrum for unlicensed and/or C-V2X uses.

Shared Use of Mid-Band Spectrum: The draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would propose to remove existing non-federal radiolocation and amateur allocations in the 3.30-3.55 GHz band and relocate such operations to the 3.1-3.3 GHz band or other frequencies. Current non-federal uses in the 3.30-3.55 GHz band include commercial weather tracking operations and numerous temporary authorizations to provide supplemental wireless capacity during sporting events. The band also is used for federal defense radar systems and aeronautical radionavigation services on a primary basis. The proposal implements provisions of the MOBILE NOW Act, which required the FCC to identify spectrum bands for commercial wireless operations to share with federal users. The item would seek comment on the appropriate transition process for non-federal users, transition costs, and protection mechanisms for federal incumbents.

VoIP Symmetry Rule: The draft Order on Remand and Declaratory Ruling would significantly narrow the application of the so-called VoIP Symmetry Rule, which allows carriers that partner with VoIP providers to recover intercarrier switched access charges under certain circumstances. The proposed action comes in response to a 2016 D.C. Circuit remand.

You will find more details on some of the most significant October meeting items after the break:

Measuring CAF Recipients’ Broadband Performance: The draft Order on Reconsideration would modify the uniform testing methodologies for all carriers receiving Connect America Fund (“CAF”) support to use for speed and latency testing established by the Wireline Competition Bureau, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology last year, and provide flexibility based on carrier sizes, networks and technical abilities. The modifications would, for example, align testing dates more closely with build-out obligations and establish a pre-testing period so that carriers can address any issues without penalty before formal testing and reporting begins.

911 Fee Parity: The draft Declaratory Ruling responds to a primary jurisdiction referral from a dispute between 911 districts in Alabama and BellSouth and other telecommunications carriers. The federal NET 911 Act prohibits states from discriminating against interconnected VoIP services by assessing a higher 911 fee than is assessed on traditional telecommunications services. Under Alabama law, local telephone services were assessed per “line” to the network while VoIP services were assessed per telephone number (not per line). The Declaratory Ruling is intended to ensure parity between VoIP services and traditional telecommunications services by clarifying that the NET 911 Act provision applies to the total amount of 911 fees that a subscriber pays for the same 911 outbound calling capability. Thus, even if the per-unit assessment is the same, the state may not impose a larger total fee on VoIP providers.

Tariff Rules Modernization: The draft Report and Order would adopt two uncontroversial changes to the FCC's tariff filing requirements that were the subject of a 2018 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Interim Waiver Order released nearly a year ago. Specifically, the Order would allow carriers to cross-reference their tariffs and those of their affiliates, and would remove the requirement that certain carriers file short form tariff review plans 90 days before their annual interstate access charge tariff filings are effective. The requirements have become outdated now that tariffs are submitted and reviewed electronically, and annual access charge filings have diminished in complexity.

You will find more details on the most significant July meeting items after the break:

Mid-Band Spectrum Auction: The draft Order would set the stage for a 2.5 GHz Band auction by eliminating rules that prevented non-educational institutions from obtaining licenses, allowing commercial providers to enter the Band. New licensees would no longer be required to use the spectrum for educational purposes and would possess more flexibility in leasing spectrum to others. The auction would not affect existing contracts or leases for 2.5 GHz Band spectrum, which would remain in place. The FCC plans to provide rural Tribal organizations with a priority filing window for new 2.5 GHz Band licenses, but would not implement a similar window for educational institutions. After the close of the priority filing window, the FCC would auction the remaining 2.5 GHz Band spectrum in 100 megahertz or 16.5 megahertz blocks at the county level.

High-Band Spectrum Auction: The draft Public Notice would establish rules for the auction of Upper 37 GHz Band, 39 GHz Band, and 47 GHz Band spectrum for commercial mobile use. Auction participants would first bid on generic spectrum blocks covering partial economic areas. The bid amounts in this round would determine the size of the incentive payments received by incumbent 39 GHz Band licensees. Following the generic bidding round, auction participants would bid on frequency-specific spectrum blocks, with the aim of creating contiguous block assignments. The FCC plans to provide bidding credits to small businesses and rural service providers to encourage auction participation. The FCC would accept applications to participate in the auction beginning August 2, 2019, with the auction scheduled to start on December 10, 2019.

Connected Care Pilot Program: The draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) would seek input on the eligibility requirements, application processes, goals, and evaluation metrics for the proposed Connected Care Pilot Program. The FCC anticipates operating the Connected Care Pilot Program as a new program within the Universal Service Fund (“USF”), supported by an additional assessment on telecommunications providers to be added to the contribution factor that will slightly increase USF contributions. The FCC therefore says it does not plan on diverting resources from existing USF programs to support the Connected Care Pilot Program. Moreover, in a reversal from its initial inquiry last year on the Connected Care Pilot Program, the FCC is no longer considering restricting program participation only to facilities-based eligible telecommunications carriers (“ETCs”); rather, service providers do not even have to be ETCs. Comments on the NPRM will be due 30 days after Federal Register publication of the NPRM, with reply comments due 30 days later.

Transport Services Reform: The draft Orders would relieve price cap carriers from pricing regulation of their lower-speed, legacy transport services known as Time Division Multiplexing (“TDM”) transport. The FCC would find that sufficient competition exists in the provision of TDM transport services to justify eliminating the pricing controls. Although the FCC already voted to eliminate TDM transport service pricing controls in 2017, a federal court subsequently returned the issue to the agency to allow for full notice and comment on the issue. The FCC also would forbear from enforcing its unbundling requirements for legacy transport services known as DS1 and DS3 transport, subject to certain conditions and a multi-year transition period. The forbearance would free price cap carriers from providing such legacy transport services based on regulated rates.

In adopting its Notice of Inquiry (“NOI”), the Commission cited the need to meet “future demand” and the desire to “evaluate spectrum bands in all ranges.” According to the Commission, in extremely general terms given the more than six-fold increase in wavelength between the bottom and top of the so-called “mid-band” range and the many pre-existing allocations throughout the range, these bands have better propagation characteristics (at least in some regards) than higher frequencies and hold out the promise for greater channel bandwidths than lower frequencies.

The NOI seeks information on three specific bands – the 3.7-4.2 GHz, 5.925-6.425 GHz, and 6.425-7.125 GHz bands – but also asks interested parties to identify other non-Federal frequencies in the mid-band range that may be suitable for expanded flexible use, including wireless broadband, on both a licensed and unlicensed basis. The NOI suggests commenters – both prospective new entrants and incumbent users – focus on bands with exclusive non-Federal allocations without ignoring those with shared Federal and non-Federal allocations. Given the existing uses in the three specifically identified bands, the inquiries about potential new uses can be expected to generate some contentious debate – indeed, intensify debates which have already begun – about the best ways to manage these bands going forward.

3.7-4.2 GHz

The 3.7-4.2 GHz band, which is already used by several groups of incumbents, is subject to several recent competing proposals. The band is currently allocated in the United States exclusively for non-federal use. Geostationary orbit satellite systems (“GSOs”) (namely, Fixed-Satellite Service (“FSS”) (space-to-Earth)) and Fixed Services are co-primary in this band. The predominant GSO uses are media broadcast and communications backhaul. Although historically the band has been used by the Fixed Services for similar functions, over time, carriers have turned to alternative solutions, resulting in what the NOI calls a “steep decline” in Fixed Services use of the band. This past October, the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (“FWCC”) filed a petition for rulemaking seeking with the Commission to foster increased use of the 3.7-4.2 GHz band by the Fixed Services, which the Commission put out for public comment late last year.

The Commission invites ideas how existing service rules governing GSO FSS and Fixed Services could be modified to further promote flexible use in this band, stimulate investment, and encourage more intensive deployment. In recent months, the 3.7-4.2 GHz band has drawn interest from other prospective users ranging from commercial mobile carriers, equipment manufacturers, Wireless ISPs, and the Wi-Fi community leading to other proposals. An ad hoc coalition of equipment manufacturers and mobile carriers seek access to the 3.7-4.2 GHz band for licensed mobile services (and to the 5.925-7.125 GHz band for unlicensed usage). They still have yet to formally file their petition for rulemaking. In a blog post published on the FCC’s website on July 10, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly expressed support for the ad hoc proposal.

The 3.7-4.2 GHz band is adjacent to the 3.55-3.7 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (“CBRS”) band, aka the 3.5 GHz band, which makes it particularly attractive to prospective licensees also interested in some of the CBRS spectrum. Two petitions for rulemaking, by CTIA and T-Mobile, for liberalization of certain licensing rules in the 3.5 GHz CBRS band to make operations in that spectrum more attractive to investors and deployment friendly were recently put on public notice. Proponents smell an opportunity for a larger contiguous band which could bring equipment costs down and harmonize with international initiative in this same portion of the radio frequency spectrum.

In June, another group, the Broadband Access Coalition (“BAC”), filed a petition for rulemaking encouraging the Commission to create a new licensed, point-to-multipoint (“P2MP”) fixed wireless service in the 3.7-4.2 GHz band. BAC is comprised of wireless ISPs, educational interests (e.g. the American Library Association), and technology advocacy organizations (e.g. Public Knowledge). Under the BAC proposal, spectrum in the 3.7-4.2 GHz band would be licensed through the FCC’s Part 101 Operational Fixed Microwave rules rather than via auction.

5.925-6.425 GHz

Like the 3.7-4.2 GHz band, the 5.925-6.425 GHz band is allocated in the U.S. only for non-Federal use on a primary basis for FSS (Earth-to-space) and Fixed Service operation. Unlike the first band, the 5.925-6.425 GHz band is heavily utilized by Fixed Service licensees “support[ing] a variety of critical services such as public safety (including backhaul for police and fire vehicle dispatch), coordination of railroad train movements, control of natural gas and oil pipelines, regulation of electric grids, and backhaul for commercial wireless traffic.”

The NOI asks for input on potential unlicensed use of the 5.925-6.425 GHz band, especially how it might be combined with operations in nearby spectrum designated for Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (“U-NII”). Perhaps U-NII devices in the 5.15-5.35 GHz and 5.47-5.725 GHz bands, the NOI muses, could use the 5.925-6.425 GHz band as well to achieve wider channel bandwidths and higher data rates. But the NOI is also open to possible licensed wireless broadband usage, including possible paired use with the 3.7-4.2 GHz band that coexists with existing categories of Fixed Services licensees and transmitting satellite earth stations. The Commission also inquires about whether there would be value in pairing this band with the 3.7-4.2 GHz band.

6.425-7.125 GHz

The 6.425-7.125 GHz band is currently domestically allocated for non-Federal use only for a number of services, namely Fixed and Mobile Services and FSS, none of which currently has access to the entire band. The Commission reveals that the FSS usage is less than in the band just described above, whereas the Fixed and Mobile Services include Broadcast Auxiliary Services (“BAS”), Cable Television Radio Services (“CARS”), and Part 101 Operational Fixed Microwave operations. The Commission observes that “[t]he Fixed Services and BAS operations in these bands support a variety of critical services such as public safety (including police and fire vehicle dispatch), coordination of railroad train movements, control of natural gas and oil pipelines, regulation of electric grids, backhaul for wireless traffic, television studio-transmitter links (“STLs”), television relay, and television translator relay stations.” Yet, at the same time, the FCC sees “the potential for more intensive [fixed] or mobile use” of the band, especially since none of the current allocations span the entire band individually, while there is already overlap in some portions of the band. The Commission’s focus appears to be on taking the temperature for potential sharing on a flexible basis between mobile uses and incumbent operations, rather than on transplanting current FSS, FS, and mobile users of the band.

Other Potential Bands for Flexible Wireless Services

In addition to the bands discussed above, the Commission invites comment on “other potential opportunities for expanded flexible broadband use, on a licensed or unlicensed basis, particularly in non-Federal and shared bands between 3.7 and 24 GHz.” The FCC wants details, asking commenters to focus on the circumstances they would expect to encounter in the bands they identify, such as deployment costs, the required technology, the desired timeframe for licensing and initiation of service, and methods for balancing the needs for licensed and unlicensed access. The NOI also seeks to focus attention on current non-Federal users of any candidate bands, the intensity of such uses, anticipated growth of such uses, and options for coexisting with or relocating them. The Commission suggests it will give priority to requests which target exclusive non-Federal bands and request input from both prospective entrants and existing incumbents. This part of the NOI, while not focused on specific bands, is prospectively a valuable opportunity for parties developing innovative flexible use services in the “mid band” spectrum to grab the regulator’s attention and potentially influence the scope and nature of subsequent rulemaking proceedings.

The Commission also encourages parties to explain what (if any) service rules applicable in the existing bands between 3.7 and 24 GHz could be modified or eliminated to promote more intensive and efficient non-federal use of other spectrum, including sharing. Again, the Commission does not hide its apparent intentions to manage the spectrum through the “mid band” range, if possible, in a way to promote innovation and flexible use.

Finally, the Commission invites general or band-specific feedback on a variety of significant spectrum management issues: how (and what) emerging technologies can improve spectrum utilization, whether incentive auctions should be used in other bands, what opportunities exist to relocate non-Federal incumbent users, and what are appropriate “long-term strategies” for promoting flexible use in non-Federal shared bands between 3.7 and 24 GHz.

Comments on the NOI are due on October 2, 2017, and reply comments on November 1, 2017 in Docket No. 17-183.