FCC delays incentive auctions until mid 2015

The new FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler, has announced that the regulator's flagship incentive auction programme is now being delayed until at least the middle of 2015. The auctions, which are designed to free spectrum in the UHF bands, have been designed to ease the task of clearing spectrum previously used for terrestrial broadcasting, by enabling broadcasters to reap financial benefits. However the complexities are such that the new Chairman has decided that more time is needed for preparation. This delay is good news for white space technology (and wireless microphone users), who face reduced spectrum availability ultimately - unless the regulator takes action to ring-fence spectrum for them.

Last year, the influential Presidential advisory committee (PCAST) recommended the creation of a 'spectrum superhighway', which would essentially be a large pool of spectrum available for sharing. The aim would be to enable the host of wireless applications to enjoy greater capacity when and where they need it - without the delay and cost of acquiring rights through an auction. This idea will require some patience from governments, because there is no immediate payout, as in an auction. Instead, the benefits should percolate more widely across the economy.

[Source: FierceWireless article 9th December 2013 + Larkhill analysis]

Qualcomm eyes licence exempt access

In the face of the impressively large forecasts for mobile data capacity requirements, the industry and regulator have been scouring their spectrum cupboards. The challenge is that most of the attractive bands - from the point of view of coverage costs - are already allocated. Some opportunities to clear out bands and/or reduce the footprint of existing applications have been identified but need time to progress through the regulatory channels. This takes a long time, especially when a harmonised band is needed - as it often is for mass-market wireless technology. It taken many years to release the 800 MHz band (72 MHz wide) in Europe, mostly because of the need to relocate digital terrestrial TV services across Europe and to persuade policymakers that this is a good thing to do.

With painfully slow progress in clearing bands for licensed access, technology vendors have looked at how they might apply bands where licence exempt access applies. The TV white spaces have attracted particular interest because the UHF bands enable lower cost coverage and are better at filling gaps than higher frequency bands. Vendors did not immediately fasten on licence-exempt access because they believe that their operator customers are more at home with the certainty provided by exclusive licensed access. However a new generation of dynamic spectrum access technology enables greater certainty and can support varying degrees of exclusivity - subject to regulatory agreement (as in the case of professional wireless microphones, in the UK).

Qualcomm has embraced the ability to mix and match licence exempt and licensed access - expanding the spectrum pool available to their customers. Other vendors with track records in this area include Huawei and Ericsson, which have both participated in the regulatory and standards working groups around the TV white spaces.

As more smaller cells are rolled out, it will be important for the equipment to be flexible enough to dip into as many available bands as possible, for both end-user access and backhaul purposes. Licence-exempt access is set to be a growing part of the mix.

[Source: FierceWireless article - 21st Nov 2013 ]

 

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