700 MHz guard-band licensees push for public-safety network By Heather Forsgren Weaver Oct 2, 2006
WASHINGTON—Guard-band licensees in the 700 MHz band late Friday asked the Federal Communications Commission to scrap the current band plan and to instead offer bidding credits for entities that wish to establish partnerships with public safety. “This plan will facilitate the creation of a nationwide interoperable broadband network for public safety by addressing the cost, which is the most formidable obstacle preventing the deployment of such a network. The beauty of this approach is that it has the potential to provide considerable benefits for our nation’s first responders without upsetting the delicate balance Congress created when it instructed the FCC to auction the spectrum for commercial use,” said Michael Gottdenker, chairman and chief executive officer of Access Spectrum L.L.C. continued below Click Here! Access Spectrum was joined by Pegasus Communications Corp. in pushing for the plan. The companies previously asked the FCC to scrap the band-manager concept and to allow cellular operations in the guard bands. This new proposal by Access Spectrum and Pegasus, filed in the FCC’s proceeding to re-examine the 700 MHz commercial band, seems to take Cyren Call Communications Inc. up on its challenge to develop a nationwide interoperable broadband network for priority use by public safety, but shared by commercial entities in non-crisis times. “Unlike the plan suggested by Cyren Call, this approach does not require legislation to prevent the congressionally-mandated auction and allows multiple service providers the opportunity to bid for the privilege of providing service to the public-safety community,” said Gottdenker. The FCC created two guard bands for spectrum in the 700 MHz band, separating commercial and public-safety uses. One guard band includes a pair of 2-megahertz blocks located at 746-747/776-777 MHz and the other is a pair of 1-megahertz blocks at 762-764/792-794 MHz. The commission decided it didn't want the guard bands to be operated like other commercial spectrum so it created the band-manager concept. The guard-band managers bid for the 52 major economic area licenses in two auctions earlier this decade and were supposed to lease that spectrum to other users. To make sure licensees did not use the spectrum, but rather managed the spectrum by leasing it to others, the FCC allowed band managers to use less than half of the spectrum for internal operations. This prohibition has become cumbersome for the licensees in the band, so early this year the commission asked whether it should be removed. The lack of use in the guard bands also is being revisited because Congress has finally set a date for when TV broadcasters must vacate the spectrum in question. Many believe the uncertainty as to when all of the spectrum could be used has been a disincentive to successful guard-band operations. Cyren Call has asked Congress and the FCC to set aside 30 megahertz of spectrum in the upper 700 MHz band for a public-safety network that the wireless industry would build and share with first responders. Cyren Call envisions a public-private partnership with commercial operators that would underwrite network-infrastructure deployments in the 700 MHz band. First responders and others would have preferential access to the 30 megahertz during emergencies, but would otherwise occupy a very small portion of the network capacity to satisfy day-to-day public-safety requirements. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told the Democratic members of the Senate Commerce Committee last month that the FCC plans to put the Cyren Call petition out for public comment shortly, but it has yet to happen. In addition to the Cyren Call plan and the Access Spectrum/Pegasus plan, Verizon Wireless has been floating a plan to build a public-safety network, using 12 of the 24 megahertz set aside at 700 MHz for public safety as part of the transition to digital TV. Also, wireless trade association CTIA is examining whether it can develop a plan for commercial/public-safety sharing. Congress has already designated 24 megahertz of the 700 MHz band for public safety; the rest is to be auctioned. The Cyren Call plan would allocate two 15-megahertz chunks-spectrum currently scheduled to be auctioned—on either side of this 24-megahertz public-safety allocation for its public-private partnership. Rather than use the 30 megahertz of spectrum Congress wants auctioned, the alternate plan by Verizon Wireless would focus on the 24 megahertz already allocated to public safety. http://rcrnews.com/news.cms?newsId=27427 -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
