News about the elections has rightfully consumed the airwaves and front pages for the past few months, and now that this has passed, it’s time to work together again and shift our focus to the future; particularly our broadband future – the 21st century infrastructure that will advance countless new technologies.
There is an estimated one trillion-plus in economic opportunity with the Internet of Things, known as IoT, the growing number of internet-connected devices making all aspects of our lives a little “smarter.” In order to ensure a timely and aggressive deployment of IoT devices and IoT related technologies, our federal agencies, which are currently sitting on two-thirds of America’s spectrum – the invisible airwaves that power cellular networks and mobile broadband connectivity – must begin sharing their swath of wireless airwaves with private industry.
The federal government has spent years touting the benefits of spectrum sharing but has taken little action to make it a reality, begging the question: Will they or won’t they support spectrum sharing? Private industry’s willingness to partner with government agencies is a promising development that will test agencies’ willingness to share spectrum. For example, one interested partner, Ligado Networks, a network service operator embraced the opportunity and filed a request to the Federal Communications Commission proposing a sharing regime in the 1,675–1,680-MHz band for deployment of new and competitive wireless network service. However, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, being the current federal resident of the spectrum in this case, balked at the request.
NOAA details their mission as “to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans and coasts; To share that knowledge and information with others; and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.” Such are important tasks for the country, no doubt. In the case of the bands in question, NOAA noted its concerns about interference causing data to be dropped or degraded, leaving NOAA to miss some events of severe weather development. As such, NOAA and its affiliates are loath to share the spectrum with a private partner for a deep fear of radio interference.
The good news is that there’s a viable workaround that allows a more efficient use of the spectrum, enabling NOAA to continue its vital work without interference, all while other vital wireless users can share in America’s spectrum resources. NOAA’s transmissions do not require much bandwidth. Moreover, their transmission takes place within a discrete section of the bands, the overlap is just .3 MHz, landing on the upper edge of an empty protection band. Further, the FCC can craft the license agreement such that any new party sharing the spectrum is required to protect the ongoing NOAA activities, along with its equipment and operations.
The sharing proposal includes many strong conditions to protect NOAA’s data collection and ensure seamless continuity, and even has gone as far as to suggest a requirement that the shared spectrum auction winner establish and fund a state-of-the-art content delivery network, built on the Amazon Web Services platform, for NOAA. The content delivery network would, as a substitute for NOAA’s current earth station architecture, facilitate the efficient transfer of the NOAA data to its affiliates as well as any new users that would like to access NOAA’s data. This offer could bring much-needed revenue to government coffers via auction, ensures that NOAA continues its valuable work, and extends NOAA’s information to more public and private partners who can’t access the information today due to lack of specialized satellite receiving equipment. Ultimately, such would also put into practice a viable sharing agreement.
A review of the many FCC filings clearly shows that the 1,675–1,680-MHz band spectrum proposal has done much more than its part to move spectrum sharing forward, for the greater benefit of the nation in ushering in the swath of IoT technologies in the making and already on the market. Let’s hope the new administration does more than talk about spectrum sharing. It’s time to move forward on this proposal and other sharing test beds.
