The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) under Chairman Pai has been nothing if not relentless in its quest to seek out underused or vacant spectrum and repurpose it for 5G uses. To that end, the FCC has announced its tentative agenda for its September 30, 2020 open meeting and it includes some pre-holiday gifts for spectrum-hungry … Continue Reading
Selected New Developments in Broadband – through June 16 Capitol Hill The Trump Administration has again voiced support for a $2 trillion stimulus and infrastructure package (that would presumably have a broadband component), but Senate Republicans are not there yet. In May, the House passed the Democrats’ multi-trillion dollar Heroes Act on a party-line vote. … Continue Reading
On May 13, 2020, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) adopted on circulation a Report and Order (“Order”) during its open meeting that would transform the 900 MHz band to enable broadband deployment. We wrote an article about the proposed changes last month. That article is still relevant as the draft report was adopted essentially as … Continue Reading
In a Public Notice released last week, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) announced a delay in Auction 105 for the 3.5 GHz band due to COVID-19. Short-form applications will now be due on May 7, 2020 and the auction for priority licenses will take place on July 23, 2020.… Continue Reading
The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has released a tentative Report and Order, scheduled for a vote on July 10, which, if adopted, will lift many restrictions from the Educational Broadband Service (EBS), including allowing educational institutions to sell their licenses to commercial entities and eliminating the requirement that 5% of system capacity be reserved for … Continue Reading
On March 15, 2019, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC” or the “Commission”) released a notice of proposed rulemaking (“NPRM”) seeking comment on how the Commission can improve its secondary market rules for spectrum transactions. Specifically, the FCC wants to know whether and how it can improve its secondary market rules to get more spectrum in … Continue Reading
The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC” or the “Commission”) has opened a new frontier in the amount of spectrum available for unlicensed and experimental operations, adopting rules covering frequencies between 95 GHz and 3 THz (3,000 GHz).… Continue Reading
At its December open meeting, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC” or “Commission”) took a significant step toward facilitating the deployment of fifth-generation (5G) wireless advanced services. For those still wondering what exactly 5G is, we have written about the highly touted mobile broadband technology several times, including here and here. The FCC has already cleared … Continue Reading
Radio spectrum and real estate have a lot in common. They’re not making any more of either; and for both, location really does matter. “Location,” for spectrum, means frequency. Much as different real estate locations best serve different purposes, different technological applications work best in different frequency ranges. Like prime downtown addresses, though, all the … Continue Reading
The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) was originally envisioned as a true people’s broadband radio service – one that would be either free or highly affordable for small, locally-based operations of limited breadth and duration. The paradigm was a conscious break from the Metropolitan Statistical Area – or- larger sized service areas with 10-year renewable … Continue Reading
On the books for the FCC’s May Open Meeting will be a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding rule changes to establish commercial eligibility for Educational Broadband Service (EBS) licenses and to “rationalize” the EBS service areas. EBS is not a well-known radio service, so to appreciate the significance of these changes, a little history … Continue Reading
The FCC voted today to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Order looking toward issuing licenses for frequencies above 95 GHz. That’s GigaHertz, not MegaHertz – way up there, beyond the highest frequencies that are commonly used today, at least by the private sector. Historically, frequencies this high were not considered useful for communication … Continue Reading
Chairman Pai and the FCC last week continued their campaign of revamping FCC rules, this time by adopting a Report and Order tackling the Commission’s Commercial Mobile Radio Services (CMRS). The Order deletes Sections 20.7 and 20.9 of the Commission’s rules and is intended to generally eliminate an “outdated and incomplete list of certain services” … Continue Reading
Being in “the middle” has historically gotten a bad rap. There’s the underappreciated “middle child,” and of course no one wants to be the unneeded “middle man.” This concept has even proven true with the Commission’s wireless spectrum policies. While the FCC has made it a priority to promote industry access to wireless spectrum, these … Continue Reading
FCC Order Represents One More Step Towards Fully-Autonomous Vehicles I’ve written on connected and autonomous vehicles in the past, including about an ongoing spectrum fight at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding use of spectrum set aside years ago for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications (specifically, for a technology called DSRC). The FCC now has revised … Continue Reading
The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) has not even been born yet, but already major industry players want to change its basic character. CBRS, as its name implies, was conceived and approved by the FCC a couple of years ago as a broadband service for locally-focused businesses. The regulatory paradigm included both a large swathe … Continue Reading
High-stakes spectrum lobbying gears up Last year, we reported on the proposed Mobile Now Act, the darling of U.S. Senators John Thune (R-S.D.) and Bill Nelson (D-FL), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce Committee, respectively. The bill aims to encourage broadband deployment. At that time, we noted that the Act had a … Continue Reading
Deadlines for comments and reply comments have been set in the proceeding looking to impose greater consistency in the FCC's regulatory treatment of a range of wireless services.… Continue Reading
When people get on the wrong side of the FCC, it is rarely for confusing one section of the rules with another. But the FCC is intent anyway on making the rules more uniform.… Continue Reading
