Politics

FCC White Space Proceeding: What's at Stake

The FCC has spectrum to allocate, and that means big money will talk, but there's a chance that the WISP industry can get some of the additional unlicensed spectrum it wants and needs.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [February 23, 2007]

The FCC has some spectrum and everyone wants a piece of it. As part of the migration of TV broadcast from analog to digital, spectrum previously allocated to UHF and VHF broadcast (and little used) might be opened to other users, depending on the outcome of the FCC's latest inquiry, FCC proceeding 04-186 ("In the Matter of Unlicensed Operation in the TV Broadcast Bands: Additional Spectrum for Unlicensed Devices Below 900 MHz and in the 3 GHz Band").

The spectrum under discussion (according to the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, dated May 13, 2004, p. 28) is 76 to 88 MHz, 174 to 216 MHz, 470 to 608 MHz, and 614 to 698 MHz. For WISPs, what's important about this spectrum is that it's better than what's available now.

The spectrum currently available to WISPs is the worst possible spectrum. In their (89 page) response to the FCC, J.H. Snider and Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation along with their Media Access Project lawyers Harold Feld and Andrew Jay Schwartzmann point out that WISPs have achieved an astonishing amount in this awful spectrum, noting (p.18) (emphasis added):

Some commentors in this and other FCC proceedings have argued that unlicensed allocations are somehow inimical to investment and innovation in spectrum technology. The record strongly suggests otherwise. Consider that in the mobile telephone bands, occupying 170 MHz of spectrum, there are at most 25 manufacturers of equipment, whereas in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz band, occupying only 83.5 MHz there are at least 500 manufacturers. . . . Moreover, the mobile telephone bands occupy prime (low frequency) unencumbered spectrum, whereas the unlicensed band is known as the "junk band" because it is shared with hundreds of millions of devices, such as cordless phones and microwave ovens, that emit incidental radiation in this band as a byproduct of their operations.

WISPs know well that a further disadvantage of the 2.4 GHz band (and the reason it's used by microwave ovens) is that it interacts with water, making trees and other water-filled objects a barrier to signals (see Up Hill and Down Dale).

So the spectrum that the FCC is examining is valuable because it could make service possible in areas where it was difficult before, such as rural, wooded valleys or, conversely, dense buildings with a significant amount of plumbing.

The filing from the New America Foundation says that there are at least 3,000 WISPs in the U.S., serving about 1 million customers, but its source for that data (p. 16) is "interview with Marlon Schafer, WISPA Board Member and FCC Committee Chair, January 26, 2007." WISPA has urged WISPs to file Form 477, because when WISPA cites numbers such as these, the reply (see WISPA Meets With the FCC, Urges WISPs to File Form 477) according to WISPA member George Robato is that "only 500 WISPs bothered to file form 477 . . . maybe we lied to them."

The New America Foundation is not exclusively a friend of the WISP. The Foundation is arguing for open markets that would allow innovation. To that end, it argues (p.63 to end) that the FCC should not legislate in favor of any particular technology (a concern we return to below). The Foundation says that universal Wi-Fi could enable people to abandon ISPs entirely (p.70):

Individual households and citizens can purchase a mass market, off-the-shelf wireless laptop, router, or modem, and use it to connect directly to the internet without the need to go through an intermediary network operator. . . . Devices equipped with wireless modems can interoperate with any open network—they do not necessarily need to be paid subscribers or clients of the network

The monopoly fee
One other commentator, Prof. Yochai Benkler of the Yale Law School, warned that the broadcast monopolies could profit from this in an insidious way. A bit of background is necessary to understand Benkler's objection to the FCC's proposal: the FCC wants every device to be able to access a database showing TV bands in use in order to avoid interfering with TV signals, and to work with a "control signal" emitted by the broadcaster.

Besides the fact that, as usual, the FCC is assuming that the politically-connected monopolies will behave well and that the innovative unsubsidized competitors will behave badly, Benkler has a more complex objection.

He writes:

The effect of this requirement is to offer the broadcasters a means of extracting a rent from the mobile device manufacturers, and ultimately from device users. Nothing in the proposal appears to require the broadcaster to design its use of the control signal so that it assures non-interference. Indeed, the [FCC's] Notice specifically states that the control signal is an opportunity for incumbents to charge fees. As structured, these fees would not reflect efficiencies gained from use of the control signal, but purely the rent value of freedom to operate.

In summary, valuable spectrum is available, but the FCC appears to be planning to allocate the spectrum in a manner that will be as expensive as possible for end users, giving them the lowest possible benefit, while helping those using legacy technologies that rely on government granted spectrum monopolies a further opportunity to use that spectrum to increase their own profits at the expense of WISPs and their end users.

In the conclusion of his policy paper, Spectrum Policy Wonderland: A Critique of Convention Property Rights and Commons Theory in a World of Low Power Wireless Devices (.pdf), the New America Foundation's J.H. Snider writes:

Licensed property rights to spectrum are hugely valuable. To paraphrase a former FCC Media Bureau Chief, most spectrum licensees would rather kill their mothers than give back their spectrum. They will thus fight unlicensed property rights tooth and nail. The fact that the public barely understands the nature of spectrum and shows almost every sign that it could care less is equally problematical. The combination of special interest zeal and public apathy is an explosive political combination that, as long as it lasts, will inevitably result in special interest spectrum politics that unduly favors the licensed over the unlicensed property rights model. To the extent that law and economics are not on the side of licensed property rights holders, there may be hope that these political dynamics will one day change.

We fear that those opposed to change and new technology will win this one. It's up to WISPs to act. The deadline for filing comments is midnight on Friday, March 2, 2007.

—End