4/17 National Spectrum Strategy Comments Submitted to NTIA on Behalf of the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition

Wireless Future and Public Knowledge drafted these comments for NTIA on behalf of the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition. An introduction and summary is available below.

PISC applauds NTIA for pursuing a National Spectrum Strategy (NSS) that goes beyond identifying which specific bands should be repurposed and seeks to develop an ongoing process for managing our nation’s spectrum resources. PISC urges NTIA to put the needs of the public first in its NSS by adopting guiding policies that are rooted in public interest values, maximizing spectrum access and bandwidth abundance through spectrum sharing, establishing a pipeline that will meet our nation's spectrum needs, recasting efficiency using metrics that serve the public, and prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

PISC urges NTIA in conjunction with the FCC to consider the critical challenges facing our nation by the ever widening digital divide and adopt guiding policies that will lead us towards a wireless future that serves and includes all Americans. These guiding policies should include:

• Maximize Spectrum Access & Bandwidth Abundance by Promoting Spectrum Sharing & Investing in Spectrum Reuse Technologies.
• Optimize Interference Metrics to Reflect Actual Interference and Current Advances in Technology.
• Recast Efficiency Using Metrics that Serve the Public Interest.
• Prioritize Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
• Minimize the Negative Effects that Auction Revenues Have on Spectrum Policy.

Spectrum Sharing

To promote more intensive use of underutilized bands, PISC’s specific recommendations include:

• Explicitly recognize that CBRS and coordinated three-tier spectrum sharing have been one of the government’s most successful spectrum policy innovations, fully protecting incumbents and enabling very innovative and diverse local access to spectrum.
• Avoid unnecessarily stringent protections in shard bands for incumbent users that impose unnecessary costs or continue to leave valuable spectrum capacity fallow.
• Endorse and establish a rapid implementation timeline for NTIA’s proposal to develop a federal Incumbent Informing Capability that can facilitate more intensive sharing both among federal agencies and with private sector uses.
• Endorse opportunistic access on a use-it-or-share-it basis in underutilized bands as a default approach aimed at expanding local spectrum access for small and non-traditional ISPs in rural, tribal and other underserved areas, as well as for enterprises, venues, schools, libraries and other community anchor institutions.
• Specify that in shared bands Priority Access License areas—particularly in the lower 3 GHz band—should be no larger than census tracts, with limited terms and relatively low power, a combination that promotes more intensive use by a very wide range of users and use cases, promoting innovation and competition, and reprising the rules adopted in its original 2015 CBRS Order.
• Recommend that Congress broaden the purpose of the Spectrum Relocation Fund, modernizing it to serve as a revolving fund not only to reimburse federal users to migrate off bands, but to facilitate more intensive sharing or more efficient use of other federal bands—including bands where the FCC decides the public interest is best served by unlicensed or shared/lightly-licensed access.
• Include a decision that NTIA and the FCC will coordinate to facilitate bidirectional sharing and authorize federal users to have at least secondary and opportunistic access to all licensed commercial bands on a non-interference basis.

Spectrum Pipeline

PISC fully supports the NTIA’s goal of identifying, studying and reallocating access to at least 1,500 megahertz, but with a crucial caveat: the number of megahertz identified for “more intensive use” is far less important than pursuing a balanced spectrum policy that unleashes substantially more quality spectrum for unlicensed, exclusively licensed, and shared/lightly-licensed use. A starting presumption should be that roughly equal amounts of additional mid- to upper-mid-band spectrum should be made available for each of these three distinct and essential paths to the spectrum access needed to meet the future needs of households, enterprises and community anchor institutions. In addition, PISC recommends the NSS should:

• Include a plan and timeline to conduct an inventory of actual spectrum use in prime low- to upper-mid bands, including by frequency, geography, time and power; there currently is a huge opportunity cost to regulators knowing the allocations—but not the actual use—of spectrum they manage.
• Adopt a periodic review of all spectrum bands using a pre-determined set of questions and criteria based on the public interest goals underpinning our spectrum policy to determine when a band is ripe for repurposing or more intensive sharing.
• Recognize that enabling the multi-gigabit connectivity and affordability of Wi-Fi 7 applications and use cases in every location—especially in high-traffic settings such as schools, offices and venues—will require additional wide channels of unlicensed access.
  • Short term: Immediately begin a consultation aimed at authorizing unlicensed operations on 7125-7250 MHz on an indoor-only, low-power (LPI) basis, thereby enabling a fourth 320-megahertz channel for use by next generation Wi-Fi.
  • Longer term: Study the remainder of the 7 GHz band—up to 8.4 GHz—with a goal of making at least a fifth 320-megahertz channel available for unlicensed sharing and ideally contiguous to the U-NII-9 band (7125-7250 MHz).
• Include a plan to study and make available for at least opportunistic shared use all of the band segments from 2900 to 3450 MHz on a non-exclusive, lightly-licensed basis.
  • 3100-3450 MHz: Informed by the PATHSS report, endorse and expedite a balanced approach that optimizes shared access to the entire 350 megahertz with a framework similar if not identical to the three-tier CBRS model.
  • 2900-3100 MHz: Study the adjacent band below as a potential candidate for dynamic spectrum sharing to inform a coherent band plan for the lower 3 GHz band as a whole.
• Study and identify substantial new upper mid-band spectrum for coordinated sharing of the band in a manner that meets the needs of the widest variety of local users and use cases, including through the authorization of the sort of automated frequency coordination framework.
  • 37-37.6 GHz: Decide if federal operations will have a priority status and then seek further comment and finalize a shared light-licensing framework, including whether an automated frequency coordination system is needed or warranted.
  • 12.7-13.25 GHz: Propose coordinated sharing of the band and, particularly in frequencies where incumbent users will remain primary, adopt an open access framework that meets the needs of the widest variety of local users and use cases.
  • 10-10.5 GHz:  Identify the band for study and determine if at least fixed point-to-point terrestrial sharing can be coordinated by automated frequency coordination in all or part of the band without disrupting incumbent federal users.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The NSS should should recognize that it is always better to prevent inequities than to remedy them after the fact by adopting a policy of only adopting spectrum policies that are beneficial, or at least net neutral to DEI. Specifically, PISC recommends the the NSS include:

• A policy of asking more detailed questions about DEI throughout spectrum policy and rulemaking procedures, including questions such as:
  • Do the rules adopted facilitate direct access by traditionally marginalized communities, or otherwise affirmatively prevent traditional patterns of exclusion?
  • What performance metrics, monitoring efforts, and enforcement provisions can our spectrum regulators adopt to make sure that new spectrum policies do not perpetuate inequities?
  • How do assigned power levels, interference mitigation, or other factors interact with the assigned frequencies?
  • Do the spectrum policies proposed raise the cost or limit flexibility in a manner that promotes DEI or perpetuates inequality?
• A plan to leverage federal labs, research grants, and other government resources to conduct and fund spectrum research that seeks to understand and address the impact spectrum policy has on DEI.
• Policies that uphold the Federal Trust Relationship our nation has with Tribes by providing Tribes access to the spectrum on their tribal lands. Such policies include:
  • Holding a Tribal Priority Window prior to every spectrum auction.
  • Permitting Tribes to access federal spectrum on tribal lands.