In an unusual alliance, cable operators, Google, Public Knowledge and others have told Congress the FCC is taking the wrong approach to the upcoming 3.45 -3.55 GHz (3.45 GHz band) auction, in particular the size of the licenses it plans to auction.

Congress mandated in the Consolidated Appropriations Act that the FCC come up with a system of competitive bidding by year's end for the 100 MHz of spectrum the Defense Department identified.

Also Read: DOD Agrees to Share Midband Spectrum

In a letter to top House and Senate Democrats and Republicans, the groups, which included NCTA-the Internet & Television Association and individual cable/broadband operators, said they were concerned that the large partial economic areas to be licensed, similar to the FCC's C-band auction, as "proposed would not foster the kind of robust participation and innovation that made the CBRS auction a success and could also result in tepid investment and build out in rural areas where Americans need broadband more than ever before."

They point out that the rules the FCC adopted for the CBRS band auction, including the license size, drew a record 271 qualified bidders, 228 of which won licenses in the auction, including "regional carriers, wireless internet service providers, cable companies, manufacturers of agricultural equipment, universities, real estate firms, energy companies, electric utilities, tribes, and others... By comparison, in the recent C-band auction, only 57 applicants qualified to bid and only 21 bidders were successful," with only three bidders--Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile--winning the vast majority of licenses.

They asked the legislators to "urge" the Commission to, instead, "follow proven aspects of the successful CBRS framework for the 3.45 GHz band," which they said would encourage robust participation.  

They did not elaborate, but in the CBRS auction, the FCC decided on county-sized licenses, a compromise between the smaller census tracts and the larger partial economic areas (PAL) licenses.

Smaller licenses mean lower prices and a larger pool of bidders that can afford them. For example, the bidders getting the most licenses in the CBRS auction were Wetterhorn Wireless with 5,492, followed by SAL Spectrum with 1,569. In the C-band auction, the top license winners were Verizon with 3,511 licenses, followed by AT&T with 1,621 licenses.

The groups also said the $13.4 billion estimated cost of clearing the spectrum would mean the reserve price would have to be almost $15 billion, "likely putting licenses out of reach for all but the three largest nationwide wireless operators."

Congress has set a December 2021 deadline for auctioning the 3.45 GHz band. The FCC is planning to start the auction in October.

To try and make sure some of the 5G spectrum in the 3.45-3.55 GHz band that it is auctioning in October makes it into the hands of more players, the FCC has proposed a 40 MHz limit on any one bidder on the total 100 MHz available.

That is according to the draft order circulated by acting FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel for a vote by the FCC at the March 17 public meeting.

The limit extends to four years beyond the auction so a company could not get the maximum 40 MHz in the auction, then get more in the secondary market. "We acknowledge that our public interest goals in adopting a bright-line limit for this band could be undermined if entities that win 40 megahertz of spectrum at auction could then acquire more 3.45-3.55 GHz spectrum post-auction in the secondary market," the draft order said.

The FCC set a 40 MHz aggregation limit in the CBRS auction, but not in the C-Band auction, the latter which saw AT&T and Verizon combine to get 80% of the spectrum.

Also Read: Verizon Tops C-Band Bidders

Congress had mandated in the Consolidated Appropriations Act that the FCC come up with a system of competitive bidding for the spectrum by the end of this year. 

The White House and Department of Defense officials last August announced that they had identified 100 MHz of midband spectrum in the 3.45-3.55 GHz band--currently used by DOD for key radar applications--that could be freed up quickly for sharing with commercial 5G without sacrificing national security or military uses, specifically critical radar for air defense, missile and gun control, battlefield weapon locations, and air traffic control.

Michael Calabrese of New America's Open Technology Institute said his group would still like to see an overall aggregation limit given Verizon's C-Band spectrum haul, but said of the 40 MHz limit, "at least this precludes a total shut out."

The FCC has tentatively set next October for its auction of spectrum in the 3.45-3.55 GHz band for 5G.

Congress had mandated in the Consolidated Appropriations Act that the FCC come up with a system of competitive bidding for the spectrum by the end of this year.

Acting FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said Tuesday (Feb. 23) she has circulated a draft order on a framework for the auction and freeing up the "much-needed" midband spectrum for 5G.

Also Read: DOD Agrees to Share Midband Spectrum

She plans a vote on the item at the March 17 meeting, and following the lead of her predecessor, Ajit Pai, will make the draft order public (she said by Wednesday), along with other items planned for a vote at that meeting.

“We need to deliver the 5G that the American people were promised," said Rosenworcel. "That means a 5G that is fast, secure, resilient, and—most importantly—available across the country. This important auction is a crucial step toward making that a reality. ... 5G will foster new economic activity, unlocking an estimated 4.5 million new jobs and adding $1.5 trillion in economic growth. ... I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this proposal.”

The FCC item would allocate the 3.45-3.55 GHz band for flexible use, complete the relocation of non-federal commercial users and sunset amateur use of the 3.3-3.5 GHz band. 

Among the bills the Consolidated Appropriations Act consolidated last year was the Beat China by Harnessing Important, National Airwaves (CHINA) for 5G Act of 2020, which directed the clearing of government users from the 3.5 GHz band so the FCC can auction it for 5G.

The White House and Department of Defense officials last August announced that they had identified 100 MHz of midband spectrum (between 3450 and 3550 GHz) currently used by DOD for key radar applications, that could be freed up quickly for sharing with commercial 5G without sacrificing national security or military uses, specifically critical radar for air defense, missile and gun control, battlefield weapon locations, air traffic control and more.

“CTIA and its members applaud today’s announcement by Acting Chairwoman Rosenworcel that the Commission will be voting to take quick and efficient action to bring the 3.45 GHz band to auction, with a draft Order and Auction Public Notice that boldly seek to launch the auction well in advance of the statutory deadline," said CTIA president Meredith Attwell Baker, whose members will be among those looking to bid on the 5G Spectrum. "Making more mid-band spectrum available for 5G services will boost wireless innovation and deployment, fueling our 5G Economy and helping close the digital divide.”

“I am proud of the legwork the FCC and our partners across the federal government have put in to open up this 100 MHz of mid-band spectrum, and I am pleased that the Commission will now vote on the steps needed to auction off these airwaves this year," said commissioner Brendan Carr, pointing out that the FCC under chairman Ajit Pai worked with NTIA to identify the 100 MHZ of midband spectrum and launched the rulemaking proceeding that the FCC is closing the loop on on March 17. "I look forward to reviewing the draft decision and working with my colleagues to ensure that it maximizes opportunities for 5G in the U.S., including by authorizing full power commercial operations," he said.

After round two of the FCC's first auction of flexible-license midband spectrum (the 3.5 GHz band) Friday (July 24), the gross proceeds were $388,732,380, up a little over $30 million from $357,344,200 after the first, six-hour, round Thursday. 

The auction has already the FCC's floor price for the spectrum, which it did easily on day one.  

Round two was the first of two, two-hour rounds being held Friday. 

The FCC is auctioning 70 MHz worth of county-based Priority Access Licenses (PALs) (a whopping 22,631 of them) in the 3550-3650 MHz (CBRS) band.   

Related: FCC Approves CBRS Auction Framework

The auction--the most licenses ever offered at one time--is meant to further the buildout of 5G and the internet of things (IoT). 

The FCC voted 3-1 along party lines Oct. 23, 2018, to change the rules on licenses for the 3.5 GHz (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) band to make it more attractive for providers of 5G, which includes cable ops looking to up their mobile broadband game. The change was billed as a way to spur investment in the band and promote more efficient use, including for 5G. 

While the FCC is playing up the auction, Tom Power, SVP and general counsel at CTIA, told a Senate Commerce hearing audience that like Thursday's opening day for pandemic-era baseball, they were playing under different rules and don't know how it is going to go. He pointed out that due to protections for incumbent band users, wireless carriers are limited to about one-seventh the power they get to use in other bands, so building 5G out beyond urban areas with the 3.5 GHz spectrum presented a challenge.

The FCC voted Friday (Feb. 28) to establish the rules for a competitive auction of spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band, yet another step in the FCC's race to 5G. 

The vote was unanimous and drew praise from some quarters for the compromise decision to change the draft proposal to limit the licenses auctioned to county-sized, rather than bundle them into larger CMA (cellular market areas), which could have favored larger players. 

Related: FCC Says 5G Services Are Good to Go 

The auction is scheduled to begin June 25 and features the most licenses ever up for bid in a single auction--22,631. 

Commissioner Michael O'Rielly, who was the point person on the item, addressed the license compromise in his statements from the dais. 

"[W]e decided not to pursue the option of CMA-level bidding packages, as previously proposed," he said. "While I remain unconvinced by the arguments against it, I must take into account the views of all the potential bidders. Declining to pursue package bidding here should help calm the waters for any remaining complainers, without altering auction participation or results." 

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who is more often critical of the FCC Republican majority's spectrum-clearing approaches and timetables, had some encouraging words before adding the sting in the tail. 

Related: Charter Moving Fast on CBRS

She called the vote "a major milestone in United States spectrum policy," and "a radical—a framework for sharing that can turn spectrum scarcity into abundance. That’s very cool."

The sting was that she said the FCC had been hemming and hawing instead of acting and that the moment was bittersweet because it should have happened a lot sooner.

The item approved Friday: 

1. "Adopts an ascending clock auction format in which bidders indicate their demand for generic license blocks in specific counties as prices increase (licensees will be dynamically assigned a specific channel by frequency coordinators known as Spectrum Access Systems); 

2. "Permits bidding on a county-by-county basis, and allows bidders to bid for no more than four generic blocks of spectrum per county; 

3.  "Incorporates for the first time in a Commission spectrum auction an “activity upper limit” to mitigate the possibility of a bidder losing bidding eligibility in certain circumstances; and 

4. "Adopts bidding credit caps of $25 million for small businesses and $10 million for rural service providers, as well as a $10 million cap on the overall amount of bidding credits that a small business bidder may apply to winning licenses in smaller markets." 

The FCC voted 3-1 along party lines Oct. 23, 2018, to change the rules on licenses for the 3.5 GHz (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) band to make it more attractive for providers of 5G, which includes cable ops looking to up their mobile broadband game. The change was billed as a way to spur investment in the band and promote more efficient use, including for 5G.  

NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, praised the move, but wanted more.  

"NCTA also welcomes the adoption of auction procedures for the 3.5 GHz band that embrace bidding on right-size licenses to set Auction 105 up for success," it said. "We urge the Commission to turn its attention now to the mid-band pipeline for unlicensed use, and look forward to near-term action on the 5.9 and 6 GHz bands.” 

It was at the prodding of House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) at an FCC oversight hearing that prompted chairman Ajit Pai to signal fines were coming. The congressman was glad the fines were being proposed, he was not happy with the amounts. 

“Today’s notice by the FCC confirms what I have said from the beginning — carriers have a duty to protect consumers’ real-time location data and the FCC must enforce the law in order to protect the personal safety of consumers across the country," he said. "While I am glad the FCC is finally proposing fines for this egregious behavior, it represents little more than the cost of doing business for these carriers. Further, the Commission is still a long way from collecting these fines and holding the companies fully accountable. I will continue to closely monitor this important issue.” 

“We applaud the FCC for continuing to move forward with making this mid-band spectrum available for commercial use," said AT&T executive VP Joan Marsh. "The Commission is to be commended for working collaboratively across government agencies and the wireless industry to develop a unique spectrum sharing solution that accommodates government incumbents while permitting new licensed and unlicensed users.”

State highway officials have told the Federal Communications Commission not to free up 5.9 Gigahertz spectrum for WiFi use.

Car manufacturers have been arguing against sharing the spectrum with cable WiFi, and state DOTs are right with them. That’s according to an Aug. 19 letter to the agency from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).

Currently, the 5.9-GHz band is reserved for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, but app-based communications appear to be superseding that technology, which has essentially lay fallow for two decades. But AASHTO has said the debate about what technology V2V will use should not be an excuse to open the spectrum to non-transportation applications.

Toyota agreed, telling the FCC in meetings that an attempt to share the spectrum road with cable WiFi service could lead to a hit-and-run scenario, threatening technology that could protect pedestrians and other “vulnerable” road users.

The FCC is under pressure to free up as much spectrum for advanced communications as possible, so it has been looking hard at the band. But AASHTO has said, not in our transportation backyard.

“The top priority for the state DOTs and AASHTO has been — and will always remain — the safety of all transportation system users,” it told the FCC. “The loss of 36,750 lives last year on our nation’s highways and streets demands that we act boldly. To this end, connected vehicles (CV) utilizing Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication in the 5.9 GHz spectrum will save lives by creating a seamless, cooperative environment that significantly improves the safety of our transportation system.”

WiFi Forward, a group that includes cable operators, has said continuing the policy of dedicated V2V spectrum is the wrong road, and would “merely perpetuate the waste of this extremely valuable resource.”

The FCC is reminding anyone interested in its 3.5 GHz rule change has to get those petitions to reconsider the decision in by the end of the day Monday (Jan. 7), shutdown or no. 

The FCC said last week that the shutdown would not affect auctions for auction-related deadlines, but just wanted to put an exclamation point on that.

The FCC voted 3-1 along party lines Oct. 23 to change the rules on licenses for the 3.5 GHz (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) band to make it more attractive for providers of 5G, which includes cable ops looking to up their mobile broadband game.

NCTA-the Internet & Television Association strongly supported the FCC change, so it is unlikely to be asking for reconsideration. Public Knowledge, which backed the previous 3.5 GHZ framework, did not support it, saying the change only benefited large cable operators and wireless carriers.

The change was billed as a way to spur investment in the band and promote more efficient use, including for 5G. The main adjustments are the decision to increase the sizes of priority access licenses (PALs) from census tracts to the larger county-sized licenses, though FCC chair Ajit Pai pointed out that was a compromise from the larger partial economic area (PEA) licenses some had advocated for.

The CBRS band is a mix of PAL licenses and general authorized access (GAA) unlicensed use.

The FCC also extended the license terms from 3 to 10 years and added a presumption of renewal. All things the FCC majority said made the band more attractive to investors and bidders for the spectrum licenses in an upcoming auction.

The FCC is also making it easier to sell the PAL licenses in the secondary market. The item also includes rules to support wider bandwidth channels while maintaining interference protections, which the commission said would provide certainty and stability for broader deployments in the band by an array of users.

Ruckus Networks said today that it has been given FCC certification for its entire portfolio of “OpenG”-branded access points designed to work in the 3.5 Ghz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum.

Having one of the telecom industry’s major vendors certified is a major step in the broader plan to have CBRS commercial deployments achieved by the end of the year. Earlier today, Federated Wireless said that it has asked the FCC for permission to move forward with commercial CBRS deployments as soon as October, the company announced.

Cable and wireless operators are exploring opportunities for the Citizens Broadband Radio Service Device band, a 150 MHz-wide portion of largely underused spectrum existing between 3.55 GHz and 3.7 GHz. CBRS will ultimately be used for private LTE networks such as airports and industrial campuses.

“This major milestone is one of the final stages before CBRS commercial deployments are made possible,” said Ian Whiting, president of Ruckus Networks, in a statement. “As a leading network provider, we are enabling organizations to deploy and manage a private LTE network, as easily as deploying a Wi-Fi network. Our OpenG LTE portfolio enables customers across a variety of different verticals to take advantage of this spectrum.”

Related: Federated Wireless Files with FCC to Start Deploying CBRS in October

Arris-owned Ruckus also announced that it has partnered with multi-family broadband provider Pavlov Media to trial CBRS 3.5 GHz LTE access points in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.

Overall, Ruckus said it has conduced more than 20 CBRS trials with operators and enterprises, and it has another 30-plus trials pending. 

Federated Wireless has asked the FCC for permission to move forward with commercial CBRS deployments as soon as October, the company announced.

In its proposal for Initial Commercial Deployment, the Arlington, Va.-based company said it has 14 initial customers—wireless operators, cable companies, tower hoisters, managed service providers (MSPs) and CBRS devices vendors, including American Tower, Arris, Charter Communications and ExteNet Systems.

Other launch stats include the inclusion of 15 OEM partners, as well as 15,753 site locations across 47 states and Washington, D.C.

Notably, the plans for commercialization outlined in the Federated proposal suggest not waiting for the debate around Priority Access Licenses (PALs) to be finalized.

Separately, Federated Wireless announced a new CPI training program.

The CPI Training Program addresses the FCC’s initial commercial deployment rules, which mandate that all outdoor CBRS devices be installed by a certified professional installer to ensure that accurate location and serial number information is logged and reported to the SAS for proper operation.

Related: CBRS Alliance Declares Interop a Success, Says Commercial Deployments are ‘Imminent’

“Shared spectrum commercialization has begun, and at a far greater scale and scope than we all anticipated at this stage,” declared Iyad Tarazi, president and CEO of Federated Wireless, in a statement. “Businesses can now access shared spectrum to not only introduce new services and create new businesses models, but solve decades old challenges, such as improving wireless connectivity indoors and outdoors, and closing the digital divide.”

Cable and wireless operators are exploring opportunities for the Citizens Broadband Radio Service Device band, a 150 MHz-wide portion of largely underused spectrum existing between 3.55 GHz and 3.7 GHz. CBRS will ultimately be used for private LTE networks such as airports and industrial campuses.

Federated Wireless has suggested use cases spanning energy, entertainment, hotels, shopping malls, sports venues, offices, restaurants, seaports, smart cities and rural areas with more than 80 WISPs.

> Comcast, Charter Communications and Altice USA are each currently testing various CBRS applications.

By the end of the year, the CBRS Alliance said it expects to have nearly a dozen labs set up around the world to conduct testing for its OnGo certification of the technology.

The FCC, meanwhile, is still reviewing the rules for CBRS deployment, but the CBRS Alliance expects that the General Authorized Access portion of the band will begin being used for commercial applications by the end of 2018.

Now that it sees a potential compromise with wireless carriers on license sizes, Charter Communications is pushing for licensing rules in the 3.5-GHz (CBRS) band that would combine county and MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area)-sized licenses.

According to a filing last week by CTIA and the Competitive Carriers Association, the organizations have agreed that the FCC should issue MSA licenses in the top 306 cellular markets, but smaller, county-based licenses for the remaining 428.

Related: CBRS Alliance Specs Target Interoperability

CTIA and CCA argue the approach would be better than one based on census tracts.

Charter said it is pleased with the progress from wireless proposals to base the licenses on partial economic areas (PEAs), but that it would prefer the FCC divide the top 10 MSA markets into counties to expand competitive bidding in urban areas.

The FCC voted last October on a framework for freeing up new spectrum -- it would be shared with incumbent government users -- for wireless broadband that could encourage cable and telco broadband players to use, and bid on, that spectrum in the race to 5G.

Cable broadband providers are looking for more WiFi spectrum, as well as looking to add mobile wireless service to their bundles via MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) agreements, under which they lease capacity from an AT&T or Verizon.

The changes to the priority access license (PALs) in the band are meant to incentivize faster network broadband deployments of fixed and mobile service. Those include longer license terms and contemplating different sized licenses.

Charter -- along with NCTA-The Internet & Television Association -- has been pushing for smaller sized licenses for more flexibility, so that isn't new. What is is the progress Charter cites in striking a compromise with wireless operators. 

But it does not want them too small either, either. Charter's suggestion for license areas was bigger than census tracts, but no bigger than counties.

Related: CBRS Spectrum to Open Window of Opportunity for Cable Ops

Charter said small-cell tech is ill suited to large-scale geographic area licenses and would discourage its participation in an auction of the spectrum. Charter has said that, under the right rules, it could be interested in acquiring licenses in the 3.5-GHz band, but less likely so if the FCC stuck with PEA-sized licenses, in this case PEA meaning larger.

Charter is launching mobile wireless service to its customers as a WiFi-first offering in conjunction with Verizon Wireless.

But while cable ops had wanted the FCC to increase the geographic areas to larger than census tracts, but less that partial economic areas (PEAs), the October item simply asked for input on that

Back in 2016, FCC chair Tom Wheeler signaled the FCC would be opening up a "trifecta" of low-band (the broadcast spectrum auction), mid-band (3.5-GHz) and high-band spectrum for shared and licensed and unlicensed use to boost 5G wireless broadband.

The FCC voted back in April 2015 to make shared 3.5-GHZ spectrum available for flexible wireless broadband use.