T-Mobile Pushing Commission for Mobile Broadband at 600 MHz

Finally a plan for the use of broadband spectrum at 600 MHz and above that makes some sense!

T-Mobile pushes its own plan for 600 MHz mobile broadband

T-Mobile supports much of the FCC's plan to reallocate and reassign 600 MHz spectrum from broadcast TV to mobile broadband use but is suggesting a number of tweaks, wrote Kathleen Ham, T-Mobile's vice president of federal regulatory affairs, in a blog post on the company website.

A group of wireless carriers, broadcasters and manufacturers recently suggested locating all paired spectrum above TV Channel 37. "While we are open to further study with the FCC on the best plan to maximize paired spectrum in the auction, this approach has the benefit of avoiding certain potential interference issues that exist with the FCC's lead plan and would encourage rapid development of devices that meet consumer expectations for cost and size," said Ham.

Read more: T-Mobile pushes its own plan for 600 MHz mobile broadband - FierceBroadbandWireless http://www.fiercebroadbandwireless.com/story/t-mobile-pushes-its-own-plan-600-mhz-mobile-broadband/2013-02-04#ixzz2Jy0BrUx9
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FCC PLANS TO ENFORCE UHF/VHF NARROWBANDING MANDATE

Aug 28, 2012 5:26 PM, By Donny Jackson

More From Policy & Law

• PSCR seeks global support for public-safety LTE
• FCC plans to enforce UHF/VHF narrowbanding mandate
• Video: Dowd on FirstNet board appointment
• Gurss: Congress may have to revisit T-Band mandate
• NTIA releases information on planning grant program for 700 MHz LTE

» more

With a little more than four months left until LMR systems operating on frequencies below 512 MHz are required to migrate from 25 kHz channels to 12.5 kHz channels under the FCC’s narrowbanding rules, licensees should be prepared for enforcement consequences if they do not meet their obligations or secure a waiver from the agency, a commission official said last week.

“In the past year, we’ve seen a lot of progress, as many licensees have migrated their systems to narrowband operations—this has been very gratifying,” David Furth, deputy chief of the FCC’s public safety and homeland security bureau, said during a session at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) conference last week. “But we still have thousands of public-safety licensees who are operating in wideband mode, and time is short.

“Let me reiterate what the commission has said all along: We are not moving the narrowbanding deadline. It is, and will be, Jan. 1, 2013.”

Furth said affected licensees have two choices to remain in compliance: make the transition to narrowband technology or get a waiver from the FCC. The commission has detailed the conditions for waiver approval, one of which takes into account when a waiver application is filed, Furth said.

“In order to obtain a waiver, you need to make a timely request—that means now, if you have not filed a waiver,” he said. “I cannot overemphasize that waiver requests that are filed at the 11^th hour before the deadline will be viewed with skepticism and are very likely not to be granted.”

Affected licensees that fail to narrowband and do not obtain a waiver will suffer consequences, Furth said.

“Will the commission enforce its rules? The answer is emphatically, ‘Yes,’” he said. “We are already working with the FCC’s enforcement bureau to prepare for 2013, and the enforcement bureau plans to issue guidance soon, reminding licensees of their narrowbanding obligations and of the commission’s intent to aggressively enforce the narrowband mandate.

“It is important to get the word out to your friends and neighbors to make sure that everyone is taking this obligation seriously. This is serious.”

Harsh words from David Furth to the Public Safety world, but can anyone imagine the FCC actually shutting down a Public Safety Network in January 2013 because they did not narrowband?  I certainly can't. 

If you want an example of an FCC hard deadline in the Public Safety world I will refer you to the 800 MHz Re-Banding Mandate issued in August 2004 to be finished in December 2007, it is now August 2012 and it is still not done and the process has outlived not only Nextel, but the actual iDEN Network which is now being decommissioned. 

It will be an interesting 2013 in the regulatory world!

Marc 

700 MHz Awarded to Public Safety - Now What?

Lumped into this weeks Payroll Tax Cut bill was an allocation of the long contested 10 MHz of spectrum referred to as the 700 MHz D Block.  The future of the D block has been in limbo since the 2008 spectrum auctions, but  this week Congress and the Obama Administration finally passed legislation that allocated the D Block to Public Safety for the construction of a nationwide LTE network.    Congress also kicked in an additional $7 billion of tax payer dollars to build the network and another $300 million for R&D for the network.

But you can be sure, that much like ObamaCare, there are sill many unknowns.  And public safety representatives are already saying $7 Billion isn't enough!  No one has yet thought or talked about where the money will come from to operate and maintain the system (but that money has to come from only one source and that is the US Taxpayer)  and nobody yet knows who is in charge of planning, designing, and managing the network buildout and operation.

However I am sure that this topic will dominate next weeks discussion at IWCE and for many months to come in the various halls of the lobbyist and equipment manufacturers who will no doubt play a major role in shaping the success of the network.

I expect the Public Safety Industry hasn't seen this much excitement since the 800 Re-banding plan was announced a few years ago.  BTW, anyone know how re-banding is going?  It's finished, right?

Marc

The LightSquared Whine Continues as the Commission suspends their waiver to use the 1.6 GHz band

After a very long and very public battle the Federal Communications Commission finally agreed that the laws of physics indeed could not be repealed, even with Obama's magical powers, and notified LightSquared that their waiver to use the 1.6 GHz spectrum will be suspended indefinitely thus ending LightSquared's plan to build a wholesale terrestrial based LTE network in the 1.6 GHz band. 


The surprise in this announcement is that the Commission actually did the right thing and went against the political pressure of LightSquared.   


But don't think that just because the FCC has ruled that this is the last you will hear from LightSquared.  Within hours of the announcement by the Commission, LightSquared launched their,  "we have been a victim of pure politics" campaign.    


Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared’s executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy, wrote on the company’s blog this week that the GPS industry had apparently become “too big to fail,” seeking protection from the federal government for its own mistakes.

“GPS manufacturers have been selling devices that listen into frequencies outside of their assigned spectrum band — namely into LightSquared’s licensed band,” Mr. Carlisle wrote. “The GPS industry has leveraged years of insider relationships and massive lobbying dollars to make sure that they don’t have to fix the problem they created.”

LightSquared's whine continued threatening legal acton and ramping up its lobbying efforts to attempt to gain access to spectrum for their network through a spectrum swap with federal agencies.  

The saga continues but never underestimate the power of having powerful friends (the President of the United States) as an investor in your company trying to make a $20 + billion spectrum play!  

Marc

"ITS A CRISIS SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE IF WE DON'T ACT NOW!

Apparently LightSquared lobbyists have been unsuccessful in getting the laws of physics repealed, and have now shifted to the "Its a crisis, someone is going to die if we don't act now" tactic to attempt to entice the FCC to rule in their favor.

In an article in Urgent Communications Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared’s executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy, warned the public safety industry,  “The satellite company, in and of itself, is not sustainable over the long term — we know that,” Carlisle said. “It’s too small of a market to support the capital investment needed to launch a new satellite every 15 years. This is why you see a lot of satellite companies that have gone through restructuring.”  he then goes on to warn, "As long as we have a viable business, we will always be committed to our public-safety solutions,” . . . “We’ve got cutting-edge technology that nobody else has, and we’ll continue to be committed to that. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find our way through this thicket and make sure that this capability will be provided into the future.”  One presumes that Carlisle was referring to the push to talk satellite service that public safety agencies sometimes depend on, but but if you carefully read Carlisle's comments I am not sure that is what he means at all.


But none the less, the message is clear, LightSquared is clearly using the "ITS A CRISIS someone is going to die if we don't act now" tactic in an attempt to coerce the public safety industry and their unions to lobby for LightSquared.  


In reality, LightSquared has lost the technical argument (the facts), lost the legal argument, and has now entered the speak loudly an forcefully part of their campaign to get their spectrum repurposed!


I know LightSquared doesn't particularly like to answer practical questions about its network deployment but here are two questions, relative to the push to talk satellite argument they are now making, I am posing  to LightSquared:


1. How is the low powered push to talk satellite system used by public safety going to co-exist in a high powered (relatively) terrestrial based LTE network, without having those pesky laws of physic's repealed?


2.  When LightSquared's terrestrial network is fully deployed and operational why would LightSquared continue to invest millions every 15 years to launch a new satellite to support a market that LightSquared has admitted is ". . . too small of a market to support the capital investment needed to launch a new satellite every 15 years."? 


Marc

LightSquared in a panic based on PNT Board Recommendation

Looks as if LightSquared has decided that since the science is against them on the interference issue with GPS receivers they will now argue "conflict of interest" about one member on the PNT Advisory board.  I suppose the old adage from the legal community that goes, "if the facts are against, you argue the law, if the law is against you, speak loudly and forcefully!  It seems that the LightSquared folks will be raising their voice very soon!  Notice that the article does not mention the fact that the LightSquared Chairman happens to have very close ties with and raised funds for the election of the current President.

Marc
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1. LightSquared urges probe of GPS advisory board member

By Phil Goldstein

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Wholesale LTE provider LightSquared is urging a probe of a federal GPS advisory board member, arguing that he has a conflict of interest because he also serves on the board of Trimble, which is opposed to LightSquared's network deployment plans. LightSquared filed a petition late Wednesday with NASA Inspector General Paul Martin over the board member, Bradford Parkinson, sometimes referred to as the "father of GPS" for his role in developing the technology for the military. Parkinson serves as the vice chairman of the National Space-Based Position, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board, which advises the federal government on GPS issues, and also serves as a board member for Trimble, which is part of a coalition of companies that have argued LightSquared's terrestrial network would cause harmful interference to GPS receivers. In December, results of GPS testing conducted by the advisory board were leaked to the media and showed continued interference from LightSquared's network.  In its petition, LightSquared said Parkinson may have violated federal conflict of interest rules, and argued that if LightSquared's network deployment is approved by regulators, Trimble could be hurt financially because the company would need "to address the problematic design and manufacturing process that has resulted in its high-precision receivers looking into LightSquared's spectrum." Trimble is part of a group formed last March called the Coalition to Save Our GPS, which has argued that LightSquared's network will cause harmful interference and that its signal will overwhelm GPS receivers and precision-based GPS receivers in particular. LightSquared has repeatedly argued that GPS device makers are at fault because their receivers have been designed to look into LightSquared's L-band spectrum. Government testing conducted under the auspices of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is still ongoing to determine if all GPS interference concerns have been resolved. Coalition spokesman Dale Leibach told Reuters that Parkinson's role as a GPS expert allowed him to serve at both the advisory board and Trimble. "It appears that LightSquared has now run out of solutions and has nothing left but baseless allegations about process," Leibach said. Pressure is mounting on LightSquared to get approval from regulators at the NTIA and FCC. Last week Philip Falcone, the head of the hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, which is the chief backer of LightSquared, met with FCC officials to press the company's case and argue for its plans to mitigate interference. Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) has given LightSquared an extension until Jan. 31 to get FCC approval for its network, a condition of their 15-year, $9 billion network-hosting deal. However, Sprint has quit installing LightSquared equipment into its Network Vision network upgrade due to the situation. Meanwhile, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said he is requesting information from GPS companies about their contacts with the White House and regulators. The requests for information are part of a deal Grassley struck to get the FCC to turn over similar info about LightSquared's dealings with the government. Grassley has been investigating the conditional waiver the FCC granted LightSquared in January 2011 to allow its wholesale customers to deploy terrestrial service.

You heard it here first!

Despite the overwhelming evidence that LightSquared does cause interference with GPS receivers, I believe LightSquared will get conditional approval to move forward with its network, not because it has solved the interference issue, but because LightSquared is very well connected politically.  The fix is in to allow LightSquared to move forward, but not to worry about the interference, I also predict that LightSquared's network will never actually be built out as planned! 

Marc

Defense bill stacks deck against LightSquared

By Dan O'Shea

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LightSquared may be breathing a bit easier after getting a 30-day extension from Sprint on the deadline to meet the conditions of its LTE partnership with the mobile carrier giant, but eWeek reports that the controversial defense bill signed into law by President Obama just last week may further stack the deck against LightSquared. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, signed by President Obama on New Year's Eve, is drawing much more attention for its support of indefinite detainment of terror suspects, but it also includes language that applies to the LightSquared situation. As eWeek explains, a portion of the Space Activities section of the bill indicates that the Federal Communications Commission can't allow commercial terrestrial operations that interfere with the military use of GPS, unless the FCC can prove to Congress that any concerns have been resolved. If interference is found, as it has been in initial tests involving LightSquared's spectrum-though these tests didn't involve military-related satellite receivers--the Secretary of Defense must get involved to assess the interference and report back to Congress on how it will eliminated. At a time when the industry appears increasingly worried about its limited spectrum holdings, it's starting to seem like LightSquared's L-band spectrum doesn't have all that much value--or at least may not be worth the additional trouble. Maybe that's what Sprint is thinking, too. Suddenly, 30 days doesn't seem all that long of an extension, given what LightSquared needs to overcome, and not just at the FCC. It seems unlikely that Sprint was aware of the NDAA language before it let LightSquared have more time, not that waiting another 30 days really affects its LTE plans.