Comments to FCC Regarding Upper C-band Allocation

Introduction and Summary

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation appreciates the opportunity to comment on allocation of the upper C band (3.98-4.2 GHz).[1]Productive use of spectrum should be the Commission's primary objective, and productive use of this midband spectrum is especially important since it can support many old and new use cases. The Commission has a statutory obligation to auction at least 100 megahertz of the upper C band by mid-2027. Time is of the essence for improving this band; the Commission should not allow regulatory foot-dragging to become a bottleneck for US leadership in next generation wireless technologies of all kinds. Therefore, the Commission should endeavor to better the OBBBA's required floor both in terms of reallocated capacity and timeline.

The Commission Should Maximize the Productivity of this Band by Facilitating Rapid Altimeter Upgrades

As with the lower C-band proceeding, a major determinant of the productivity of the C band is the performance of altimeters in the adjacent 4.2-2.4 GHz band.[2]Unlike in that proceeding, however, it appears that all parties are acting in good faith to ensure airlines will replace receivers that listen out of their assigned bands with higher-performing ones that will be safer for the traveling public and better neighbors to adjacent-band services.[3]

The Commission should push RTCA and FAA to be aggressive in their efforts to rapidly approve and implement updated Minimum Operational Performance Standards that confine altimeter receivers enough to allow full power use of as much of the C band as possible without any mitigation measures or geographic restrictions around airports.[4] FAA and the aviation industry should be eager to make their aircraft as safe as possible as quickly as possible, and those benefits will accrue to the aviation industry regardless of additional transmissions in the C band. The FCC should insist, therefore, that the FAA is working in good faith to advance the policy priority set by Congress and the president of rapid improvement of altimeters that will enable rapid deployment of C band services.

Insofar as additional funding would in fact hasten the transition to altimeters that operate in their assigned band, the Commission should enable auction proceeds to compensate those costs. Such compensation could be a strong incentive to the aviation industry to create maximally safe altimeters as quickly as possible. It is, therefore, consistent with the goal of market allocation of spectrum: productive use. Auction proceeds themselves are of much less use than additional capacity for flexible use in the C band. The Commission should gear the entire auction process, including incentive payments, to maximize commercial capacity, not exclusively on maximizing the lump sum of money for the treasury.[5]

The Commission Should Auction Maximally Flexible LIcenses

The very fact of this and other pending spectrum proceedings is evidence that the Commission often makes mistakes when it tries to predict the most productive future use of spectrum. The C band is now more valuable in an arrangement other than FSS, and so the Commission has undertaken many long and complex proceedings to reform its allocation. Meanwhile the UMFUS proceeding is an example the Commission seeking to reform rules that may be too rigid to accommodate the increased productivity of satellite services.[6]The Commission should take the lesson that it does not know what the best use of spectrum will be far into the future. Therefore, it should seek to make its licenses as flexible as possible, not limit them to particular uses that seem best today but may be inapposite in a few years.

The licenses the NPRM proposes to auction are less flexible than they could be. The Commission identifies a "clear mandate to repurpose the Upper C-band for terrestrial wireless services" and thus proposes "to not allow any additional satellite or other uses in the Upper C-band."[7]But nothing about the statutory mandate indicates that the Commission should limit the use of the band only to terrestrial services. Licenses that enable full-power, terrestrial, mobile wireless can also give their holders the right to use the same spectrum for satellite use without compromising the terrestrial use at all. Indeed, the Commission has already recognized as much in the Supplemental Coverage from Space proceedings.[8]If all the spectrum covered by auctioned licenses is most valuable in terrestrial uses, profit-seeking companies will put it to those uses. But if some of the capacity would be more productive if used for satellite, licensees will seek to profit from that use too. A lack of SCS authorization would be a needless regulatory constraint on an otherwise productivity-enhancing private arrangement. While the NPRM notes that it did not extend that designation to the lower C band, a lack of flexibility in one band should not be a reason to perpetuate that lack of flexibility elsewhere.[9]

The Commission also identifies potential complexity as a reason not to allow additional satellite uses.[10]But the SCS rules are premised on any satellite use being subject to the same technical limitations as the mobile license under which it occurs. Even if duplexing concerns make actual satellite use unlikely given in the short run given the technical preferences of current systems, it does not hurt to have the authorization in the license for a party who figures out an alternative. The Commission should plan for unforeseen innovation, not regulate for stagnation.

In no case should there be any concern about additional interference if this band were authorized for SCS. It would strictly increase its potential productivity. To the extent that the SCS rules create administrative complexity by imposing a Commission-led process for a mutually agreeable commercial arrangement between private parties, the Commission should remove the extraneous administrative burden, not outlaw the commercial agreement.

In the end, allowing SCS under a mobile license in this band would simply make the licenses more flexible and more valuable. Indeed, bidders will be willing to pay more for a license that comes with the right to gain additional revenue from leasing capacity to satellite providers, for example. Or satellite providers might bid for the mobile licenses themselves. In either case, there would be more demand for mobile licenses with SCS designation than without. This increased demand would acquire more rights in the eventual auction which would increase the demand for these licenses at auction, thus increasing the revenue the auction generates. While auction revenue should not be the sole goal of an auction, in this case the increased revenue would be a consequence of increased productive possibilities of the licenses, which should be the central goal of Commission licensing.

Conclusion

The C band is a crucial first component of the OBBBA's spectrum pipeline. The Commission can make the most of this pipeline by aggressively pursuing as much spectrum as possible for the most productive commercial use possible while ensuring flexibility to account for real-world technological developments. Thank you for your consideration.

Endnotes