The Federal Communications Commission has proposed removing the barriers over the usage of the 40MHz of spectrum that has been assigned to mobile satellite services in the 2GHz band.
Under the FCC’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), the…
The Federal Communications Commission has proposed removing the barriers over the usage of the 40MHz of spectrum that has been assigned to mobile satellite services in the 2GHz band.
Under the FCC’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), the restrictions over the use of the spectrum would be made more flexible to enable the provision of stand-alone terrestrial services.
The plan is a continuation of the 2GHz Band Co-Allocation Order of 2011, in which the commission laid the foundations for full terrestrial use of the band. It would also carry out a recommendation made in the 2010 National Broadband Plan.
In a statement, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said: “Today’s NPRM proposes freeing up spectrum by removing regulatory barriers and providing for flexible use of MSS spectrum. The specific barriers we propose to remove are rules that have limited this spectrum to satellite use. This effort is part of the Commission’s broad commitment to allow flexible use of spectrum. Because of the international allocation for mobile broadband and the large blocks of contiguous spectrum in the 2GHz band, the National Broadband Plan recommended that we remove regulatory barriers to flexible use in this band through a rulemaking.”
FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn added: “The NPRM contains detailed rule proposals about the band plan, spectrum block size, and technical service requirements. Although this item will likely require review and input from the industry over the next few months, these detailed proposals should help the Commission move quicker towards adopting rules in this proceeding.”
The decision is both good and bad news for Dish Network, which now owns 40MHz of nationwide 2GHz wireless spectrum after it finally completed the acquisitions of the re-organized DBSD North America and Terrestar Networks on 12 March.
As and when they come into effect, the new rules would enable the company to push ahead with its plans to construct a nationwide LTE wireless broadband network utilising its acquired satellite spectrum.
However, the nature of the NPRM procedural process means that any change is unlikely to come into effect until the end of the year. Dish’s chairman Charlie Ergen stated back in February 2012 that without receiving immediate waivers from the FCC over the usage requirements for its 40MHz of spectrum, the company would likely have to write down the value of that spectrum. So much so that Ergen reportedly added that the spectrum assets would not be worth the US$3bn that Dish paid for them.
