FCC unlocks critical piece of the 5G puzzle

The FCC voted Thursday on its Spectrum Frontiers item, the new rules to open up spectrum bands for 5G wireless and fixed broadband, including spectrum for the kind of augmented reality games sweeping the nation via “Pokemon Go”.

The president of wireless trade group CTIA, Meredith Attwell Baker, echoed that sentiment, and said that the competitive advantage of the FCC’s move can not be overemphasized.

The 5-0 vote frees 3.85GHz of licensed spectrum and 7GHz of unlicensed spectrum for mobile and fixed-use wireless broadband, a move first proposed last month by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.

CTIA, while it had registered opposition with specific parts of the proposal before the vote, was overall pleased with the move.

Verizon and AT&T have said they will begin deploying 5G trials in 2017, and the first commercial deployments at scale are expected in 2020, Wheeler said. “In the US these bands will pave the way for investment and innovation in both licensed and unlicensed offerings, providing consumers with much faster and more responsive broadband, and delivering connectivity to many more devices including in the developing Internet of Things market”.

The FCC said the new rules balance spectrum use between new wireless services, satellite operations and federal government use.

“The FCC’s decision … to make thousands of megahertz of high frequency spectrum available will be a critical building block in our country’s 5G future”, noted Craig Silliman, general counsel and EVP for public policy at Verizon in connection with the FCC’s move.

They urged the FCC to adopt rules “that will enable rapid investment and innovation in these [higher frequency] bands”. Still, multi-gigabit per second speeds are a whole lot faster than the 4G LTE network we have now, which offers speeds at up to around 50Mbps. Commissioner Michael O’Rielly approved in part and dissented in part. The company also provides communications and entertainment services over America’s most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers integrated business solutions to customers worldwide. “Today’s action ensures that as telephone companies spend billions of dollars to upgrade our national communications network, it will genuinely be an upgrade for all Americans, not an upgrade for some and a downgrade for others”. The joint statement from Verizon, AT&T, the United States Telecom Association, Public Knowledge, and the Communications Workers of America also said, “We look forward to working with the next Administration, and with each other, to make the upgrade of the phone system an upgrade for everyone”. In the race to be the first with 5G service, the USA carriers will have to compete with overseas operators. The FCC wants to “turn loose the incredible innovators of this country” by providing high-band spectrum without dictating what technologies the industry should use to deploy it, he said. The agency’s action includes flexible rules for various technologies that providers might develop to build out their next-generation mobile networks.