Clearing 200 MHz of C Band Now, With More to Come, Workable, O'Rielly Says

While still hoping to see up to 300 MHz of the C band freed up for 5G use, FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly on Saturday said he's amenable to clearing 200 MHz now and a structure that sees more opened up in the future. He said at the FCBA annual retreat that his top priority is clearing the band as quickly as possible. Panels at the event in Hot Springs, Virginia, also covered topics ranging from cybersecurity to autonomous vehicles.

O'Rielly said a new C-band public notice (see 1904110034) will provide extra data but shouldn't delay agency decision-making. Any band clearing beyond 300 MHz seems unlikely, he said.

Comcast Vice President-Regulatory Policy David Don said the advantage of the C-Band Alliance approach is expediency by avoiding a lot of the regulatory process by going outside the scope of an auction, and the question is whether other issues like transparency are a fair trade-off. He said litigation is possible regardless of which option the FCC chooses. "Someone's ox is going to be gored," he said. The FCC will be under intense pressure to ensure there won't be interference to incumbent operations, Don said.

Some experts see progress on commercial deployment of the 3.5 GHz band having sputtered somewhat. Wireless ISP Association CEO Claude Aiken said the FCC's not having certified citizens broadband radio service-capable fixed wireless equipment yet is a hurdle. All the activity around the C band "has taken a lot of the oxygen out of the room for 3.5," Don said.

Dynamic Spectrum Alliance President Martha Suarez said DSA members remain keenly interested in the CBRS band and are working on spectrum access systems and deploying sensor networks. "It's going to happen," she said. She said much of the world is following the U.S. 3.5 GHz experiment with interest. Hogan Lovells spectrum lawyer Michele Farquhar said a 3.5 GHz band auction could come in Q2 at the soonest, after the millimeter wave band auction concluded.

That 5.9 GHz didn't make the June 6 FCC agenda (see 1905150053) and is now seen as likely for July isn't a problem, since a one-month delay doesn't change that the spectrum has been "clearly unutilized" for 20 years, Comcast's Don said. Association of Global Automakers Vice President-Vehicle Safety and Connected Automation Steve Gehring said the auto industry heard the criticisms about its sitting on dedicated short-range communications spectrum for years and sees its proposal for a flexible-use licensing regime in the band that still keeps it solely for auto safety, along with buildout requirements, as "a good way forward."

O'Rielly said relations between the FCC and executive branch are "a little bit more tense than maybe in the past," and he feels "somewhat duped" by NTIA and DOD on the 3.45-3.55 GHz feasibility study instead of clearing it for commercial use. He said some agencies might feel they have less oversight or more leeway to undo previous decisions. He said whoever takes over as NTIA chief "may push back a little more." Amid such tensions, Administrator David Redl left (see 1905090051).

Asked about robocalls, O'Rielly said the issue has become "very populist, unsurprisingly" and too little focus is on tackling just bad robocalls. He said while he hadn't yet read the robocall item on June's agenda, he was worried about snagging unwanted calls alongside illegal ones. Ultimately, no foreign robocall scammers will be deterred by the new FCC rules, he said: It's "just a matter of time" before they find tools to get around authentication requirements.

Security

Nations increasingly are waking up to the cybersecurity threats posed by nation-states, especially in light of Iranian directed denial-of-service attacks on banks and the WannaCry cyberattack, said Robert Strayer, State Department deputy assistant secretary-cyber and international communications and information policy. Meanwhile, cybercriminals continue to ramp up their sophistication, with the threshold to entry lowering. That's particularly problematic for developing nations that don't have high levels of safeguards, he said.

Huawei has been a national security concern for years, though the issue went quiet after the House Intelligence Committee's 2012 report (see 1210100053), only to ramp back up again with 5G (see 1905160081), Strayer said. He said American telcos typically are financially stronger than European ones, with the latter often hard-pressed to upgrade to more secure technology and many of them have a lot of embedded Huawei equipment. The U.S. is talking with allied nations about adopting risk-based security approaches that look askance at using vendors like Huawei answerable to national interests, he said.

In response to irresponsible state actions by nations like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, the U.S. is trying to coalesce with other countries so that combined this coalition can convince such bad actors the costs of such actions are too high, Strayer said. He said State is trying to craft consequences that go beyond economic sanctions to other "leverage points" tailored to each nation.

Last week's Trump administration executive order allowing the U.S. to ban telecom gear and services from “foreign adversaries” that pose a risk to national security (see 1905160063) might create consternation among U.S. trade partners regarding its breadth and requirements affecting trade agreements, said Harris Wiltshire telecom and trade lawyer Patricia Paoletta.

O'Rielly said the national security review of transactions by Team Telecom (DOJ, the Department of Homeland Security and DOD) remains broken due a lack of deadlines. He said he and then-FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler had been working on a fix, but that ended with the 2016 elections and the change in agency leadership. He said an executive order regarding the issue could "still pop sometime in the near future." While the FCC could issue a license regardless of a Team Telecom review, "we only have so much expertise" and want to be receptive to its input, O'Rielly said.

FCBA Notebook

Rules governing autonomous ground vehicles are two to three years behind drone regulation in part because the tech and operating principles still are being worked out, said Willkie Farr tech and transportation lawyer Renee Gregory. Another hurdle is that flight is the purview of the FAA, while ground transportation authority is split between the federal and state governments, she said, adding that the U.S. Transportation Department has been reluctant to get into autonomous ground vehicle regulation because of various legislative proposals before Congress. Now legislation has stalled and DOT might step up, Gregory said.

The FCC Office of Economics and Analytics' goal is to be part of the process of any regulatory action from the start, helping look at options that make economic sense, said Giulia McHenry, acting chief. It has staffing of about 100, with 40 or so in its Economics Analysis Division, roughly 25 in its Auctions Division, another 25 or so in its Industry Analysis Division, and one person in its Data Division. She said OEA hopes to increase Data Division staffing to create a group focused on data analytics and making data usable to the agency in policymaking.