Carr Urges Focus on Higher Power in CBRS Band at WISPA Meeting

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said the FCC should launch a rulemaking on higher power levels for the citizens broadband radio service band, saying that could be helpful to wireless ISPs, in a prerecorded interview with new WISP Association President David Zumwalt. The interview was aired Wednesday at a WISPA meeting in Las Vegas. “It’s worth asking the question, teeing it up,” Carr said. “There are certainly some use cases, particularly in rural communities where upping the power … might allow you from your existing tower site to reach one more home, one more business,” he said of CBRS changes: “At the end of the day, WISPs are so connected to their communities. … WISPs are scrappy. WISPs are getting the job done.” The FCC didn't comment. Carr said the FCC needs to get moving on other spectrum initiative as well, including on client-to-client devices in 6 GHz and the UNII2c band. WISPs are “looking for ways to have some stability in the ability to plan on what kind of spectrum they need to be prepared for, whether it’s licensed or unlicensed, and over what period of time they can roll that out,” Zumwalt said. His members are paying close attention to all the spectrum decisions being made at the FCC, he said. The FCC wants to offer licenses covering smaller geographic areas where possible, Carr said. “Maybe every single auction we might not get right ... but hopefully, over a course of years, we are doing some small geographies, some large geographies, and people are seeing a healthy mix,” he said. WISPA members have continuing concerns about NTIA’s broadband, equity, access and deployment program notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) and appreciate the questions that have been raised by Carr (see 2207210064), Zumwalt said: “It should have been more technology neutral and inclusive.” Carr said it looked to him like NTIA made “a lot of the right cuts” in the NOFO but “there was some political turning of the dials at the last minute.” Carr agreed about the need to refocus the NOFO. “We love fiber, we want tons of fiber,” he said. “But we need to be open-minded … for last-mile technologies, including fixed wireless,” he said. “We love fiber too,” Zumwalt responded: “But we love fiber in the right place, in the right circumstance.” Carr said insisting on a fiber-only approach means telling people “you need to wait on the wrong side of the digital divide years longer than necessary.” The FCC faces challenges delivering on a broadband map, expected in November, Carr said. “I don’t know that we have to hit a bulls-eye” with the initial map “but we have to at least get it in the strike zone,” he said. Carr said he hopes the FCC doesn’t revisit reclassifying broadband as a Communications Act Title II service. “That’s just a backward looking debate,” he said. Title II and possible price controls, “really that’s a 2005 debate,” he said.