T-Mobile Having Problems Deploying on Licenses Bought in 3.45 GHz Auction

The “jury’s still out” on whether the FCC’s 3.45 GHz auction was a success, said John Hunter, T-Mobile senior director-technology and engineering policy, during an FCBA wireless lunch Wednesday. Speakers welcomed the administration’s early steps on a national spectrum strategy (see 2303200044).

Hunter noted the 2021 3.45 GHz auction included cooperative planning areas (CPAs) and periodic use areas for military spectrum that must be protected as carriers deploy 5G. “There are some challenges getting access into those CPAs,” he said: “Until we figure that out, the sharing [between] terrestrial systems and radar systems is going to continue to prove to be a challenge.” T-Mobile bid $2.9 billion in the auction, which was below analyst expectations (see 2201140065).

There's no more clear spectrum, Hunter said. “When you assess bands you’re looking at what incumbents are there, how easy is it to access the type of spectrum, what are the complex systems that are in the band that you’re going to have to work with,” he said.

The U.S. has been talking about a national spectrum strategy since the George W. Bush administration, noted Matthew Hussey, Ericsson director-government affairs and public policy: “It’s certainly very long overdue.” Chinese President Xi Jinping said science and technology will be the “new battlefields and that to me is very scary to think about,” Hussey said.

“As the technology improves we can make better use of every megahertz of spectrum by looking at different coexistence models,” said Colleen King, Charter Communications vice president-regulatory affairs. Commercial users will need more spectrum and so will DOD, she said. We can’t ask DOD “to leave behind every megahertz of spectrum,” she said. The strategy is about maintaining U.S. leadership on wireless, she said.

The spectrum strategy must be “holistic” and “well thought through,” Hunter said. “We should look at every aspect" of spectrum "and how it’s allocated, how it’s used,” he said. The U.S. will “fall behind” without a broader strategy, he said.

“We should be looking at how cloud computing and automation can help make more efficient use, across the board, of our spectrum resources,” said Federated Wireless Vice President-Legal Advocacy Jennifer McCarthy. Lessons learned about sharing in 6 GHz and the citizens broadband radio service band should be part of the strategy, she said.

CBRS Questions

Hunter questioned whether the CBRS sharing model makes sense for many deployments, a theme promoted by CTIA last year (see 2212120050). “You’re relegated to low power, on a band that doesn’t propagate very far anyway,” he said: “To try to deploy CBRS, at scale to cover the entire country" is "cost prohibitive.”

King said use of CBRS for 5G will be a success. “We are going to put CBRS in our system, and we are one of the fastest carriers in our footprint,” she said: “As we add CBRS we will continue to be fast.” Sharing is “hard,” she said. McCarthy predicted other countries will adopt the sharing models pioneered in the U.S.

Spectrum is a “shared resource” that’s “used up and down, DC to daylight, by a whole host of services and the trick for the commission, as well the industry, is always figuring out how do we make the most efficient use,” said Ira Keltz, FCC Office of Engineering and Technology deputy chief-policy and rules. “One of the things that we do try to do at the commission is keep reviewing what’s happening, continuously look at the spectrum, look up and down, see what’s working, what’s not,” he said. The FCC has done a lot to repurpose lightly used spectrum in recent years, he said.

Keltz prefers the term “enabling coexistence ” to spectrum sharing: “When you put stuff in terms of sharing it sets up a conflict because sharing often means somebody has to give up something in order to enable somebody else to use what you have. … It’s maybe semantics, but I think it sets a better tone.” The goal should be a “level playing field” without the FCC “getting in the way more than it actually needs to,” he said. “We’ve done a pretty good job the last decade-plus of doing that as we’ve moved away from that command and control model,” he said.

The FCC uses “an array of models” for spectrum because “there’s a wide diversity of needs,” said Jessica Greffenius, Wireless Bureau assistant chief. The FCC is responsive to advances in technology and changes in demand from industry, she said. “We’ve seen more demand for wider channel blocks assigned, larger blocks of frequency to enable higher data rates and higher order modulation,” she said: Another change is a move away from paired spectrum bands. With geographic area licenses, “flexibility is key, and reporting requirements are kept to a minimum,” Greffenius said.