FCC TAC Has Been Quiet in 2023, but Work Is 'Vital,' Agency Says

This has been a quiet year for FCC’s Technological Advisory Council, which last met Dec. 8, but members remain focused on a few remaining reports, all focused on 6G, and the FCC is still focused on the group, a spokesperson said. The FCC announced last week TAC will meet Aug. 17 (see 2306300059), in what is expected to be the final meeting under its current charter. TAC met four times last year and has generally had quarterly meetings.

“We greatly value the hard work and valuable insights of the TAC members,” an FCC spokesperson emailed: “We fully plan to recharter this vital committee. The TAC plays a critical role in advising the agency on many of the priority of the Chairwoman, including 6G, artificial intelligence, advanced spectrum sharing technologies and emerging wireless technologies.”

TAC working groups are continuing to meet, TAC members told us. Several said they heard the TAC will be rechartered but haven’t heard anything definitive. TAC “is alive” and working groups meet “regularly,” said TAC member Jon Peha, professor at Carnegie Mellon University and former FCC chief technologist.

TAC is considered among the most important of FCC advisory committees and was once chaired by Tom Wheeler, before he became FCC chairman. Wheeler was replaced by technologist Dennis Roberson, who was succeeded last year by Dean Brenner, a former Qualcomm executive. Roberson told us he hasn’t heard much from TAC this year and acknowledged it has kept a low profile.

TAC work has laid the groundwork for some FCC actions. Most recently, commissioners approved high-level principles for spectrum management 4-0 in April that focused on receivers and were based in part on a TAC report (see 2304200040).

Under Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, TAC has four working groups: 6G, AI and machine learning, advanced spectrum sharing and emerging technologies. At its last meeting, the first in-person since the start of COVID-19 pandemic, TAC approved recommendations from the groups. The meeting provided some hints of what's to come at the upcoming and final meeting under the current charter.

“It’s really important to understand that 5G deployments really have just started,” said Brian Daly, AT&T assistant vice president and co-chair of the 6G WG, at the December meeting: “We’re right in the middle of 5G deployments, we have a long way to go. … Those potential impacts still need to be realized.” 6G standards work hasn't really gotten started, he said.

The 6G WG planned to focus this year on 5G advanced evolution toward 6G, 6G research and standards progress, compute and communication convergence at the network edge, the status of backhaul, mid-haul and repeaters, among other topics, Daly said.

The Advanced Spectrum Sharing WG has lots of work to carry into 2023, said co-Chair Monisha Ghosh, engineering professor at Notre Dame and former FCC chief technologist. Ghosh said the WG planned to revisit a 2015 TAC white paper, “Basic Principles for Assessing Compatibility of New Spectrum Allocations,” and investigate new sharing schemes better suited to new bands and use-cases.

TAC released one report last year, on lessons learned from the citizens broadband radio service program, but no reports so far this year. “Despite nearly three years of commercial operation, there has been no reported interference from CBRS into protected incumbents in the band,” the report said.

The report recommends a more streamlined approval process for the spectrum access system operators that manage interference. The SAS certification program was “onerous and timeconsuming, taking over one year to complete the tests,” TAC reported: “The processes for recertification of changes does not promise to be any different. Such a burden should not be required in the future when spectrum sharing systems wish to incorporate changes, e.g., improved propagation models.”

The CBRS report also recommends the FCC look at an alternative to requiring SASs to calculate aggregate interference. “CBRS SASs exchange hundreds of megabytes of data each evening,” the report said: “After receiving this data, each SAS goes through a complicated process of computing aggregate interference, with each calculation involving large numbers of devices propagating to large numbers of reference points, representing millions of path loss calculations.”