FCC Faces Final Decisions on Rules for 4.9 GHz Band

The FCC hasn’t provided much guidance in recent months about where it’s headed on final rules for the 4.9 GHz band, industry officials tracking the band told us. Nearly a year ago, commissioners approved 4-0 a long-awaited order and Further NPRM on the future of the band (see 2301180062), which reversed course from a plan approved during the Trump administration.

“The 4.9 GHz saga doesn’t seem like it’s ending anytime soon, which is not necessarily a bad thing given the multitude of key issues the commission has to digest,” former Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said: “There’s no room for error here.”

“The rise of controversy around 4.9 GHz at least partially results from the lack of new spectrum anywhere else,” said Joe Kane, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation director-broadband and spectrum policy. The long lapse of the FCC’s auction authority “and the slow walking of adding commercial uses to federal bands makes it all the more necessary for wireless competitors to fight for smaller pieces of a fixed pie,” he said.

Industry officials said a further decision appears possible early this year, though they are hearing nothing concrete. O’Rielly voted to approve, with some reservations, the approach sanctioned in 2020, which shifted control to the states (see 2009300050). FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel moved quickly in 2021 to stay that order, over a dissent by Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr (see 2105270071). Carr later voted for the revised approach.

The FCC is reviewing the record, an agency spokesperson said.

The current approach, released in January 2023, takes a nationwide approach to the band. The FCC sought comment on the rights and responsibilities of the band manager and how it will operate, as well as the implementation of the committee-based selection process and on “oversight of the Band Manager and on other issues related to the implementation of the Band Manager model.”

In comments on the FNPRM last spring, the Public Safety Spectrum Alliance (PSSA) urged the FCC to effectively give control of the band to FirstNet for its national public safety network. Others oppose that approach (see 2305160065). More recently, the new Coalition for Emergency Response and Critical Infrastructure and the PSSA have gone on the attack against each other over whether FirstNet should play a major role in administering the band (see 2312200065).

The FCC raised four questions in the FNPRM, all addressing implementation issues, a PSSA spokesperson emailed. “While other parties have elected to expand the discussion to a broader array of topics, we are confident that the Commission is poised to take quick and decisive action on the … implementation steps that are in the best interest of the comprehensive national approach to ‘Public Safety’s’ spectrum,” the spokesperson said: If comments “do nothing to further the discussion on the FNPRM’s goal of implementation of the nationwide Band Manager, they should be ignored.”

The 4.9 GHz Coalition, of which the Enterprise Wireless Alliance is a member, has recommended that the FCC name the four FCC-certified public safety frequency advisory committees (PS FACs), collectively, as the national band manager, emailed EWA CEO Robin Cohen. The coalition has prepared an organizational framework “and three of the four PS FACs have collaborated and developed a set of coordination protocols for the band,” she said: “The proponents of turning management of the band over to FirstNet have consistently espoused the false narrative that anything other than handing the band over to FirstNet will somehow harm public safety’s interests in the band, which is ridiculous.”

Remaining decisions shouldn’t be difficult for the FCC, Cohen said. The 4.9 GHz band “is not FirstNet's and AT&T’s for the asking,” she said.