The FCC’s 12 GHz Decision

One of the hardest things that the Federal Communications Commission does is to decide spectrum policy. The agency has full authority to determine the details of how we use each slice of available spectrum. Most importantly, the agency can determine who can use spectrum – and that’s why the task is challenging. In the last decade, it’s hard to think of any spectrum deliberation and decision that didn’t have to weigh the interests of multiple spectrum users. There is almost always somebody using spectrum that must be considered. The FCC must decide if there is more national benefit in allowing others to use the spectrum, and in doing so, the FCC has to decide if the current users can somehow stay in place. If not, the FCC has to find existing users a new slice of spectrum and cover the cost of moving existing users to the new frequencies. The recent FCC decision on the use of the lower 12 GHz spectrum is a good example of the FCC deliberation process on spectrum. This spectrum sits in the middle of the range of spectrum that the FCC recently dubbed as 6G. This spectrum has great characteristics – it can carry a lot of data while still being transmitted for decent distances. In general, the higher the frequency, the shorter the effective distance of a broadcast transmission.This spectrum has been used for satellite broadband connections. At the prompting of others in the industry, the FCC decided to investigate if there are other ways to use this spectrum to satisfy more national needs:

• Dell owned a lot of the 12 GHz spectrum and was lobbying to expand the use of the spectrum to improve its value.
• DISH was hoping to use the 12 GHz spectrum as part of its nationwide roll-out of a new cellular network.
• The other big cell companies jumped in with the suggestion that the spectrum be sold at auction for fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband.
• Wireless internet service providers (WISP) jumped in and suggested they could coexist with the other users and use the spectrum for rural broadband.
• The Wi-Fi coalition asked that the spectrum be allowed for free indoor usage.