Julius Knapp

The Federal Communications Commission's experimental licensing program has played a key role throughout the years in the process of developing innovative new products and services. This new type of experimental license allows greater flexibility for parties—including universities, research labs, health care facilities, and manufacturers of radio frequency equipment— to develop new technologies and services while protecting incumbent services against harmful interference. Today, we are pleased to announce that our experimental licensing system can now accept applications for program licenses. Parties may apply for an experimental program license using the existing Form 442 application for experimental licenses. Once approved, licensees may go on the new "Experiments Notification System" website and begin registering new program experiments. The program license registration system continues the FCC's commitment to encouraging research and development.

The Office of Engineering and Technology and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau have been closely monitoring industry efforts to ensure that new versions of LTE technology can co-exist with Wi-Fi and other unlicensed devices operating at 5 GHz. The Commission’s rules for unlicensed devices are designed to prevent harmful interference to authorized radio services through limits on transmitter power and spurious emissions. Industry has developed standards such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee within the framework of these rules, generally with the intention of ensuring cooperative sharing of the spectrum by unlicensed devices while recognizing that such devices are not protected from interference.

The program experimental license offers a new paradigm for the Experimental Radio Service (ERS), one that significantly reduces the barriers to experimentation for qualified entities. Under a program experimental license, a licensee is able to post a notification that it is experimenting in a particular band to a web portal. Other parties, specifically entities that hold licenses in bands that the experiment may use or affect (in a controlled manner) then have to proactively object if they have concerns about the interference potential from the experiment. The concept here is simple: allow entities with radio frequency expertise, that are able to manage radio frequency devices in a controlled environment without affecting other users, experiment more freely. We have been working to stand up the IT system necessary to facilitate the program experimental license for several years, and we are near completion. Within a few weeks, we will release a Public Notice announcing that the program experimental license is open for business. This could have huge benefits in the development of new wireless technologies, including 5G. Under the ERS, all of the bands the Commission adopted and proposed in the Spectrum Frontiers R&O and FNPRM are open for experimentation now. Under the new program experimental license, qualifying entities will have even fewer administrative hurdles to jump through, easing the path toward experimentation, and ultimately, innovation.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Office of Engineering & Technology (OET) and the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released a Joint Public Notice that seeks input on the establishment of a “Model City” program to test advanced wireless spectrum sharing technologies.

The NTIA and the FCC have encouraged and supported the development of advanced spectrum sharing technologies and techniques. Notably, the FCC recently revised its experimental licensing rules to facilitate development of radio technologies by establishing provisions for program licenses and innovation zones.

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) recommended the creation of an “urban Test City” to “support rapid experimentation” of advanced spectrum sharing technologies. The Joint Public Notice seeks to start the process of transforming this recommendation from an idea to reality. We have chosen to use the term “Model City” to better reflect the idea that systems or networks might be developed that could serve as a model for spectrum sharing techniques that can be deploy elsewhere.

[Knapp is Chief, Office of Engineering and Technology]