700MHz Trick or Treat?
What’s been happening with the 700MHz band that’s supposed to be turned over to PLMR and CMRS?
The three main uses (public safety, commercial and guardband) are developing at different speeds. Public safety has free spectrum, but there is no type-accepted equipment and most of the urban allotment is still held by incumbents. The auction for the 30MHz-wide commercial segment is still on hold while the FCC tries to get the auction and service rules in place. (The government is anxious because the licenses are expected to net $25 billion-$30 billion in revenue.) There is some activity, however, on the 700MHz guardbands.
The guardband auctions concluded in February. MRT spoke with Mark Crosby, president of Access Spectrum, Bethesda, MD, (one of the three main winners in the guardband auction), about how it plans to use its 21 Major Economic Area blocks acquired for $78 million. Because the guardband manager concept is new, Access Spectrum is learning as it goes. The company’s strategy was to buy as much unencumbered spectrum as possible and then lease it.
“We didn’t see any merit in bidding above a certain price for cities where the encumbrance issue may not be resolved for five to seven years,” Crosby said. About 88% of Access Spectrum’s MEAs are not encumbered by the legacy UHF TV stations whose migration is making the band available for wireless.
As a GBM, Access Spectrum intends to lease its procured spectrum, at a flat rate, to private carrier networks such as campuses, utilities, railroads, construction companies and manufacturers. Access Spectrum wants private carriers who lease spectrum from it to know they are going to a safe, secure place that enhances their investment in equipment and in lease fees.
Crosby’s analogy is a “gated community” vs. an “RV camp.” At an RV camp, anyone can come in and pick a spot anywhere. You don’t know if illegal campers are there or if they are using the facilities properly. You don’t know your neighbors. The guardbands will be closed regulated — a gated community with neighborhood association rules.
“We’re going to let people design their blueprints and then tell us what they want protected,” Crosby said. “Before you turn on your system, in accordance with our lease, we’re going to do an audit check to make sure that you’ve designed it properly. Once the system is on the air, we’re going to come back and do annual — maybe semiannual — compliance checks for operational characteristics. When people come to 700MHz and use us, and lease spectrum from us, I want them to know they have a secure area. It’s being policed, it’s efficient and their neighbors will behave.”
If there is interference between two GBMs’ customers (e.g., an Access Spectrum customer and a Pegasus customer) the GBMs must, by FCC rule, work together to fix the problem. “I think you have to have a relationship among the band managers before you go out there. You need to know what they are doing, and they need to know what we’re doing. I’m not concerned because I think we’ll have a viable working relationship with the other band managers. It’s in both of our interests to work together on this type of thing, and I think that’s what the commission wants,” Crosby said.
There is buzz that Access Spectrum and Pegasus have been in conversation regarding some form of cooperation or commercial joint venture, but the nature of the negotiations is being kept under wraps.
The biggest hurdle Crosby has had to jump so far is finding manufacturers to produce 700MHz equipment. “You would think that the manufacturers who produce equipment for the private wireless industry would be banging on our door, but that’s not the case,” said Crosby. “We’ve spent a lot of time with six to eight manufacturers to induce, to entice, to lobby and to convince them that this is a great place for them to produce equipment.”
Creating product isn’t instantaneous (it’s more like a 9- to 12-month process to do the engineering, marketing and actual manufacturing), so OEMs want to make the right decisions. Crosby said his initial disappointment in readiness has been overcome by an understanding of the timetable. “It was eye-opening to me when I got in there and said ‘OK, boys, when can you have product? … A couple of months?’”
One suggestion Crosby made to the OEMs was to concentrate their initial efforts on affordable portables, rather than high-cost mobiles, to enable rapid deployment in the band.
A manufacturing treat or trick?
ComSpace’s president, Steve Fulford, is one of the manufacturers interested in making equipment for 700MHz. “To get a product out in the shortest amount of time, we would use what we already own, and they would look similar to existing mobiles and portables for 800MHz,” Fulford said. He said portables would be the priority.
David Confalonieri, business development manager for Motorola’s radio products division, believes 700MHz offers great opportunities, and the new spectrum will be able to release some of the pent-up demand. “Motorola’s intention is to release the Professional series of products, as well as supporting trunked and conventional infrastructure, in the 700MHz guard band, commencing around the second half of 2002,” Confalonieri said.
Lou Orsini, manager of wideband products and engineering for Microwave Data Systems, believes 700MHz will offer his customers a way to continue to roll out services without the risk of using license-free products for mission-critical data. “We are researching the changes that would be required to bring our point-to-multipoint radios down into this frequency band. Prototypes of this product line should be running at the end of the fourth quarter of this year,” Orsini said.
Even though the 700MHz commercial auction has stalled, and public safety’s allocation of 24MHz isn’t becoming useable as quickly as most would like, at least there is activity on the guardbands. At this point, it appears that rather than being half-empty, the gunnysacks are half-full.
Taylor is associate editor. Her email address is [email protected].
