FCC approves proceeding to explore potential receiver rules
FCC commissioners voted unanimously to launch a proceeding that is designed to inform potential new rules regarding receiver performance—a topic that the agency typically has avoided in the past—that could enable new spectrum-use opportunities and hopefully prevent issues like the recent C-band 5G-aviation controversy.
At issue is how the FCC can regulate radio receivers after decades of establishing rules almost exclusively for radio transmitters. However, there have been multiple examples in which older or non-filtered legacy receivers have limited or prevented the use of nearby frequencies, such L-band, 6 GHz or C-band spectrum, which resulted in the cancellation and rerouting of flights early this year, as well as changes in 5G deployment plans.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said she hopes the notice of inquiry (NOI) proceeding is the first step in developing a more comprehensive spectrum policy that considers all aspects of wireless, not just the transmitting signal. If done properly, such policies can follow in the path of other FCC spectrum-policy breakthroughs, like spectrum auctions, unlicensed spectrum and dynamic spectrum sharing.
“With each of these efforts, we took spectrum scarcity and turned it into abundance. We need to do it again,” Rosenworcel said during the FCC’s open meeting on Thursday.
“Most discussions of spectrum efficiency are a one-way effort—they focus almost exclusively on transmitters, To avoid harmful interference, we typically have rules about how and when transmitters can operate. But wireless communication systems involve transmitters and receivers—it’s a two-way proposition. Both are vital; both matter.
“So we need to rethink our approach to spectrum policy and move beyond just transmitters and consider receivers, too. That’s because receivers that are not sufficiently resilient can make it more difficult to introduce additional services into the same or adjacent airwaves. They can diminish the spectral environment and shut out new uses before they even begin.”
Rosenworcel and the other FCC commissioners—Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks—credited FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington for his leadership in getting information about the receiver-performance issue and pushing to make the proceeding a reality.
Simington noted that it is important that the FCC revamp its rules to accommodate the needs of modern-day society, which is demanding wireless solutions that require more efficient use of spectrum.
“The era of abundant spectrum is coming to a close. Like real estate, they are just not making any more of it,” Simington said. “The future is dense spectral neighborhoods of commercial users packed tightly—in space and in spectrum—vying for every last hertz of viable real estate.
“We should think of our spectrum as fully occupied land whose usage must inevitably intensify, and our regulatory philosophy must accommodate this new reality. The notice of inquiry we adopt today does just that. It asks what I view as the critical questions that must be answered if we are to prevent a spectral famine.”
Some of the issues raised in the NOI include how the FCC should allocate spectral rights, settle spectral disputes and how the agency should address “the receive side of RF systems,” according to Simington.
If the FCC does not consider taking such actions, the potential consequences could be significant, Simington said.
“To proceed with the status quo risks stymieing innovative technologies that require intensive use of spectrum adjacent to incumbent commercial allocations, and—potentially worse—it risks the regular recurrence of spectral disputes arising from implicit easements on valuable commercial spectrum, reflecting ambiguous rights and adjudicative authority,” Simington said.
“The costs of this uncertainty are sometimes diffused and sometimes acute, but they’re always too high. FCC spectrum policy must clearly and precisely define spectrum rights—both inbound and outbound edges—and those rights must reflect efficient receiver performance where that is a reasonable goal.”
This is not the first time the FCC has conducted a proceeding that contemplates the establishment of rules that would govern receiver performance, but the last such effort was conducted in 2003, when the spectral landscape was very different.
Since then, the FCC has set spectrum policies that are focused on the transmission of radio signals, not their reception.
Some have questioned whether the FCC has the legal authority to regulate receiver performance—something that is explored at length in the latter portion of the NOI, according to Paul Murray, an attorney and associate chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology (OET).
In general, “the commission thinks it has that authority” to adopt receiver-performance rules, Murray said. However, Murray acknowledged that the NOI cites several different approaches the FCC could take—from establishing voluntary guidelines to setting more prescriptive regulation—and the legal implications for each path could vary.
“We are inviting comment on the legal authority, in broad fashion, and look forward to seeing what comes in [in terms of ideas during the NOI comment period,” Murray said. “If the commission does end up proposing something in the future, presumably the legal-authority issue will be rejoined in that particular context.”