APCO, NPSTC offer different views about sharing 4.9 GHz with utilities, critical infrastructure

This joint filing also cited a recent UTC survey of its members to determine their interest in the 4.9 GHz band.

“As expected, all of the utilities reported that they planned to use the band for fixed operations, but surprisingly half reported that they planned to use the band for mobile operations, as well,” according to joint filing from the utility groups. “About a third of the utilities reported that they planned to deploy over 1,000 units (transceivers) using the 4.9 GHz band, and a third of the utilities reported that they would deploy within the next year and another 50% reported that they would deploy within two to five years, with the bulk of the deployment overall being completed within five years.

“These results clearly demonstrate that utilities would make effective use of the band.”

In its filing, the Enterprise Wireless Alliance (EWA) called for the FCC to adopt rules that would expand eligibility to enterprises but not allow general commercial use.

“The current CII definition was adopted in response to a specific legislative action involving a different spectrum band more than three decades ago,” according to the EWA filing. “Regarding this band, [EWA] questions why members of the airline and farming industries, for example, would not be welcome as 4.9 GHz licensees, since their operations clearly are essential to the nation, are highly safety-related, and are of a scale that would justify investment in a system for their own use. Indeed, EWA recommended that 4.9 GHz eligibility be extended to all business enterprise users, since any number of them have identified a compelling demand for self-provisioned broadband facilities.”

Nokia supports the 4.9 GHz being used by critical-infrastructure entities but recommends that such entities be allowed to operate on the spectrum to support any use case, not just public-safety use cases.

“By eliminating the requirement that the band be used for public-safety services by CII users, the Commission will facilitate increased use of the band, lowering equipment costs, encouraging wider-spread deployment and facilitating the other benefits of CII access to the band,” according to the Nokia filing. “The need for reliable, secure, dedicated spectrum for CII extends to all communications that lead to safe operation of the CII entity’s tasks, and thus communications should not be restricted to public-safety uses for such entities.”

In addition, Nokia recommends that the FCC should “harmonize” its technical rules for the 4.9 GHz band with 3GPP’s 5G specifications.

NPSTC, APCO, EWA, Nokia and the utility groups all oppose general commercial use of the 4.9 GHz band, but Federated Wireless suggested that the FCC adopt rules that allow dynamic spectrum sharing to be utilized in the 4.9 GHz band. Such a sharing scheme—one that the FCC adopted for the 3.5 GHz band used by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)—is the FCC’s best option for “promoting and maximizing use of the 4.9 GHz band without risk of interference to incumbent users,” according to Federated Wireless.