TIA Files Spectrum Frontiers Comments with FCC; Offers Strong Support and Specific Plans to Achieve Key Marketplace Goals

Arlington, VA (September 30, 2016) – The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the leading association representing the manufacturers and suppliers of high-tech communications networks, today filed comments responding to the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on its Spectrum Frontiers program, which opens several new bands of high-frequency “millimeter-wave” spectrum above 24 GHz to mobile devices.

In its comments, TIA offers strong support for Spectrum Frontiers and says that, because the FCC has moved quickly, the groundwork has been laid for the United States to maintain its technological edge in the global race to 5G. As part of its specific recommendations to the FCC, TIA urges opening additional bands and a light touch regulatory approach that allows for future flexibility, which is particularly important as companies are in the early stages of developing highly-promising Internet of Things applications and devices.

“The Commission continues to show extraordinary leadership in making the millimeter-wave bands available in response to emerging use cases and technological innovations,” TIA says in its comments. “The United States is at the forefront of efforts around the world to bring these bands to the marketplace. But for the nation to remain there, the Commission must take great care in this proceeding to avoid rules that pick winners and losers or that chill investment and innovation.”

Among the specific recommendations made by TIA:

• Open five additional bands between 24 GHz and 53 GHz to mobile broadband, while studying the 70 and 80 GHz bands.
• License the additional UMFUS bands in a combination of 200 MHz, 400 MHz, and 800 MHz blocks; in its comments TIA recommends specific band plans that are designed to quickly achieve a number of important marketplace goals.
• Do not impose dynamic – and still experimental – Spectrum Access System (SAS) requirements, which could raise device costs and potentially render some IoT applications unworkable.
• Given the nascent state of millimeter-wave technology, do not implement a unified performance requirement; rather, establish multiple objectively-quantifiable paths.