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Mar. 23, 2010

It's clear now that the FCC didn't offer the mobile industry everything it wanted in its recently proposed National Broadband Plan, but panelists at “The Evolving Wireless Ecosystem — What's Next in Wireless Law, Policy and Technology,” are nevertheless excited about the newly proposed plan.

Sponsored by CTIA in conjunction with the Federal Communications Bar Association, yesterday's event featured a live session on industry reactions to the broadband plan.

Panelists from the chip sector, the device sector, the infrastructure sector and the wireless carrier segment said they were fairly pleased with the FCC's new plan. The FCC last week presented Congress with the National Broadband Plan, a 300-plus page document that outlines what could be the national framework to accelerate broadband adoption across the U.S.

Michelle Farquhar, an attorney with Hogan & Hartson, and Brian Josef, director of regulatory affairs at CTIA, outlined the wireless initiatives included in the plan, including:

National benchmarks for broadband speeds, including a wireless benchmark of 100 megabits per second speeds.

A transitioning of the Universal Service Fund to new funding for broadband connectivity, including creating a Mobility Fund.

New policies and tools to encourage broadband adoption.

New policies that encourage competition among broadband providers.

New policies including freeing up 500 megahertz of spectrum that can be used for mobile broadband in the next 10 years, with 300 megahertz to be made available in the next five years.

Using broadband facilities to encourage innovation in other sectors, including healthcare, smart grid, public safety, government and other users.

Generally speaking, conference panelists didn't openly advocate transitioning some underused Mobile Satellite Services spectrum, but said the spectrum should be studied to see if it is being used efficiently.

They were also were cautious about the D-Block spectrum that could be some of the first spectrum up for bid. Qualcomm noted that the FCC proposal seems to advocate using the LTE protocol, but said the FCC should not dictate a certain technology, adding that Qualcomm's very existence is due to earlier FCC policy that did not dictate technology.

While most panelists did agree that a robust public-safety network is laudable, Ericsson's Baffer said there were still some questions surrounding public-safety users to be able to roam across the entire swath of 700 MHz spectrum.

The FCC's newly proposed plan to free up mobile spectrum is good, and will be done in conjunction with technological changes that the wireless industry is implementing, said Dean Brenner, VP, government affairs, at Qualcomm.

Mobile operators continue to invest billions of dollars in their networks to make them faster and be able to handle more calls and data traffic on their networks.

Overall, wireless carriers are also addressing network topology, bringing the network closer to the end user through the use of repeaters and femtocells, Brenner added.

“At the end of the day, all of this has to happen simultaneously, since it will be awhile before extra spectrum is commercially available," he said.

Overall, other countries will look to the FCC plan as well as they begin to address broadband issues in their own regions.

Conference attendees also agreed that the 100 Mbps speed listed in the plan is “aspirational.” Ericsson's Barbara Baffer, vice president of public affairs and regulations, said large chunks of wireless spectrum are needed to try to achieve those speeds.

TeliaSonera is rolling out an LTE network in Stockholm, Sweden, and today is seeing about 20 Mbps on its network.

Makers of the BlackBerry, Research In Motion wants the FCC to ensure that existing spectrum is used efficiently, said Praveen Goyal, senior director, corporate and government relations at RIM.

Goyal added that the BlackBerry operating system can run an application more efficiently than some other platforms. Wireless carriers have to add capacity to their networks and promote efficiency.

AT&T Mobility has noted that about 2.9 percent of its mobile users account for about 39 percent of data use on its network, which impacts the rest of all the users on the network.

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Source: Vegas CTIA Wireless 2010.