The FCC wants to refresh the record on unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or drone use of the 5 GHz band. A petition for rulemaking filed by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) asking the Commission to adopt licensing and service rules to enable drone use in the 5030-5091 MHz band (the C-band), has been pending since 2018.
The agency notes that drones have been used for a variety of commercial, government and recreational applications that benefit the nation. These include tower inspections, pipelines, and buildings, aerial photography, mapping, surveillance, deliveries from consumer packages to critical medical supplies, and support for emergency operations like search and rescue, post-hurricane recovery, and wildfire response.
UAS communications have primarily relied on unlicensed access to spectrum. However some UAS proponents assert that licensed spectrum will increasingly be needed. They believe that’s so to provide spectrum capacity to support future growth and reliability needed for safe operations to protect life and property in circumstances such as flights in populated areas or beyond-line-of-sight.
The FCC issued a Public Notice to reflect operational, technical, and regulatory developments that have occurred over the last three years in the rapidly growing and evolving area of UAS operations that are relevant to this proceeding. Because the focus of the AIA proposal and the comment record appears to support direct radio-line-of-sight communications links between controller and unmanned aircraft, the agency seeks comment on whether the Commission should consider licensing alternatives in the band to support the growing interest in beyond radio-line-of-sight UAS operations.
The Commission asks commenters to answer questions such as:
License eligibility. Should the FCC mandate that those seeking a 5030-5091 MHz band spectrum license prove they have, or will use those with, an FAA pilot certification?
Dynamic frequency assignment. The feasibility and practicality of implementing and operating AIA’s dynamic frequency assignment proposal, including “any current or planned technologies or systems that could perform the necessary functions and are scalable to meet the real-time coordination needs of a large and growing number of operations, and what new or modified technologies, devices, connections, or standards would be needed to implement this approach.”
Scope of permitted services. The relevant allocation of the band to Aeronautical Mobile (Route) Service (AM(R)S) may be used only for communications “relating to the safety and regularity of flight.” The agency seeks comment on what types of UAS communications fall within the scope of this allocation, and on whether all UAS communications that are within the scope of AM(R)S should be permitted.
Partitioning the band. Whether to partition the band into two segments, one in which it adopts something like the AIA proposal, the other in which it issues exclusive geographic area licenses for network-based services and if so, how.
Comments are due on RM-11798, 30 days from publication in the Federal Register.
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