UPDATE Reaction to a compromise proposal for the Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS) licenses in the 3.5 GHz spectrum band offered by CTIA – The Wireless Association and the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) is mixed. Stakeholders wrestling over license size and length are running out of time to debate the issue because the Commission hopes to issue new rules governing the band this summer.
CTIA and T-Mobile previously proposed lengthening license terms to 10 years and increasing license areas by using traditional Priority Access Licenses (PALs) to spur investment. Opponents, generally smaller wireless and broadband companies, call that skewing the band’s use towards the largest carriers.
CTIA and CCA now believe the Commission should license Priority Access License (PAL) geographic license areas using Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the top 306 Cellular Market Areas (CMAs) and use county-based geographic area licenses in the remaining 428 CMAs. CCA and CTIA say this would make the auction more manageable. They think PALs are better than the current census tract system and the new proposal would cut the amount of license areas needed to 2,700 and 19,000 total licenses, Inside Towers reported.
However the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) opposes the proposal. WISPA said using census tracts as the geographic basis for auctions CBRS licenses the FCC adopted in 2015, allows all providers to participate in an auction and advance the deployment of fixed and mobile broadband. It also allows small entities to effectively deploy broadband to rural areas, WISPA tells the agency in a filing.
WISPA says its members prefer CBRS licenses for smaller geographic areas because many could not afford larger area licenses at auction. AT&T and T-Mobile previously told the agency that census tract-based PAL areas are too small to work, which WISPA calls “erroneous and misleading.”
“Fixed wireless technology is the most cost-effective way to make FCC-benchmark broadband service available to unserved consumers, and census tract licenses in the CBRS band are crucial to the future of fixed wireless service in rural America,” stated WISPA President Claude Aiken separately. “WISPA is thus disappointed that efforts are continuing to shove aside the interests of rural America, take over the ‘innovation band,’ and turn it into a ‘same ol’ thing’ band.”
By Leslie Stimson, Washington Bureau Chief, Inside Towers
April 26, 2018
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