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The FCC has upheld an earlier decision on non-exclusive licensing of broadband wireless services in the 3,650 to 3,700 MHz band.
The 2005 decision was opposed by Intel, Motorola, the Wireless Communications Association (WCA), WiMax Forum, Alvarion and Redline Communications, among others.
The FCC rejected their petitions, but its ruling did include a call for using contention-based protocols to allow services to share spectrum. The agency also clarified its earlier ruling to restrict the operation of such protocols to the lower 25 MHz of the band.
Originally, the FCC had proposed using the spectrum as an unlicensed band, says Wireless DesignLine. Since higher-power, 24-W operations were proposed for rural areas, the commission shifted in 2005 to a non-exclusive, shared-use licensing scheme.
While some companies preferred to stick with unlicensed use of the band, WCA and Motorola requested an exclusive licensing approach to insure non-interference. Some petitioners also asked for different licensing schemes for urban and rural areas.
The FCC rejected both.
In a 30-page ruling (pdf), the FCC said that using restricted, contention-based protocols would “facilitate operation of the widest variety of broadband technologies with minimal risk of interference.”
Intel, Redline and Alvarion also warned against “squatter” licensees who obtain rights but do not build out networks. The FCC said it agreed with a Cisco Systems comment that a licensee’s slow buildout would not hamper others from using the spectrum.
Intel and Motorola also claimed that a listen-before-talk model of contention protocol was unsuited for long-range operations. The FCC order responded that Cisco and Tropos Networks have shown that such protocols could be added to networks at a reasonable cost.
FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said (pdf), that after discussing several licensing approaches with hardware vendors and carriers, “I remain convinced that the hybrid licensing approach we first adopted for the 3,650-MHz band is the correct one.”
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