More unlicensed spectrum needed in US, says Google

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More unlicensed spectrum needed in US, says Google

While FCC chairman pushes Congress to hasten broadcast spectrum auctions, Google thinks focus is all wrong

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 13 January, 2012

READ MORE: Spectrum | US | Google | Regulator | LTE

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has again urged Congress to let the regulator have freedom of action when it comes to spectrum policy, and to give it the green light to auction broadcast frequencies. Meanwhile, Google is pressurizing the FCC to stop concentrating only on licenced bands and open up large amounts of unlicensed spectrum for mobile broadband.

During a panel debate at CES, Google's senior policy counsel Rick Whitt repeated Google's well rehearsed case for making more licence-exempt frequencies available, rather than sticking to the old system of auctioning most spectrum off to the highest bidders. The search giant has already thrown its weight behind public Wi-Fi and the white spaces bands, and managed to get open access conditions imposed on Verizon's 700MHz licence. Indeed, Whitt harked back to that saga in his argument for changing the auction system, in order to allow non-traditional players to participate in wireless services.

He said (rather disingenuously for those who remember the twisted politics of the 700MHz auction run-up in 2007-8) that Google had found itself unable to bid against Verizon for the national C Block of low frequency spectrum - now the initial basis of Verizon's LTE roll-out. "We thought 'What would it take for us to outbid Verizon?' And every one of the game theorists we talked to across the spectrum said the same thing: 'You'll never outbid Verizon. They are the incumbents and they will do everything they can to foreclose your entry into the market'."

Not only does an all-licensed approach preclude new entrants, but it will not give carriers the right frequencies to build out common infrastructure, Whitt continued. He expressed concern about the House of Representatives' recently proposed auction legislation, saying: "That seems to say 'everything that's cleared must be auctioned and everything that's auctioned must be licensed', which in our mind would rule out unlicensed ... This is beachfront spectrum. How about a couple public beaches?"

In the debate, Neil Fried, the chief telecoms counsel for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said that the spectrum would be wasted if it were used for short range communications and that only a national telco could be sure to build and manage a countrywide mobile broadband network effectively. Carrying on the rather tired analogy, he commented: "There is a need for unlicensed spectrum and that will remain. The type of things we're talking about, the offloading? That's short haul, that's not long haul. If we're talking about beachfront property, are we talking about a place to go surfing or are we talking about a shipping lane?"

Genachowski recently said at CES that most of the spectrum the FCC will open up in the coming years will be allocated by auction. It particularly wants to help reach its target of making an extra 300MHz available, by reallocating 120MHz of spectrum currently used by TV broadcasters. Now he is stepping up his calls for Congress to authorize that auction to alleviate the threatened spectrum crunch.

"The incentive auction needs to become law now," he told the CES crowd. "We're going to get swamped by an ocean of demand." Congress is considering a bill to run voluntary auctions of licences owned by broadcasters but underused but Genachowski wants greater freedom to plan allocations without going through Congress processes.