Auctioning non-exclusive mmwave licenses

Petri Mähönen, Ljiljana Simić and I recently filed comments in the Spectrum Frontiers proceeding, FCC Docket No. 14-177 (filing page, pdf, docket on ECFS). We argued that the operating and propagation characteristics of mm-wave systems mean that non-exclusive licensing – meaning in this case, a limited number of large-area licenses assigned by auction – is an appropriate middle path between exclusive large-area licensing (which may lead to under-utilization) and unlicensed (which may not provide sufficient interference protection).

Satellite constellation license auctions

Broadband satellite constellations in non-geostationary orbits (NGSO) will share frequency bands. They will interfere with each other from time to time. How should such conflicts be resolved? FCC rules encourage constellations to coordinate their operations, treating the shared NGSO bands as something like an FCC-supervised commons. However, spectrum regulators have increasingly used auctions to assign radio operating rights (cf. cellular licenses), and largely left it to the market to solve coordination problems. Could spectrum auctions be used for NGSO operation?

Bringing a gun to a knife fight (spectrum edition)

As I pointed out in “Satellite spectrum efficiency” the satellite industry can’t win a spectrum auction fight with cellular since the cellular industry generates more $/Hz. This obviously generalizes to any number of industries competing in a license auction; the industry that generates the most $/Hz will always win. (The question of how overwhelming the win is, as a function of differences between industry $/Hz distributions, is left as an exercise.) So what?

Six weeks of spectrum auction tweets

I created an animated GIF to show how twitter traffic about spectrum auctions changed over the first six weeks of the AWS-3 auction, i.e. November 15 to December 27.

TV/cellular guard bands - second thoughts

In a recent post ("The FCC's TV/cellular guard bands don't compute") I wondered whether the guard bands between TV and cellular service that the FCC proposed in its Incentive Auction NPRM (pdf) had been designed to make room for more unlicensed in the TV bands. Having spoken to some experts, I’ve concluded that I was probably wrong about that: my new best guess is that they’re a benefit for the cellular industry.