I've brought this up before, but it's still in play. As you may be aware, there's been a controversy surrounding NextNav's proposal of establishing a new land based GPS infrastructure using the 900mHz band. It's been getting a lot of opposition and the government shutdown stalled it further, but now the FCC is back in gear, thus putting the NextNav proposal back on the table.
The entire controversy has been over the frequency "overlay and underlay rights", which are best understood if associated with tangible property rights. In this case it also specifically has everything to do with the Part 15 900mHz band.
To explain I quote (at length) from page 32 of J.H. Snider's 2006 thesis "Spectrum Policy Wonderland", which carries some authority, in that JH Snider is a public policy expert frequently dealing with the FCC and had been extensively involved with the creation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
So, to explain
spectrum underlay and overlay rights and what it has to do with NextNav the protected Part 15 900mHz band....
Spectrum Policy Wonderland A Critique of Conventional Property Rights and Commons Theory in a World of Low Power Wireless Devices
Prepared for delivery at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference George Mason University School of Law, Arlington, VA September 30, 2006.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228344923_Spectrum_policy_wonderland_a_critique_of_conventional_property_rights_and_commons_theory_in_a_world_of_low_power_wireless_devices
[Excerpts from pages 32 and 33]As a general rule, unlicensed devices authorized by the FCC are expected to be secondary to licensed devices. In practice, as a result of trespass laws, they need not be. But trespass laws are not within the FCC’s jurisdiction.
The one little known exception where unlicensed devices are not secondary to licensed devices is in the 900 MHz band, widely used for cordless phones, baby monitors, and other simple indoor unlicensed devices.
The 900 MHz exception occurred because of a historical anomaly. Unlicensed devices were authorized first in this band and licensed services only later. Following its normal practice of protecting incumbents against newcomers, the FCC granted the unlicensed incumbents safe harbor protections against the licensed newcomers. The FCC also granted licenses only for a narrow outdoor use--vehicle monitoring--whereas the unlicensed devices were only protected for indoor use.
More recently, the FCC has sought to extend the use of unlicensed underlays through what it called the “interference temperature” concept. This was a klutzy, property independent conceptualization of unlicensed service that was in keeping with the regnant unlicensed commons approach but which was also deeply muddled and went down in fiery defeat because no one could figure out a compelling way to make it work. A better approach might have been to develop an interference temperature metric with respect to tangible property rights.
Unfortunately, the technical details of such underlay interference management schemes as “interference temperature thresholds” are far beyond my intellectual grasp. The central point I want to make is that, as with any property model, spectrum emissions should be limited at the property line. What is done within those property lines is of no concern to the government unless there is an impact on those with property rights outside those lines, in which case a balancing act must be conducted. That balancing act is a staple of American jurisprudence because human activities in the real world rarely are purely self-contained within property lines.
On my property, for example, the leaves from my trees fall on my neighbor’s yard, the water from my yard traverses into my neighbor’s yard, and my kids’ playing makes noise that my neighbor can hear. The task is to use common sense reasoning to balance my neighbor’s property rights with mine, and the same can be done with spectrum underlays.
In conducting this balancing act, underlay rights should be given the benefit of the doubt over overlay rights, something that is completely contrary to the current spectrum management regime. Overlay rights should not be ignored but when they conflict at the margin, first priority should be given to underlay rights. This, of course, is standard procedure when the government conducts any other type of eminent domain action. Spectrum should not be the lone exception.
The Communications Act of 1934 grants the federal government the authority to transition from the current system to the system I propose. Under the Communications Act, no licensee can have ownership rights to spectrum. All the licenses, even those acquired at auction, are for a limited duration of years. If the government wants to reallocate spectrum and divide overlay from underlay rights or switch entirely from a to licensed to unlicensed property rights regime, it can legally do so.
Even within the license terms of most licensees, the government has the right to separate underlay from overlay rights. In some cases, the disposition of underlay rights is unclear. But in many cases, they have clearly not been allocated as part of a license. ... ... ..
Broadcasters, of course, want those underlay rights for themselves and will fight tooth and nail against anyone else getting them. Indeed, broadcast licensees have instigated a proceeding at the FCC that, by giving them geographic service area rather that site based rights, will put them well on the road to getting such underlay rights. But the FCC is currently under no legal obligation to give broadcasters such rights.
With privileges, of course, come responsibilities. Local entities should not only be given far more privileges to use spectrum locally. They also need to be given responsibility for enforcing those rights. The FCC is wholly unsuited to managing the new spectrum world we are entering. Enforcement of unlicensed property rights should be given over to local governments, which currently enforce other local nuisance and trespass laws and are far better suited than the FCC to enforce violations of unlicensed property rights. .... .... .. ..
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That was 20 years ago, now let's look at the present with the commentary from Z-Wave Alliance, an active opponent to NextNav's proposal ..
Spectrum Decisions Demand Science, Not Scapegoats
https://www.eetimes.com/spectrum-decisions-demand-science-not-scapegoats/[truncated]“Gradually, then suddenly.”That is how Hemingway described the process of going bankrupt in The Sun Also Rises. This turn of phrase will resonate throughout the winter as the government re-opens and once-stalled efforts kick into high gear.
NextNav is surely hoping their FCC petition to reclassify portions of the lower 900 MHz band for high-power signals to support positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) applications sees exactly this kind of sudden breakthrough.
The shutdown has not been NextNav’s only roadblock, however. Since the beginning, the company’s proposal has faced vocal opposition from experts and industry advocates warning it could destroy more than it creates. .... ...
The poison pillNextNav’s plan does not just request spectrum reallocation for high-power applications—it also asks the FCC to remove interference protections for the unlicensed low-power (Part 15) devices currently operating in that spectrum.
That is a bold ask. The lower 900 Mhz band is home to hundreds of millions of incumbent devices, including everything from toll booth plaza sensors and utility smart meters to security sensors and smart locks. Multiple widely adopted technology ecosystems are built on this protected spectrum territory. They have operated reliably for decades because the FCC’s Part 15 rules protect them from interference.
NextNav has asserted that its application can co-exist with currently deployed Part 15 devices, but technical analysis finds otherwise. ... .. NextNav’s solution would interfere with nearby Part 15 devices 60% of the time—and since the application in question is a nationwide PNT system, “nearby” is everywhere.
“Gradually, then suddenly.” That is how the low-power IoT devices Americans rely on would fail. ... .. As the lower-900 MHz band is flooded with high-power PNT signals, technical analysis indicates that millions of devices would eventually become unusable.
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Topic: Attempted Takeover of Part 15 900mhz Underway. (Read 386 times)
