FCC wants to open up high bandwidth spectrum
The Federal Communications Commission wants to see if extremely high bandwidth spectrum can be tamed for use.
The Federal Communications Commission wants to open up a new beachhead of high bandwidth spectrum to see if it can be effectively commercialized.
The agency, with unanimous approval from its five commissioners, issued a Spectrum Horizons notice of proposed rulemaking on Feb. 22 to expand access to a total of 102.2 gigahertz of spectrum for licensed point-to-point services above 95 GHz.
The bandwidth is so high, the space is currently unused. The FCC said it "has long been considered the outermost horizon of the usable spectrum range." The Earth's atmosphere tends to soak up transmissions in such high bandwidth ranges, just as it does with x-rays, infrared and ultraviolet rays from the sun. Systems that use the bandwidth will have to adapt to the phenomenon.
The bandwidth is so remote that the commission currently has no rules that permit licensed or unlicensed communications use above 95 GHz, other than by amateur operators or on an experimental basis.
"The history of wireless innovation is one of government creating space for broad thinking and entrepreneurs using that space to take us in unexpected directions," Pai said in a Feb 21 blog post preceding the plan's release. "With this order, we'll set up a big sandbox for engineers and technologists to work with -- and we'll then see what American ingenuity delivers."
The federal government is in the midst of a decade-long plan to identify and open up 500 megahertz of federal and non-federal spectrum for commercial use.
The FCC said it wants the spectrum bands above 95 GHz bands to be licensed on a nationwide, non-exclusive basis, with individual point-to-point links registered with a database manager.
Because of the vast amount of spectrum potentially available, the point-to-point links might be able to transmit at much higher data rates than systems in lower frequency bands.
The FCC also said that the short life span of transmissions in the bandwidth because of atmospheric absorption could be an advantage, allowing many licenses for applications within smaller spaces with potentially less interference.