FCC's LMR Narrowbanding now less than 32 Months Away

With less than 32 months until the FCC's 2013 Narrowbanding Mandate is due to take effect, and, because there continues to be a lack of up-to-date, and accurate flow of information or guidance from both the FCC and most of the land mobile two way radio industry targeted to business, educational, industrial, utility, municipal government, and public safety Part 90 VHF and UHF licensees, a new web site has been established to help spread the word.

Please refer this site to those who need to take action now in order to meet the narrowbanding deadline. Procrastination on the part of any licensee is not an option. DO NOT wait until the very last minute to begin or complete your narrowbanding project.


NR

FCC Part 90 Narrowbanding Info & Resource Site for LMR VHF UHF Licensees

With less than 36 months left until the FCC's 2013 Narrowbanding Mandate is due to take effect, and, because there continues to be a lack of user-specific, up-to-date, and accurate flow of information or guidance from both the FCC and the industry targeted to Part 90 VHF and UHF licensees, a new web site has been established to help spread the word.

Please feel free to refer this site to those who need to take action now in order to meet the narrowbanding deadline. Procrastination on the part of any licensee is not an option.


NR

Is Your FCC Part 90 VHF-UHF Radio System Narrowband Ready?

In December 2004, the FCC issued an Order mandating that all Part 90 business, educational, industrial, public safety, and state and local government VHF (150 – 174 MHz) and UHF (421 – 512 MHz) private land mobile radio (PLMR) licensees convert their radio system operations from legacy wideband (25 kilohertz) to narrowband (12.5 kilohertz or equivalent) operation by Jan. 1, 2013. That date is now just over 3 years away.

Contrary to what some may have heard or been led to believe, the Order does not require licensees to change to new radio frequencies or different frequency bands, nor does it require moving from analog to digital or from a conventional to a trunked radio system. However, they are options that some licensees may want to more fully explore with the guidance of a qualified radio communications system professional. The Order also doesn’t mean that licensees need to replace all their current radio system equipment — only any soon-to-be-non-compliant equipment.

What the FCC’s mandate does require is that all wideband-only conventional or trunked VHF and UHF radios, including handheld portables, vehicle-mounted mobiles, dispatcher stations, wireless data, telemetry, or supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) link radios (called subscriber radios) and any associated wideband-only conventional or trunked base or repeater stations (called infrastructure radios), be replaced with narrowband capable equipment prior to the 2013 date to continue legal use of Part 90 radio frequencies beyond that date. FCC radio system licenses must also be modified to reflect the change to narrowband emissions and operation.

Migration Steps

Over the last several years, in response to the mandate, many licensees have started the narrowband migration process by deploying dual-mode subscriber radios — those capable of both wideband and narrowband operation — as new radios have been added to their systems or as older wideband-only radios were lost, damaged beyond repair or otherwise removed from service. While this strategy is a practical, cost-effective approach, particularly by those with large numbers of subscriber radios in their fleets or those with multiple radio frequencies, base stations and repeaters in their systems, this method addresses only the first step of a multi-step process.

Unless a radio system is initially implemented as a narrowband system - as most new systems have been during the past eight to ten years - many dual-mode replacement subscriber radios deployed into pre-mandate or older, conventional or trunked VHF or UHF radio systems have typically been programmed for wideband rather than narrowband operation. This best-practices method was necessary to retain compatibility with existing wideband subscriber and infrastructure radios in use in those systems. (NOTE: the mixing of wideband and narrowband radios on the same frequency of a system is generally not encouraged nor recommended. Doing so has the potential to render most voice - and especially data - transmissions between wideband and narrowband radios unintelligible, distorted or unreliable). The method also allowed the expense of replacing infrastructure radios at the same time to be deferred, as the year 2013 seemed a long way off.

In many instances, however, the need to address the deferred replacement of wideband-only infrastructure radios may have inadvertently been overlooked or even forgotten by some licensees or radio system managers. This is particularly true when it comes to the many smaller business, educational, and industrial users of two way radio who typically don't keep up with current FCC Rules or the responsibilities that go along with being a Part 90 licensee, and, who quite often simply take the use and benefit of their radio systems for granted. Consider this post a "wake-up" call to all licensees that, until all subscriber and infrastructure radios are fully migrated to narrowband operation, many radio systems may still be operating in the wideband mode, which is legal only until Jan. 1, 2013.

Migration Planning

Has your company or organization developed a migration plan and budget to address the next steps necessary to complete the narrowband migration process and become fully FCC compliant? These steps include replacing any remaining wideband-only subscriber radios still being used; procuring and installing narrowband base stations, repeaters or other infrastructure radios as needed; preparing a well-planned, coordinated approach to re-programming all radios to narrowband operation; and modifying a radio station license to reflect any new emissions designators. Click here for more migration suggestions.

The 2013 date isn’t that far away, particularly if funding needs to be secured and budgets prepared or, when any operations dependent on uninterrupted radio communications may be jeopardized. Companies and organizations that recognize and appreciate the value of their Part 90 two-way voice and data radio communications systems are advised not to wait until the last minute to begin or complete the narrowbanding process. By waiting, they are risking not only the loss of use of their current radio frequencies, but the return on the investment (ROI) and associated benefits provided by their radio system equipment as well.

More Information

Follow these two links to official documents and complete background information on the FCC’s narrowbanding mandate:

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-292A1.pdf (2004 Order)

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-271692A1.pdf (2007 Update)

For on-line discussions regarding the mandate, licensees and other interested parties are invited to join the LMR Narrowbanding Yahoo! Group

Additional Part 90 Narrowbanding information and resources are also available here: http://www.wirelessradio.net


NR

Invitation to the Spectrum Matters On-Line Discussion Group

Advancements in wireless (RF or radio) communications and information technology over the last decade have unleashed a flood of new devices, products, and services, provocative ideas and intriguing questions, political rhetoric and posturing, market-place confusion, controversy, and, a growing concern by many as to whether FCC and NTIA spectrum allocation, regulation, use, and rules enforcement policies are 'keeping up with the times' - or with technology.

As one might expect, all this hullabaloo has led to increasing calls by wireless stakeholders for something called "spectrum reform" that we're hearing more and more about each day.

Spectrum Matters is an on-line, moderated Yahoo! discussion group focusing on member-shared wireless spectrum news, information, and trends, responsible opinion, debate, ideas, experiences, commentary, and questions related to the real or perceived social, economic, and technical benefits or consequences that may be realized by updating legacy and/or implementing new wireless spectrum management policy to effectively address these important issues and concerns.

Topics and discussions are targeted towards business, educational, industrial, enterprise, public safety, local, state, regional, federal government and similar types of PROFESSIONAL wireless mobile communication users who depend on access to the radio spectrum in their daily activities and who want to learn more about how and why wireless spectrum matters can, will, or already have had an impact on them.

If you are a professional wireless user and have an interest in wireless communications in general and spectrum issues in particular, please consider joining us. (Membership approval requires a response to a New Member Confirmation Request emailed to you during the sign-up process)

Will The Failure of FCC Spectrum Auctions Impact 700 MHz?

hmmmm.....

According to this May 2006 paper from the Center for American Progress (quote) "The Federal Communications Commission’s auctioning of spectrum licenses is a failure. The auctions have been subject to collusion and manipulation by big business, and as a result have failed to meet legislative guidelines." (end quote)


(Quote) "Analysis of the last ten years of FCC spectrum auctions reveals that these auctions have met neither the standards nor the expectations expressed by Congress in their authorization. They do not facilitate the development of robust markets or meet the needs of the broader public interest. Instead these auctions, as they have been conducted, appear to serve the narrow interest of dominant actors in the telecommunications industry. They have systematically resulted in market concentration and the growth of the oligopolistic market power of major actors in the telecommunications industry. They have been pervious to manipulation by tacit collusion among bidders in ways which no minor amendment of the auction process could possibility remedy. Even the often made argument that FCC spectrum auctions maximize revenue fails in the face of both FCC mispricing of licenses, reflected in the large number of licenses which fail to be auctioned because no bidder meets the reserve price, and substantial evidence that strategic behaviors like preemptive bidding can guarantee better capitalized bidders licenses at consistently lower prices than their competitors. What has principally driven the adoption of spectrum auctions by the FCC and Congress has been ideologically-libertarian economic theory, captured in simplistic models which ignore inconvenient facts. Game theory is a powerful tool for analysis of economic behavior. However, a game-theoric model is only as good as its assumptions. Assumptions about information, bidder resources, risk-acceptance and -aversion, and the structure of bidder preference all matter, because they imply things about how the real world operates. All modeling is along a continuum between analytical tractability and empirical verisimilitude: the more mathematically tractable the model is, the less it resembles the real thing being modeled. It is for this reason that social scientists frequent evaluate and refine such models through experiments to see whether an analytically tractable model captures what really matters about the thing it models. The past ten years of FCC spectrum auctions have amounted to such an experiment, and the experiment demonstrates that the models on the basis of which Congress and the FCC were persuaded to adopt spectrum auctions fail dramatically in their prediction of real-world outcomes. When tested by the actual performance of such auctions, the chasm between the outcomes predicted by theory and the outcomes observed is immense. In sacrificing the public interest in pursuit of hypothesized market efficiencies and greater revenue we have arrived at the worst of both worlds: FCC spectrum auctions neither serve the public interest nor realize the promised economic efficiencies and revenue maximization touted by their advocates." (end quote)


(Quote) "Until the FCC can demonstrate that it can conduct auctions in the public interest, Congress should halt the ongoing plans to auction licenses to the public spectrum." (end quote)



Kinda makes one question just how small business entrepreneurs, women, minorities, and public safety/first responders will fare in the up-coming - and perhaps most important auction of all - that of the 700 MHz spectrum.


NR

The FCC's Strategic Spectrum Plan - 2006 - 2011

In a prior post, I shared information on policy and use of that portion of the radio spectrum managed by the NTIA for Federal Government users.

However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is charged with management and regulation of the spectrum (among their other responsibilities) for all other radio/wireless communication users.

Here's their 2006-2011 strategic plan (as of September, 2005) that gives one an idea of what to expect from the agency in the next 5 years, including:

• An overarching mission statement;
• General goals and objectives defining how the Commission will fulfill major
segments of its mission;
• A description of the means and strategies that will be used to achieve the
general goals and objectives;
• A description of the relationship between performance goals in the annual
performance budget and the strategic goal framework;
• Identification of key factors that could affect achievement of the general goals
and objectives; and
• A description of program evaluations used in preparing the Strategic Plan and a
schedule for future evaluations.

Readers specifically interested in radio and wireless communication spectrum matters should pay close attention to Notices, actions and decisions made by the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB), the new Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (PSHS), and, the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET). Additional information on spectrum policy can be found on the FCC's Spectrum Policy Task Force site.

Finally, here's how you can "express yourself" should some of the Commission's activities stir you out of complacency about spectrum matters.

NR

Spectrum Matters Discussion Group established

For those reading this blog (or am I still on my own?) who may wish to engage in further discussions or, share their ideas or concerns about wireless spectrum matters in a forum or group setting, here's good news. Please visit the new Spectrum Matters discussion group on Yahoo! established just for that purpose. (Free registration required)

This moderated, spam-free group focuses on news, information, opinion, responsible debate, and commentary on all matters related to the potential social, economic, and technical benefits (or consequences) to be realized by updating legacy and/or implementing new wireless spectrum management policy in the United States.

Topics and discussions are targeted towards business, educational, industrial, enterprise, public safety, local, state, regional, federal government and similar types of PROFESSIONAL wireless users who depend on spectrum in their daily activities and who want to learn more about how and why wireless spectrum matters can, will, or already have had an impact on them.

If you have an interest in wireless communications in general and spectrum issues in particular, please join us. Membership requires a response to a New Member Confirmation Request emailed to you during the sign-up process.

NR