Who’s sleeping with whom in the spectrum innovation test bed?

Both the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced the creation of a Spectrum Sharing Innovation Test-Bed (Test-Bed).  The FCC test bed will provide up to 10 MHz within the 470-512 MHz frequency band, which contains Television Broadcast Systems (TV channels 14-20) and Land Mobile Radio Systems.  The NTIA test bed offers the 410-420 MHz frequency range.

 

On the whole, this is very good news.  The creation of the test bed shows that the US Government is getting behind innovation in wireless communications, particularly with respect to dynamic spectrum access.  It also allows for tests of non-Federal Government applications in Federal Government spectrum.   That’s a huge step forward in the eventual end of the Balkanization of the spectrum between Federal and non-Federal users.

 

Yet there are some troubling aspects to the announcement.  First, NTIA is giving applicants less than a month to announce their intent to participate.  Why such a short time frame?  Many organizations may only learn about the offer after the deadline.  Either the NTIA doesn’t want a large body of experiments or it has already wired the opportunity for selected technologies.  When the list of those submitting intent to participate is made pubic, we’ll get more clues as to what’s going on.

 

The NTIA procedure involves three phases.  The first two of these phases involved testing at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS)

for “characterization measurements” and then, the second phase, dynamic spectrum access (DSA) capabilities.  Only after successful completion of the first two phases does an applicant get the opportunity to participate in the test bed.  This seems a bit burdensome.  If it is true test bed, give people easier access to the band.  With too many hurdles, innovation is slowed to a crawl.  Perhaps that’s what some factions want.

Another concern I have with the test bed is its artificiality.  I don’t think folks can really determine the effectiveness of DSA technology until is allowed to work with real world systems.  Of course, you have to crawl before you can run.