FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly this week called for more spectrum sharing studies to help mitigate interference on increasingly crowded airwaves.
Speaking before the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL) PCC.II delegation in Orlando this week, O’Rielly highlighted the United States’ plan to implement a dynamic spectrum access system (SAS) on the 3.5 GHz band to allow U.S. government incumbents to coexist with new users. But, he said, more research on spectrum sharing is necessary as usage increases across bands.
“We need appropriate sharing mechanisms to protect users from harmful interference and provide a stable regulatory environment for those investing and deploying infrastructure in these bands,” O’Rielly said. “To this end, I call upon all of us in this room to openly participate in spectrum sharing studies in the ITU-R working parties related to WRC-19 agenda items. In doing so, I want to be clear that the FCC will act in good-faith to ensure such studies are conducted in a fair and balanced manner.”
O’Rielly’s comments look forward to the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19), which will be the next conference of its kind held since the last one in 2015. These WRC conferences serve as a venue to review and revise the international Radio Regulations treaty governing the use of radio-frequency spectrum, as well as geostationary-satellite and non-geostationary-satellite orbits.
O’Rielly isn’t the first FCC Commissioner to promote spectrum sharing before this body. Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler called on world leaders to come to the table to hash out a global deal on 5G spectrum sharing at the 2015 conference. More on that here.
Filed Under: Telecommunications (Spectrum)
