 Okay, we can get started here Just have a few folks Still hopefully squeezing in there's their seats particularly on the The right side as you face the stage up toward the front a few more seats But welcome to New America. I am Michael Calabrese. I direct the wireless feature project Which is part of New America's open technology Institute and this is harnessing satellite spectrum For broadband will incumbents sell stay or share Next week as as probably most of you know and why you're here next week We expect the FCC to release a draft proposal to open this large band of satellite spectrum the C band for Mobile and fixed wireless broadband The C band is What's suddenly really in a just in the past few years become? Very valuable mid band spectrum. It's it's 500 megahertz This is the downlink portion of the band in other words where the receipt as you'll see in the presentations Where the earth stations the dishes receive? mostly video distribution, but radio feeds Associated press uses it and so on From 3700 to 4200 which puts it also just immediately Above an adjacent to the new citizens broadband radio service Which is the final details that add are being worked out this year for implementation? Hopefully early next year And that will be the band that's shared that's been open to share with US Navy radar The C band currently carries live TV and radio programming from content producers to local stations and cable systems nationwide More than a hundred and ten million American households rely For TV on thousands of earth stations to distribute content via cable system head ends local broadcast stations And even over-the-top video providers are increasingly use it using it So making use of C band for broadband because right now it's pretty much only For video distribution and a handful of fixed links Making use of it for for terrestrial broadband will require reconciling the interests of a half dozen or more powerful industries Most of which have at least one representative here in this event. So today we'll hear about The two proposals the two leading and potentially complementary proposals that are likely to be Substantially teed up in the NPRM one would authorize market deals Essentially a private auction to clear Satellite video distribution off at least the lower portion of the band and how much of the band is something we'll talk about today the other proposal Would authorize shared use of the unused frequencies in the remainder of the band for high capacity fixed wireless Service which would be mostly in rural and less densely populated areas. So this would be something that would share The available capacity in the ongoing portion of the fixed satellite service band Regardless of how much is cleared at the bottom of the band So our format is that we'll hear We'll actually hear a presentation on each of these leading proposals first from Andy Clegg of Google and has Milwaukee from Intel sat and They'll make those presentations. We're giving them kind of more time. They'll answer a couple questions And then we'll bring our panel up a whole different group of folks That represents some of the other perspectives involved in this I hope you all will, you know be thinking about Your comments and questions will open it up again at the end of the panel For that and at that point let us know, you know who you are Hopefully you picked up Biographies just bio briefs on the speakers as you came in that way That will allow us to shorten introductions considerably So to get the show on the road, I will introduce Andy Clegg Who is the spectrum engineering lead at Google LLC Andy plays a Also plays a leading role in coordinating the multi stakeholder process that is developing the technical rules for Implementation of a citizen band radio service. I think which gives him a lot of particular insight Into that and was formerly US National Science Foundation. So Andy All right, thanks Michael. Thanks for having us here and your introductory remarks pretty much said almost everything I was going to say so I guess I'm done and we can pass it to haas All right, thanks everybody. So let's see Mike. How do I get my slides up? Michael how do I get the slides up? We will find out there they are now perfect Got it. Yeah, yep. Yep. Got it Okay, so thanks. I'm gonna give Just a little bit of background on the c-band Sort of along the lines of what Michael already said, but maybe with a little bit more technical details So you understand some of the issues having to do with sharing of a seat of c-band I'm also going to say a few words of why this is suddenly in the news Why are we hearing everything about c-band all of a sudden? And why we think it could be used for fixed broadband or mobile broadband or other applications Beyond what it's being used for right now, and I'm going to do all of that in 15 minutes So it might go a little bit fast Let's see Yes, so your clicker is not working that is the situation is it wireless and you're not You're not yeah, okay Yeah, I'm being jammed by wireless. All right, we're gonna have to do it from here Excellent very good. All right, there we go So we have it moving so If I can't even figure out a clicker, I'm not sure if I'll be able to figure out see that so Yeah, okay. All right there go the engineering credentials right so as Michael already mentioned c-band is Range of frequencies 3700 to 4200 megahertz in the spectrum The the key there is that it's actually quite a bit of spectrum. It's 500 megahertz of contiguous spectrum Altogether, which is a lot. It's to put that in perspective 500 megahertz of spectrum is 10 times the amount of spectrum We currently have for licensed fixed broadband in the lower bands And it's also more than just about all of the other mobile broadband spectrum combined So if you took cellular and PCS and AWS in the 600 megahertz band and the 700 megahertz band all of that for mobile Broadband and you added all of that bandwidth together. It wouldn't equal the amount of bandwidth in c-band. So it's a lot of spectrum Very valuable the reason that a lot of spectrum is valuable is the more spectrum You have the more throughput you can get out of it if you could use all 500 megahertz for broadband You could conceivably get a gross throughput of about 2 gigabits a second of data through that 500 megahertz Now, of course, you have to share that 2 gigabits 2 gigabits But the point is that it could rival Consumer fiber optic delivery to the home or businesses if you could have access to up to 500 megahertz of spectrum I've put a little cut out of the NTIA spectrum chart down there at the bottom as you can see most of the services by Frequency are carved up into tiny little slivers of Spectrum space, but c-band that circled in the red is actually one of the largest blocks along that region of spectrum So it gives you an idea that it's considerable amount of spectrum It would be great to put it to more intensive use than it than it's currently being used for So what is it currently being used for? Today it's being used as Michael said for predominantly Satellite downlinks So geostationary satellites that are staying what appear to be stationary over the earth downlink their signals to c-band dishes And those dishes receive the signal and then move it off into other areas and as Michael said it's used for a variety of important things like Programming video programming audio programming So cable TV stations get their programming over c-band local TV stations get their programming over c-band Live events NASCAR golf all that football all of that may use c-band for distributing video and other content You get news and then that's also useful for international programming An important distinction here a little bit of confusion in the US c-band is not used for direct-to-consumer Video services in some areas particularly in Latin America It is in the US It is not almost all of the content on c-band is encrypted So nobody has a c-band dish in their backyard anymore receiving Transmissions directly from satellites. It's all commercial services. Haas is shaking his head. So soon he'll correct me But I actually know that he's wrong. So, you know, just listen to me not the Haas So there are a few hobbyist ham radio operators things like that that are into finding those few unencrypted channels that are still there And I'll tell you what's on those unencrypted channels is not particularly fascinating So haas is technically correct, but practically I'm correct. Okay, so So just to give you an idea of where the actual registered if you go to the FCC database you can operators of the c-band dishes can register their dish location and if you go to the FCC database you download the data You get a plot that looks like this depending on how you count them There's several thousand c-band or stations registered in the in the in the FCC's database They're distributed pretty much following the population of the United States. So there's quite a few of them out there No doubt about it Quite a few of them out there, but we think there's ways to to work around them So some of the characteristics that are important to understanding how how we could share c-band The dishes are as mentioned, but it's important to understand the dishes are received only in 3700 to 4200 megahertz. They don't transmit so the issue of sharing the band is not coordinating your Broadband system being interfered with by the satellite dishes. It is your broadband system interfering with the satellite dishes It's not the other way around so important thing to remember The dishes are receiving Signals from geostationary satellites that are more than 35,000 kilometers away So by the time the signal gets all the way to the dish It's very weak and so the dishes are very susceptible to interference So it's another consideration when you try to put a broadband system in the band. You've got to mitigate interference To the dish. However, there are some mitigating factors about how the dishes operate first By virtue of them being large their beam is tightly focused and it's looking up in the sky So they're trying to get signals from the satellite. They're not trying to get signals from the surrounding area on the horizon So there's a little bit of natural immunity to interference coming from the from the horizon It's not immune, but it does impact the main gain of the of the antenna is up into space not around the the ground and the terrestrial areas so Important thing to consider that, you know, there are mitigating factors They are very susceptible to interference, but there are mitigating factors that help us coordinate with these dishes And another important thing is we know exactly where the dishes are they're registered We have the latitude the longitude. We know exactly where they are. We can try to work around them based on our broadband network design So why the recent interest in c-band? Really all of the interest comes from the first point here And that is the continued rise in the demand for wireless broadband wireless broadband growth demand continues At double-digit rates both fixed broadband and mobile broadband So we as consumers continue to desire to have more and more wireless broadband There's limited amount of spectrum available Most of the easy low-hanging fruit spectrum has already been taken for broadband and so to get more We have to start looking at how we can share with other services. And so that's where we are with c-band The characteristics of this band are fairly desirable. It's kind of not too high in frequency So things propagate fairly well, but it's not too low in frequency where they propagate too well and interfere with other things So it's kind of a good. It's what we call it's the very low end of what's now called a mid-band spectrum That's the trendy term that was invented out of nowhere But it's the very lowest end of mid-band spectrum. It's adjacent to the new citizens broadband radio service CBRS So there is a little bit of interplay with the equipment that's being developed for CBRS or potential interplay It's also adjacent to a band that used to be used for point-to-multi-point to provide rural wireless services broadband services It partially overlaps an international standard LTE band So there's interest when you talk about global harmonization of potential harmonization with part of the C-band spectrum We've done a lot of work on automated systems to basically Pre-coordinate use of the spectrum and we could apply some of those systems or the basics of some of those systems to this band And then there's been a couple of petitions filed lately by the broadband access coalition represented by some of the speakers here And also by Intel sat and Intel about how to use the Spectrum in a more intensive manner and that has led to FCC proceeding on it And so all of these factors together and this is why C-band is suddenly in the news today So can satellite services and broadband share the C-band? That's that's the key question that we're dealing here and there's really two ways to look at it There's two use models that are at play here. The two different proposals have essentially two different use cases one use case is Could you deploy fixed point-to-multi-point services in the band? So let's say you have a central tower and you have homes in a rural area beaming back to that tower That's the point-to-multi-point case So that's very similar to the way rural broadband is provided today But it's provided typically in unlicensed spectrum or in small amounts of spectrum in another band If you use all 500 megahertz of C-band or some portion of it you could get much better rural broadband service So that's the point-to-multi-point model The other model is a mobile use case and that is what you know more traditionally like your cell phone you move around There are base stations they transmit in all directions and no matter where you are You can get a signal and you can communicate back to the base station. That's the mobile use case So how do those two cases? Compare when it goes to protecting FSS from interference in the fixed point-to-multi-point case We believe it's very simple to protect fixed satellite services operating in the band You simply engineer your system so that you're never pointing at a fixed satellite service dish and you won't interfere with them now There's a lot there's a lot more to it than just that but that's the basic concept You point your your antennas in a direction where you're not going you engineer your system so that you deploy it so that you Can point your antennas in areas that are not going to interfere with the fixed satellite service dishes The mobile case on the other hand the whole purpose of mobile is you want to be able to use your phone no matter where you are So mobile base stations Radiate in all directions or in very wide swaths of directions and they enable people to move around with mobile phones and connect To the base station so it's very difficult to coordinate mobile use with omnidirectional antennas From interfering with the satellite service so we believe the fixed use case We can operate co-channel same frequency with FSS if we engineer our systems carefully and for the mobile case We don't think you can operate co-channel with FSS and I think this is one point haze will agree on I'm not sure we'll find out in a few minutes when he comes up here and says that I'm all wrong So again just sort of reiterating the mobile scenario the mobile base station is a black dot in the middle of this orange Circle the orange circle is the radiation coming out of the base station And as you can see because that radiation goes in all directions it overlays some of the fixed satellite service earth stations And potentially interferes with them, but even more importantly the mobiles talking back to the base station They're not constrained where they can go they can go anywhere in that service area And they may find themselves very close to an earth station and causing interference So it's the unc is first the omnidirectional and the uncontrolled nature of the mobile service It makes it very difficult to share with With FSS fixed satellite service earth stations the point-to-multipoint scenario is very different You engineer your system such that your base station again the black dot in the middle of the figure Beams its energy towards the homes. It's trying to serve it doesn't beam its energy in any other direction It just beams its energy directly at the homes that it wants to serve in those homes Beam their signal back to communicate with that base station typically weaker signals that don't travel quite as far and those also from an interference perspective don't overlap the FSS earth stations the earth stations are located outside of the interference zones of both the customer equipment and the base station and Interference isn't an issue so to extremely exceedingly overly simplified examples of why you can do this with point-to-multipoint And but why you can't do this with mobile But the fact is that this is these are the considerations that go into Engineering systems point-to-multipoint that will not interfere with satellite if you want more technical details We have a filing that was filed in the 17-183 docket Feel free to go look at the technical filing if you're having trouble sleeping or whatever go take a look at it So coordinate how exactly can we do this? You know as I said You know it's easier to do this when you don't have very many FSS dishes that you have to avoid Certainly, it's true that the fewer dishes there are to avoid the easier. This is to do it So you can look at the statistics of how many FSS dishes are in an area based upon the population of the area I won't go through the details of the calculation, but over a hundred million Americans have 20 or fewer FSS earth stations within 20 kilometers or a hundred kilometers of their locations So you would only have to work around 20 or fewer fss earth stations in order to make this point-to-multipoint Scenario work for over a hundred million Americans Haas is shaking his head. This is very useful. He shakes his head So I'm able to rebut him already because I before even gets up. He's gonna say there's lots of unregistered earth stations We hear that we encourage the satellite industry to register those earth stations so that we know where they are And we can do further assessments. So very good and then From a distance perspective not not counting the the the unregistered earth stations about 10% of the u.s Population lives 30 kilometers or farther from the closest registered FSS earth station so 30 kilometers is a long way gives you a lot of breathing room You might be able to deploy without causing interference over such large distances So it's a consideration when the satellite industry registers all of their secret Earth stations and we know where they all are I might come in You know a few months from now and say oh, I was all wrong. There's so many of them. We can't possibly do this That's possible. That might happen. I kind of doubt it, but we're waiting to see what the what the outcome is so To wrap up the shared use of the seabed and we see that you know potentially a hundred million or more Americans a lot of them in rural or less populated areas could be served by Point-to-multipoint Broadband we think if you want to use part of seabed and for mobile broadband You can't do it on the same frequencies that the satellite service uses so you need to Relocate the satellite services off of those frequencies so that you can use it for mobile broadband But we think you know and Hoss will talk a little bit more about this We think there are models where you could enable moving part of the operations of seabed and FSS out of certain Frequencies and making room for for mobile and we don't dispute that that's you know, that's that's a viable Additional option to use for seabed We think it's a win-win-win scenario you could Potentially utilize You know say a hundred megahertz of seabed in densely populated urban areas where you need more mobile broadband capacity You relocate FSS out of that hundred megahertz You let them use that you still have 400 megahertz left over where you could potentially do underlay services as described here in the point-to-multipoint model But then off in the rural areas or the less densely populated areas We think you could actually use all 500 megahertz Perhaps the mobile broadband industry is not as interested in that hundred megahertz in rural areas You could have access to all 500 megahertz. You could operate co-channel with the fixed satellite service With a point-to-multipoint system and not cause interference The key of the point-to-multipoint case is we think you can do this without causing any interference or disruption at all to the FSS They don't have to relocate. They don't have to re-engineer their systems They can stay exactly where they are we engineer around them and even more importantly you can do this Immediately we think you can do this with no no preparation. We're ready to go We have the equipment. We have the engineering and where we are totally ready to deploy this so a quick summary of how we think you can do point-to-multipoint in the band and some considerations related to mobile and Now we'll let haze Come up and rebut everything else. Thank you guys very much You can do that, but if there's anyone who has Any like quick question or two right now in terms of clarification Or anything, you know while we have Andy up here. I mean One I have just really quickly is is how long would it take to deploy a fixed wireless? P2mp on underlay because the whole the whole mobile clearing process will clearly take a while But right what about or to make use of this for rural broadband, right? So the equipment already Exists there's a lot of leverage with the equipment that's being developed for the adjacent band and CBRS So the equipment basically already exists a couple of tweaks to the equipment might be needed We as Google has filed and I think the broadband access coalition and others have also filed There are some minor tweaks to the FCC rules that are required to implement this very minor tweaks Because the band is already are allocated to the fixed service And those tweaks could be done very quickly We think that a point to multi-point underlay could be done on the same time scale or maybe even Faster than the satellite industry and Intel and others are claiming that they could do the transition for mobile broadband So we think as fast or faster Okay One back here. Let us know who you are to There's a microphone that'll come over to you Henry and had good research and now I wonder what percentage of the spectrum is the C band It looked like a very small percent of the total spectrum Is there a problem sharing in the other part of the spectrum between the various types of signals? Right, so the shortest answer to that is yes There is you know when you look at the spectrum as a whole There's a lot of bands that have been studied for sharing for a variety of technical and regulatory reasons This is one of the best a lot of those other bands are shared with for example federal government for operations that involve critical government systems radars and things that were not necessarily Are allowed to know all of the details about some of the other bands are used for things like Licenses that people have paid for at auction and things like that and you can't you know because by virtue of the fact They've paid a lot of money for it at auction. It's very important to point out the satellite industry paid zero for this spectrum So Others may have paid a lot of money for their spectrum So it's not quite fair to try to share theirs without sort of doing a tighter coordination So and others are used for things like airplane radars that measure their altitude above the ground You know things that are safety of life related Things like that so as far as as the study of all of the bands go There's there are a variety of alternative bands But this one appears to be one of the best for mobile broadband for a variety of reasons For sharing Okay, all right. Thanks a lot. Thanks All right next next up is haze mohawk it the vice president for spectrum strategy at Intel sat has as a satellite industry veteran And at Intel said he is responsible for managing efforts that protect optimize and leverage The company spectrum assets in support of the company's long-term growth strategy Make sure that I have this Okay, good afternoon everybody and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you about this very important topic it's a very important policy topic that affects us and affects the the Economic leadership of the US and the competitiveness of the US. So so thank you for for giving me the opportunity So I will start first by talking about just a simple question and over overarching question. Why are we here today? We all love 5g we are all excited about 5g and we are basically trying to accelerate the way to 5g in the US too so that the US can maintain its leadership and We would like to get the spectrum in the hands of 5g operators as fast as possible While at the same time Protecting the current users of the satellite of the of the of the c-band the satellite users of c-band Which which are very important? This is plain and simple. This is why what we are here for So For those of you who are not familiar with Intel sat Intel sat is is over 50 years old We have been providing satellite services since the mid 60s. We are the largest satellite operator We have over 52 satellites serving the globe Obviously with the US being the major component of that We also operate a large terrestrial network to support that to provide seamless an unparalleled service in in that our customers include the US military includes all the key broadcasters and I'm Very much confident that I can say that almost in every single one of you rely on c-band every day without even knowing it If you watch TV if you listen to the radio You are using c-band and guess what you have been accustomed to a very high reliable service Throughout the years using c-band. So c-band is very critical to your every day for everyday use Intel sat is a b2b company. So we provide services to other companies that in turn provide services to the to the US consumers and to the US public So Why is West c-band so special, you know, why why do we talk about c-band? So c-band is very unique in many ways So first of all C-band have been allocated to to satellite services for 450 years. We have been in use in this band for 50 years So we are not we're not squatting on the spectrum. We're not we're not just sitting there We have been using it for 50 years and we are providing critical services. It's highly reliable again Because of this high reliability broadcasters rely on it the the names that you see here Discovery Time Warner NPR all of these to name a few Disney all of these to to name a few rely on c-band because of its high high reliability There are over 70 to 80 billion dollars of revenue associated with with with with c-band in the US over 100 million US homes rely on c-band indirectly for their TV content So if you again you watch TV you want to you want to watch you're watching the Super Bowl It's it's coming through c-band. So and this reliability point is very important We provide 99 point nine nine nine percent Reliability to put this in perspective that amounts to a little over five minutes of outage every year imagine five minutes of Outage and then to to also to to put it in a different perspective A lot of us have have fiber connectivity to the home and you browse the internet But somehow we're content that sometimes you try to load a page It doesn't come up and you say okay. I'm just gonna click again. It will come back again Imagine doing imagine imagine the same thing happening while you're watching the Super Bowl while there's that last-minute touchdown And then you get interrupted you can't reload that so this is the difference and reliability that we provide Versus versus the the the context of reliability in an IP world linear TV is very different And we have all come to rely on it, and I don't think we can accept not having this reliability So It's this this and this is actually a point that I pick on from from from Andrew Yes, our South our satellite signals are very weak because they come from 22,000 miles up So by the time they hit the ground here, they are very faint and they're very sensitive And that's why we have large dishes which are essentially large years to listen to to listen to the satellite signal What that means is that you can't afford to have any type of noise and noise adjacent to you Even if it's not in the same band even if it's even if it's in the adjacent band that's very that's very important you can't live with that and It's very much like if you have if you have a baby Trying to put the baby to sleep and then a frat house moves next door with with all their parties This is what happens if we if we simply allow other users that only we're gonna be fine We can get in that's simply that's that's not workable so and then with the linear TV when you're watching like live TV any any approach that talks about a Remedy the interference after the fact. Oh if you have an interference, just let us know and we'll remove it again You can't afford that in live TV. If you're watching TV. You can't afford to to have that. So all of these reasons Tells you why C-band is very unique to the satellite industry There is an entire ecosystem that has been built around it over the past 50 years so With that in mind We are also very practical people in the satellite industry We are fairly smart and we understand the importance of 5g because we love 5g and we want 5g to prosper and move forward But we want to do it in a way that allows us to continue to operate and continue to provide services to our customers So what are the key tenets of our of our proposal first? We want to protect our customers We have we have a large set of constituents. We have broadcasters. We have the US military We have we have emergency services. We have radio services We are trying to protect these these customers and ensure that they continue to provide these services and continue to be whole The second the second in it is that it's a market-based approach. What does that mean? It means that we do it directly we as the satellite satellite operators we form a consortium and we Work through a market-based solution with with the with the 5g operators to to provide these service to transfer a spectrum to them in a timely fashion The consortium also would be the the technical lead on resolving any interference issues Be meaning we'll be going to be we're going to be responsible to fit Every every and sing every single earth station in the US see better stations with the necessary equipment necessary filtering to make Sure that they they remain whole and they continue to provide services Regulatory certainty is another key point Regulatory certainty is important for For it for making sure that the investors can put in money into into deployments of networks If you don't have regulatory certainty if you're not sure that you own the spectrum that you can actually Your investment is not going to be wasted you you can't you can't you can't move forward our approach gives the regulatory certainty Gives a regular regulatory certainty for us that we will continue to operate and will also give regulatory certainty to the 5g operator Who will take possession of of that spectrum and Last and most importantly speed so as much as we love the FCC We know that repurposing of spectrum through through a regulatory process can take a very long time On average it takes 13 years for the FCC to repurpose spectrum from use a to use B So and I don't think that we can afford to do that This is 5g is a race other countries are already deploying and we want to make sure that this spectrum gets in the hand of 5g as fast as possible So so 5g for us is a breakthrough technology and we are coming up with a very with a breakthrough approach to resolve it so we must be cognizant of that and then I Would like to talk about myth busters, you know a lot of the myths are about about c-band That's one one of the myths is that it's it's underutilized or it's slightly used This is could not could not be further from the truth when you try to Use counting of earth stations as a proxy for occupancy This is a very narrow approach to to judge a spectrum that this or the spectrum is not used Of course our spectrum is pristine because it is very clean It comes the signal comes from the satellite is very weak So for the if you're an RF engineer and you walk around with a sniffer You're gonna find that this spectrum is clean you say this is ideal I'm gonna want to move in but there are critical services in this band and they they have to be protected So as I explained to you before the type of ecosystem that relies on c-band right now is is very important And we cannot sacrifice it. We cannot play with it This this must stay and must continue unless we are all willing to to let go of our TV and our our news and our favorite radio stations The second point is that satellite or satellite doesn't is not pro 5g we are pro 5g Satellite is pro 5g and we are trying to move forward. We we have worked with the mobile industry for a very long time We enable them they enable us in many in many areas around the world and in the u.s. So We we are trying to find a way forward where 5g can get in and can get in quickly Third Some some some folks have have questions on what is the fastest way to get to get to 5g and for us There is really no question. It's our solution avoids bureaucracy avoids unproven technology of avoids avoids the the the the the the the regulatory battle that would ensue We we don't want to be in a position Anybody who's pro 5g or in the satellite industry to get into a situation where we have a prolonged Regulatory battle or prolonged litigation because what that means is that we're going to delay access to 5g. Nobody wants that so I'm gonna wrap up very very quickly here. So the needs for speed So like I said before our solution is about about speed We we will we will put spectrum in the hands of 5g operators in as little as 18 months It's 18 months to 36 months from the time the FCC issues an order. I Guarantee you that there is no other solution That's gonna be as fast as this to provide clean spectrum to 5g to to to start rolling out services But at the same time we must recognize that CBN services are critical and they are Pervasive and they are in every day and in every day in our lives. We use them We use CBN services indirectly. We don't just become come to rely on it But so we must we must we must protect them 5g is a breakthrough Technology, I mean the promise of 5g is is amazing what 5g can do what we read about 5g the the economic opportunity Is is is tremendous? So we have to come up with a with a breakthrough solution and that's what we are doing here We have a breakthrough solution for this breakthrough technology and a fast one Lastly it's really a race 5g is a race and Any other solution is gonna take a long time is not going to get the US to the to the other side of the of the of the river We're going to be waiting and waiting and waiting and it's gonna be a prolonged regulatory battle Other countries are deploying and we are proposing to move fast and very fast. So and we think that we have the the most Compelling solution here to to move to 5g and to to keep to keep the the incumbents at the same time to keep the Satellite services that are being provided to keep them whole and to to move forward. So, thank you Thank you. Any quick clarifying question For haze right now And like I said, he'll you'll be staying around to right at the end. Yeah, is there one? Yeah, we're back So I'll be behind you Kendall. Hi, Caleb Henry from Space News So tell us at one of your competitors potential partners on the c-band proposal that you and SES and Intel have said that they were One of the requirement for them to join you is that they were they were not clear on how the consortium would Compensate partners within it and it appeared that Intel sat in SES would decide who gets Money from mobile operators in exchange for moving them out of the the band Yeah, can you just clarify how that would be done and have you addressed it tell us that concerns? Sure This is not entirely accurate. Let me say that first of all Intel sat in between Intel sat and SES There is about 90 95% of the of the US US market in c-band, right? You look at for example has made has made comments and they they are very much interested in joining So they have made public positive comments about our proposal Tell us that I understand their point, but I think they make a very small portion of c-band services in the US so Again, we understand their issues But like I said, you have to look at the critical mass that we are we are at right now So if you have Intel sat and SES and potentially you will sat You you're pretty much over over, you know, 98% of the of the US Went up here, so and it will be prorated whatever whatever the situation everything will be prorated according to to to their share Hi, thank you for your presentation Peter Flynn from via set So could you clarify one point for me because it seemed to be a conflict up here on one hand you start out saying? C-band is heavily utilized critical part of the infrastructure But then but we can free up 100 megahertz or even now 200 or 300 megahertz now from what I've heard And so how do you reconcile the two is it under if there's if there's 300 megahertz of unutilized spectrum, you know Let's have at it, but well, I didn't say it 300 I said we the proposal and perhaps I did not say that very clearly So the proposal right now is to clear 100 plus because there's guard ban issues so 100 plus of Spectrum to mobile we could potentially do more in the future There's other other tools in the in the toolbox that we can use but at the moment what we can do is 100 100 plus But but like I said we there are there are other there are other ways that we can we can try to be more creative But it's right now. It's it stands about at a hundred So okay, well, thank you house. Thank you. We'll move on to the panel Y'all to come up Thanks so what I'll do is introduce Each panelist again very briefly because you have bio bios on the handout and then give them a chance like two minutes to to just Give kind of highlights of their perspective because we have you know quite a diverse Group up here. So just kind of moving straight across starting at the end with Ross Lieberman who's the senior vice president of government affairs at the American Cable Association? ACA represents the interest of small and medium-sized cable operators So Ross sure. That was why you're here. Yep. Thanks a lot for having me here, and I'm here to express our views from the perspective of MVPD is particularly small and medium-sized cable television Operators, so I just start by saying you know virtually all MVPD is across the country Including hundreds of small and medium-sized operators utilize the C-band to pick up Video programming that they deliver to more than 90 million subscribers Across the country the C-band is the most heavily used medium for delivering video programming to cable operators and satellite providers As well as to broadcasters and others, you know, it's favored by video programmers because number one It's reliable and number two. It's cost efficient and for cable operators in addition to those reasons It's it's low cost the programmer actually pays for the cost to actually receive it via C-band But for many small cable operators, their only means of receiving the C-band services today is Video programming today is via the C-band because alternative opportunities for them are are extremely They're unavailable inadequate or inefficient and they come along with expensive costs and for a lot of smaller operators in rural America Who are operating video services at low margins and don't have many? Subscribers, you know those costs are just unbearable You know for these reasons that there's a stunning number of video programming services that are delivered over the C-band Today and those demands are likely to increase over over time So ACA went through the did did research on the number of how it's being used today There's over 2,000 video channels that are being delivered over C-band over 308 transponders covering 24 Satellites and with the advent of 4k which takes up more capacity than HD That demand is only going to grow now ACA supports more efficient spectrum use We also support the proceeding that the FCC is Undertaking to find to allow more intensive use of the band But the FCC considering additional uses of the C-band really has to take into account what additional uses will mean How they will impact existing fixed satellite services as well as its users and such an evaluation In our mind must follow the Hippocratic principle of first doing no no harm and that principle Applies especially strong with regards to small cable operators who are providing a special link between their customers and video Programming services which does provide important news and other information To them. I know we'll talk more in detail about the specific proposals But I thought I'd for now just highlight You know our view is that a lot more detail needs to be made available about these proposals And there are many questions that are still being they're still left unanswered and I just raised three very quickly So first is how are the various proposals would work as a technical matter while enabling the continued use of the C-band Without interruption or technical constraint the second question relates to how is the proposals impact the quality and cost of providing the video Service and to the day-to-day operations of existing users and if there are costs, how are those costs going to be reimbursed? I'm hopeful this panel will help to answer some of those questions and certainly the proceeding that's coming up All right. Thanks for us next we have Michelle Farquhar who is counsel to SES on This on this issue and a partner at Hogan levels also former chief of the wireless bureau at the FCC Thank You Michael. I'm here representing SES, which is also one of the largest Satellite operators throughout the world. They have 50 satellites in orbit right now and 19 are authorized right now to provide C-band service to us customers and they're already at virtually full capacity as we've told the FCC to provide high-quality transmission content over a hundred million us households as has been noted and Of course as it's a joint proposal I agree with everything Haas has said From mental sat about the importance of balancing two public interest imperatives The first is continuing to support Ross and his customers and all the video programming operators and cable companies and broadcasters Who they and their customers are relying on this high quality service for their programming and also the ongoing business of these satellite operators they've all invested billions of dollars so far and will lose some real opportunity costs even with their own Proposal the second is the need to clear a portion of the band to facilitate us leadership for mobile 5g and That's something that I know the satellite operators had resisted in the past But it's become an imperative and they've acknowledged that it's a breakthrough as Haas said and so we've decided to come up with a Breakthrough approach to facilitate that but but it's really a balance of those two goals Neither one is easy But as I'll explain in a minute There are a lot of clearing tools that we can use all of which are expensive and will take time and effort But that it can be done so this balance We believe creates a win-win scenario that really does serve the public interest again These are two important public interest goals that need to be balanced But we also believe it's important not to pile on too much here And that that's our biggest concern with the BAC proposal not that point-to-multipoint service isn't important It is it's a real excellent tool for rural areas but it might be piling on too much in this band and Really need to see more technical studies about how that might work and in particular Why would the FCC want to incentivize the current incumbents to move and clear out of the band? But then impair the band in new ways That will cause potentially greater interference to then squeezing more into less capacity and that could hurt Ross and his ACA customers and all the providers of video programming and it's not clear how quickly That these point-to-multipoint providers can adjust to the constant shifting of Channels that the satellite operators need to do for all sorts of reasons or to interference that might be caused and Because the high quality and high reliability nature of our contracts We really need to be able to do it quickly. So that's critical as part of what we have to do And I mentioned the clearing that needs to be done that that's really what it's all about It's about speed and as haz mentioned, we've looked really hard We've studied hard the market side of the proposal as well as the clearing tools that would be necessary And we've put in the record that at least Four different types of tools re-grooming traffic adding additional satellites, which is no small undertaking upgrading reception Through filters and mitigation techniques and finally possible relocation and fibering Only on an as-needed basis if needed, but those are all very expensive We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars to do this type of thing may be more It's hard to know but we're still trying to get our arms around how many Earth stations are out there just since the FCC put out a public notice There have been 1200 new earth stations that have been identified and apparently a lot more to come So this is not a small undertaking. Thank you. Okay. Thanks Next we have Jill Canfield who is vice president and assistant general counsel at NTC a the rural broadband Association Joe advocates on behalf of NTC a's 850 small and rural Thank you at NTC at the Robben Association we represent the company serving the most rural parts of the country and Our average subscriber density is seven per square mile as compares to a hundred and thirty per square mile for the larger providers and because of where they serve and The density constraints of where they serve they use a variety of technologies to reach those consumers and Offer a variety of service now most of I would say many of our members offer offer a mobile broadband product Most offer a video product So we have a lot of overlap with ACA as terms of membership, but all of our members offer fixed broadband fibers the preferred technology, but there's also fixed wireless and fibers the the preferred technology because it's Dependable and predictable, you know if it's not working the way you expect it There's usually a kink in the wire There's a fiber break or something where it says little more art than than science in some some respects But fixed wireless certainly has its place and bring broadband service to rule America's It's we have our membership those that are paying attention anyway are very excited about the mid-band spectrum because it has the capacity and capability to offer products somewhat very similar to what they can offer fiber and certainly what the consumers expect I think because of the membership that we serve we're in a Unique position because we have a lot of overlapping and competing interests But all with a singular goal and that is to serve the rule because the rule customer And I think that our members and you know do it better than anyone else does We are situated in the communities we serve and therefore have an interest in making sure we get the service out Certainly do a much better job than some of the larger providers out there And my job is an advocate for these companies is to ensure that the rule companies continue to have the opportunities To serve the rural customers And I believe that the mid-band spectrum really is going to be an essential part of getting that service out to the rural consumer Obviously, we don't want to see interference certainly not with our own members but the Members have been relying on spectrum for a very long time to meet the needs of the most far out Consumers it can be an economical way to get to the consumers where you just can't get fiber because of either terrain constraints or The ranch is you know miles from the the roadway with the ranch home is miles from the roadway So fixed wireless is a really important piece of what our members are offering I think it's really important to be honest and realistic about what the technology can do today And what it will be able to do in the future I think that a lot of what we talk about is very short-sighted. We're not talking about what technology is going to be able to fix I think that it's important for our policy makers to really think about what is the highest and best use for the spectrum and I think That depending on who you talk to in this panel in industry the highest and best use for spectrum is going to differ, of course We think it's important to bridge that urban rule divide and broadband and to to make sure that this mid-bend spectrum is a part of that I have some concerns with The the satellite proposal in that it's really just a push to get spectrum into the hands of the big three and That leaves our members out and it leaves the rural consumer out So I do have concern and would be interested in hearing how that need might be addressed But thank you for having me. I look forward to the discussion. All right. Thanks, Joe next we have Chris Wussorek who is the director of spectrum policy at T-Mobile USA and He assisted in developing competition spectrum and technology policy and advising on legal matters as well Thank you for inviting me here today T-Mobile, we're one of the wireless carriers here, and we're one of the drive home I think three points for this discussion today. I think one is something I think everyone in this room agrees with the race for five Use a national priority. It's it's a critical issue 5g will manifest itself in many different ways. There's some parts of the spectrum Spectrum that we've never ever thought about using before either for mobile for fixed purpose But I think we all agree that it's critically important that we the US leads in 5g like you let in 4g It created all sorts of great opportunities that the US is able to capitalize on and that's very important I think the second thing we want to focus on in this discussion is the ability to actually do this to repurpose a spectrum I've gone through a lot of rodeos now. We're spectrum Repurposing starting act in the AWS one context if anyone remembers that that was where T-Mobile We spent at the time our largest capex spend of over about four billion dollars of buying spectrum and put it to use in about 18 months most recently We had the FCC 600 megahertz incentive auction where we spent $10 billion and we put it to use in two months So it was a pretty big time frame and what we're seeing now We're spending more money and putting spectrum to use much quicker So those are those are things that could bode well for some of the proposals that have been brought out But it's critically important that we get more spectrum out in that regard in the technical side And a third part is kind of the money aspect incentives To move and repurpose spectrum from one purpose to another you have to have I guess a unit an agreement of incentives for maybe the majority of the people at least the right people Who are involved in the matter to be able to be able to put spectrum to its highest and best use and everybody there'll be some different disagreements, but There's a well-drawn and well-trotted path throughout US policymaking and spectrum matters that have spectrum brought to its highest and best use and what their proper incentives are So those are the three things I think we'll focus on today right and then Finally Jamie Fink who is CTO and co-founder of mimosa networks a global technology leader in fiber fast wireless broadband fixed wireless broadband, right primarily and Jamie's a member of the broadband deployment advisory committee at the FCC and also a founding member of broadband access coalition, which is Advocating for Sharing the CBN for fixed wireless great. Thank you, Michael. So a couple things first. I agree with everything Andy said Secondly, I think the coalition first of all there's about 35 members in the coalition It was founded by ourselves in New America as well as the wireless ISP association WISPA a number of other people that I don't have time to list all of them But we enjoy support from almost every rural telco both tier two and tier three in the country NTCA of course the rural wireless Association of course also cellular providers as well that are providing necessary Cooperative services and phone services and DSL etc in the rural areas So I don't want to touch too much on rural because I think you did a fantastic job with it But I mean work with the work I do with the FCC and all the work that we've done with this petition It was very clear that yes, we need to open up more spectrum, but it's not all about 5g There is an absolute priority for rural broadband So we believe that no matter what the odds may be as you can tell there's a bit of a target on the back of Spectrum sharing with something that has been in the band and we want to reuse unused portions of geography and unused portions of frequencies because we are not using it efficiently So not to disrespect we do believe that there is under utilization But there's a lot of use that needs to be protected with the satellite industry So we were very very clear and I wanted to spill a couple of myths about our proposal We are a hundred percent here to protect the satellite industry number one That was the first thing we said in our proposal number two a lot of people have Characterized the proposal as it's going to be like unlicensed use look We've been doing licensed microwave technology for decades now and now more recently with a lot of the technologies Google and others have worked on we've come up with very dynamic technologies and databases to be able to solve these problems So we have tools for very sensitive microwaves technologies that are no less sensitive in many ways than a lot of the other a lot of the satellite technology We we look forward to doing that, you know continued technology analysis We've put forth many technical detailed proposals very specific changes to the rules ITU recommendations that talk through exactly how to protect satellites and we've referenced those studies very carefully and done those studies We certainly look forward to making sure that we do this the right way Because there's no way to share a spectrum without making sure that we don't interfere with the incumbent So we we welcome that debate because we think they've done a fantastic job of defending what they need They need that spectrum continued for satellite and that's also proven why we can't just clear the band So in that in that context there really is in my view a win-win win There is something that can be there for rural broadband if we work together on the technical aspects of sharing with the caveat That we may not interfere and we meet we need to come up with mechanisms to be able to be Dynamic because as you've heard from from the counterparts on the satellite side they make changes They need to make changes as their customers need different channels different different frequencies But I believe that that's attainable So I don't want to throw the baby out with a bathwater because it's too much work or it's hard It's something that technology can solve and we can do that today and wrap do that very rapidly in my opinion. Thanks All right. Thanks, Jimmy. Well, why don't we To get a discussion going and then and then we'll you know and then it then later we'll go to the audience but Pick up on the last point you made about Sort of this assumption that We can't clear the entire c-band for exclusive mobile licensing and you know, I'm wondering, you know, why not? Chris T-Mobile suggested that it ought to be Considerably more than a hundred megahertz of the c-band should be cleared for mobile So how much and how would you do it and how long will it take? Well, I'm gonna ask the first question to the audience. How many folks here in the last 24 hours? Getting trouble here has what have watched live linear television Okay, one two three four five six seven eight nine ten So about 15% of the audience 85% of the audience has not watched live linear television and in the last 24 hours I Don't think I'm going out on a very big stretch here linear television is dying The but the that's just my opinion. I don't It's still out there and it's still out there I mean AT&T has committed itself to linear television and you know what our CEO thinks about AT&T So but you know the linear television world is not in Expanding way there are lots of people watching television. It's funny thing is television is growing. It's amazing. It's it's more popular than ever It's Netflix And Netflix doesn't come across the c-band So we think there's a lot of ways to get more content get HD ultra HD HDR All sorts of great video programming through alternative mechanisms. So we think that Let's look at getting as much as we can out of the c-band If there's 500 megahertz there Why not look at that 500 megahertz and try to find the most narrow or least amount of spectrum that's necessary to serve the purposes You know I talked to you when folks over MPR a while back and they pointed out that they need their for Very rural very remote radio receiving locations. Well, that's very understandable. It's a great application use for c-band C-band applications. That's a relatively low data rate Audio feed you don't need to be sending a HDR stream into Manhattan on the c-band because there's all sorts of fiber options That go in Manhattan, which are probably better served a better way to provide that content So that's kind of my thought is I think we have to look at the their practicalities Okay, and there's of course a number of others Stakeholders we could have had here I don't want to channel. I'm gonna get to you in a second. I don't want to channel like national public radio too much But you know for example in terms of you know, we're done with anything. That's that's live Audio or live video and NPR has already been set filings at the international entire national public radio system 475 stations Realized for and almost entirely live, you know programming on those 475 earth stations many of which are rural and small town areas, but but Ross is here So so Ross is is that right? Are we almost done with? with live news and sports and and and your man more specifically your member or less rhetorically your members if T-Mobile pays the bill or Verizon or AT&T can they switch over fairly quickly to and to rely entirely on fiber and KU band for example Well again 90 million Households today we're seeing video service So I mean you you might look at the trends and the trends might be decreasing But by no stretch in imagination are people going to be giving up on linear video service anytime soon And you think that a question of do people want to get it over the top or get better broadband service or get Video programming linear video programming. It's not an either or question It's they want both and they don't want to you know And and if you told them you're no longer going to get video programming in exchange for the promise of higher broadband speeds I don't think many people would take that today and and while there may be Multiple options in in an urban area to be getting the highest speed Broadband services wirelessly It's not the same in rural America speeds are far far slower in rural America And you know this puts a real significant risk of cutting off rural America entirely if we're talking about giving up 200 300 400 the entire band and the entire C band and the satellite business and C band is actually growing not shrinking They're new customers because there are so many new in VPT outlets that want this programming And that's how they receive the linear as well as the other types of programming is often to the C band so Is SCS? What does SCS come down on? The portion of the band that could be cleared entirely Well more video distribution We have said that we can clear with 100 megahertz plus guard band Within 18 months to three years, but just can't find a way to do it any faster or more than that faster Yeah, personally, I think I mean I agree with the need and you know, I fall towards the future of streaming of course I mean personally I cut the cord and you know, I don't need to satellite I just get it over the internet But the rural areas can't do that because they can't get internet The the issue I take I think with the the mobile industry's comments on this is that this band is not Necessarily friendly for rural areas for mobile is really small cell in in urban areas So you got to clear everything just to make urban work and that's that's really crazy If we don't take advantage of that and use that asset and resource more efficiently to offer rural broadband I mean the end of the day 95% of our of internet traffic still goes over fixed connections So I can't just replace a broadband connection today. That's too slow to actually stream on so we don't we can't get that And we really are stuck with a linear feed into a lot of those rural areas for that reason alone But I can't replace it with a mobile product with this band either in those rural areas So not to be disingenuous, but we have to have a really balanced approach here because 5g is not going to be on this band out in rural areas fundamentally. It's not what we expect What about kind of as a follow-up to this I mean part of what I finally recall correctly part of the original Intel sat and Intel proposal was that the Commission could authorize Private market deals to clear C band only in big cities, you know only in metro areas Because that's probably you know, that's a quote obviously where it's much more valuable to mobile carriers who want the capacity to densify You know their networks where there's high traffic high arpu And that would avoid the that would avoid the rural problem So with that is that something the FCC should do should they just should they authorize if they're going to go out private market deals Allow the market deals to just be where the value is highest for mobile Chris I would say look at all of America the nice thing about the situation mobile broadband I can tell you at T-Mobile. I spent an order amount of time working and get in broadband to rural America I have spent a lot of time working and trying to get sites up and work packed Montana Serving an Indian reservation And it uses low band spectrum. It also uses mid band and I know we would definitely be looking at using all the spectrum We have available on the site the nice thing about when you buy these radios is Not only does it support, you know one regular band, but it normally supports a whole plant a whole canopy of bands Including AWS band or PCS band or you know to five or hopefully in the future three seven to four two so when the equipment stair be So it'd be possible to be put at the use so I would focus primarily on the bigger cities because it's going to drive the kind of scale And stuff like that. I mean that's where you get the real benefits But I want to leave out rural America You know history if it's any guide shows that when the larger carers get access to any kind of resource like that I mean it makes sense You're going to build out in the urban areas and you do some rural areas potentially because there's a public interest benefit to doing that in a public Perception benefit to serving certain rural areas, but historically large companies have not done a good job of serving rural America And I don't see this technology changing that dynamic Just you can make the money in the in the cities and it's just a different Business model. It's a different build out model. So it's really hard to for me Having worked in the rural industry for 20 years now to see how that is a real likely proposition So Russ does if we could just clear let's say above a hundred megahertz and maybe the next 200 megahertz Clear the top hundred metropolitan areas only and you know, we've we've see been in the rural areas. Does that work for you? for cable I Think you have to consider what what that actually would mean for the marketplace for Programmers who are relying on the c-band the the the programmers today are paying for the c-band through fees paid by cable and satellite providers in every single market across the country and so if you all of a sudden lop off the 50 largest markets and those providers and those cable operators are no longer paying for the c-band services And these the programmers still have their same c-band costs They're going to have to pass those costs on to somebody and those are going to be to the remaining users and Either those in rural areas that are still using the c-band are going to see their prices skyrocket Or the programmers are just going to discontinue offering that service At all and so I think the market-by-market approach I can understand certain degrees of attractiveness to that But I think you can't have that at the expense of higher prices in rural America or the discontinuation service SES talked to both its customers and to mobile Providers and just didn't see any way that that worked and so when the joint proposal came together We decided we better to have a holistic approach And avoid the market-by-market approach that that didn't seem to be viable So when you're talking about a hundred megahertz as a ball across that's nationwide nationwide Is there a I mean, I don't know if you would necessarily once you clear you're basically clearing across the board So you don't once you've done that you don't it's hard to continue to send Yeah, Chris would I mean what does that if it's a hundred megahertz what does that mean? Practically speaking in terms of mobile competition. I can go right up to the five gigahertz band. It's unlicensed. You get a thousand megahertz Why why go for a hundred megahertz? It's like the better propagation characteristics when I get a thousand megahertz out on license and I have to pay anybody I mean it just logic. I mean that's where you build equipment and stuff like that and it's You know, we should be looking at trying to get as much spectrum out of this proposal and have the incentives aligned One other thing I would observe is I got to go back to the incentive auction case Which I think was a really good success of trying to take spectrum that was used by a lot of people, you know The incentive auction case, you know, depending on how you want to look at how many receivers are out there people watching over the Intelligent 30 million 60 million TVs kind of we're watching television I guess you could say on someone on a monthly basis in this context We're dealing with that best what four or five six thousand receivers And that's actually it's a really good thing for the technology side from the fixing the problem And we're in the incentive auction six megahertz. We're looking at a thousand transmitters Here we're looking at 30 to 20. They're about to you know depending on transponders when I count on a couple birds So it is the from the engineering side The solution is more manageable in my mind It's just getting to write incentives out there. And I think Incentives in my way, I'll be clear money cash The way you get cash is you have a lot of out there a lot of options a lot of choices and Then you direct it to the right people and a hundred megahertz It's just not a lot of spectrum in my mind. I won't necessarily get that kind of Incentives, but do we do we need a hundred megahertz when we look at the context of all of the other spectrum that's becoming available? Obviously the new EBS spectrum coming in to five, which I'm sure your friends will be all over That's that's a big that's a big asset as well as the leader wave millimeter waves technology And you know millimeter waves is never gonna work in rural we know that right So we have to pick the best tool for the right job and make sure it gets into the right people's hands And you know, that's why we have all of these guys going after calf money wanting to support our proposal because they know This is the only way they could afford to be delivered broadband They don't want to we don't want to have to fight about geographic areas again like happened in CBRS Because we just are gonna end up with followed areas and nobody agreeing. So it's that's a good point I just interact so we began the CBRS the three five band Everybody say CBS. It's really a three five in began this discussion back in 2011. They're about and here We are in 2018. There's not a single three point five gigahertz device available for sale But also if you remember in the incentive auction what started in about 2010 2011 We're well through the process of getting the incentive auction complete There are two three hundred thousand devices out there for in consumers hands That are using a band. There's more than a thousand cell sites out there and we're gonna T-Mobile at least is gonna have I don't know Hundreds of millions of people At least tens of millions of people covered by the end of this year on that band So you can see when the incentives are aligned you put spectrum to its highest and best use Or we can talk about it for more panels. So I mean, I think that's that's yeah I hear a hundred megahertz. I'm wondering is that is it actually a hundred megahertz? Is there a guard band? Plus guard plus guard band of how much within a time frame We've been clear that that's within three years. That's how much we can clear. So how about how much more of the guard band? So we're talking 150 megahertz that we're clearing not just that's like The guard band is not clear That's that's what we think at the moment. So that if is there is there enough So that leaves 350 which is a much smaller space To squeeze the remaining right and it will take again more probably more satellites So a lot a lot of work a lot of expense The biggest clearing project that's ever even been right. Yeah, and I mentioned NPR I believe you know, they said that they are they are on that bottom hundred megahertz. So they'll have to move to a 36 megahertz transponder Somewhere higher up in the band. So do you imagine? all that All the activity all the you know the C band operations in that bottom hundred fifty is that all moving to Spare capacity there's no different transponders or there's no spare fiber There's no spare anything. That's the problem. That's why I would have to launch new satellites So there'll be a new satellite That's going to be very expensive and that's going to take time and a lot of planning that would need to be done But it's going to be it's I mentioned a number of different tools that SES has Decided would be part of the toolkit, but that includes Regrouping traffic adding additional satellites upgrading reception a lot of filtering mitigation techniques and Relocation and fibering that's the most expensive in many ways and the most difficult to do So that and very very costly especially where there's no fiber I Haas can add to that but But these details are important to kind of to to understand I think the proposal that's for that has been put forth Has not gone into this level of you know You know has not gone into the level of specificity necessary in order to you know properly evaluate What would be the result of trying to do this and how existing users would deal with those Consequences and they're very concerned. Yeah. Yeah, we're hearing from them all the time exactly the filtering the costs the dish size Compression that we use these are all costs and we haven't really focused a lot on this But you know, how does that type of those costs get reimbursed? What is eligible for reimbursement who makes the decisions for that reimbursement all of that stuff is really critical to to understand In order to make a for the Commission to make an informed decision Decision-making process to me and and I have some concerns about what I'm hearing here because This the spectrum clearing idea whether it's a hundred megahertz or five hundred megahertz It really does seem like a plan to put Spectrum in the hands of the big three wireless mobile wireless providers to relieve congestion and capacity issues in urban areas So we're talking about a nationwide plan to serve Three carriers serving discreet. I mean basically the coasts of the country and you know discreet other cities But leaving out the whole middle of the country that right now by the maps that we have seen Don't have a lot of interference or wouldn't have interference concerns. So maybe it just doesn't The idea of getting service to all Americans that plan does not Meet that just say I don't want to only be picking on the satellite folks because I you know, no, that's okay I mean the other plan has a lot of questions as well I mean, is it feasible in order to kind of do some type of sharing In the existing band, you know between the spaces that that that you know existing earth stations aren't using I mean we there is a lot of video programming that is being offered down there and while in one location Somebody may not be using every single service. They sometimes decide. I'm going to carry this programming that I wasn't carrying before Or the programming vendor that they have decides to go from one satellite provider to another and using different Transponders and so how are we going to be able to respond to that in a way that will not limit choice I mean if you're You know and so and and and what information is a cable operator going to have to provide in order to tell Other users what it's what it's doing and when it gets updated And what happens when there's interference from this users today? There's no other users of the C-band. That's creating interference. You do not consumers Do not lose service as a result of your C-band service getting having interference What we are talking about now is creating That possibility and perhaps happening a lot what are going to be the mechanisms in order to resolving that are we gonna Have to file a letter with the FCC in order, you know and ask the FCC to resolve this You know a day before the Super Bowl is about to come on because because all of a sudden somebody just Made a mistake in terms of how they're operating their their service So I mean I don't want to you know both of these ideas have their Issues that need to be aired out and we need to fully understand one one thing I was going to ask anyway, just since you already mentioned was in terms of capacity for For C-band that you know Comcast I think has been pointing out that there you know We maybe just at the beginning of of an effort to expand The resolution of television toward 4k and I know you have concerns with next other different concerns in next-gen TV But isn't that a part of next-gen TV is that it will be potentially higher resolution which will take up more capacity on satellites? I mean absolutely. I mean that's that's where things are migrating towards HD to 4k And a lot of that all the services today other than a very small number of video services are are at most offering HD and 4k can be take up twice as much capacity then Then HD while there may be more Capacity well there may be better compression that can be employed to mitigate some of that increase We're talking about a Significant increase in the amount of C-band that would be required if you know 2000 channels all of a sudden went from offering service in HD to 4k One thing I want to come back. I think probably maybe starting with Chris, but I'm sure everyone will have a view Because I know you know I'll pick on Chris because T-mobile has been very outspoken on this on this proceeding Even before the proceeding right? So but one thing that that we haven't talked about much here that T-mobile's Pointed out is this whole question of I mean what's fairly unprecedented if it is what the Commission proposes next week Is it the is that this clearing and reallocation of spectrum will be will be done through private market deals? Potentially, you know private negotiations or a private auction so T-mobile has suggested that voluntary market deals are inadequate and that And so I'm wondering why is that I mean should the FCC mandate the clearing of a certain number of megahertz or Should it go toward an auction, you know a traditional auction or incentive auction mechanism? I mean what should it be doing different if you don't think? Private market deals are working well as I'm sure if people have kind of picked up my hints I think the incentive auction process works well in the 600 megahertz context and a lot of the same factors Issues between the convencies incentives technology issues Exists in this context as well, but actually in a lesser degree lesser scale I would disagree with Michelle slightly in the sense that the C-band transition is going to be a less complex process than the 600 megahertz Transition or even a 700 megahertz DTV transition, right? You're not converting people from analog to digital You know hundreds of millions of you know viewers of my dad at the end of the day We're dealing with a couple different transmitters up in the sky With two potentially three entities and a couple thousand sites that you know are being focused on as receiving Or maybe you know 10,000 sites. We're not dealing with millions of sites now Obviously it has cascaded ripple effects throughout the entire ecosystem of video delivery Which is no ifs ands or buts about that But whether it's last mile for a television broadband television distribution for the 600 megahertz context or the middle mile we're seeing here There are different ways to deal with it and we think that incentive auction process is probably a pretty good way to be Looking at ways of dealing with this because it has the mechanisms of licensing issues You have the rulemaking procedures you have our reimbursement funds you could deal with you can see spread it or spread the spread the wealth around for lack of a way to say it so that it definitely helps to have a government entity to be out there to Service the arbitrator to ensure that things get done, you know a good example T-Mobile we're doing private deals and 600 megahertz. We don't make 700 megahertz in a like But at the end of the day clearing the spectrum is not solely reliance on private deals It's an incentive to help things go first a faster But you do have a you know the FCC out there saying okay by you know July 3rd 2020 The trend the transition has to get done. So it helps to have both. What about speed to market? I mean the TV incentive auction now I know it was the first time an incentive auction had ever been held But you know it was you know at least a six-year process Wouldn't private market deals, you know work much faster? You would think so But that's not necessarily always the case because you know even in the best case private market situation You're going to have a lot of people who may not necessarily feel they benefited from the private transaction Who will put up a snake? So That's very challenging I think And it's an opportunity for everyone's voice to be heard taken into account and you have to see to make decisions on I think that is very helpful. So I mean my question I guess is you know So you guys are going to be unhappy with not everybody getting 100 megahertz each Right, you know, that's that's I think what all the 5g 5g operators are saying and I mean there's diminishing return You can't we can't go too far move the line too far up or the satellite the tv industry simply can't operate the way They do today So I guess my real question is like if it's only going to be 100 usable and 150 cleared Is it really worth it if if nobody's going to be happy with only getting like a 20 megahertz channel? Or having a heck of a fight to get a larger chunk of that in the city I mean that's I don't I don't think we've seen on the record That there's anything that that I mean they're very reliant on on what is Up in the sky and on the ground. I don't I don't see how we can get the amount of spectrum I know the scc has been disappointed by not getting what hopefully more but the reality is we have to protect this investment Part of the issue here is that this is shared spectrum So unlike the tv broadcast exclusive licenses because it's shared among the satellite operators here It makes it difficult if not impossible to do the traditional incentive auction Akin to what was done in the tv broadcast space So therefore The consortium approach would allow an incentive like auction to be had on a market basis It could be a market deal. It can be done a lot of different ways But it will determine how much spectrum the private entities want For mobile use and it will facilitate getting that done very fast So it could I I disagree with chris in terms of speed Unlike how long the whole tv broadcast incentive auction or some of the previous auctions which often took as long as 10 to 13 years This could be done within six months I would point out the 600 megahertz tv spectrum is actually very much shared Tell that to lptv guys who got no money Initially they they were five thousand lptv translators out there who many of them made quite a stink About the fact that they didn't receive any compensation The number of broadcast auxiliary service these wireless microphones that we're using Probably don't have licenses that are wireless microphones that operate in the uhf band and they're I can tell you I've I sent out from under my name hundreds of letters telling them they had to shut their wireless microphones off I can tell you how many people sent letters back to me saying I want cash for that So there is a lot of there is going to be shared spectrum and again It comes down to you're going to find somebody's going to benefit their front transaction And then other people who don't benefit feel like they need off to also benefit and when the fcc policy makers are in that role You know it comes out a little bit easier for the public good The fcc can still be an arbitrator in in this whole and they will be of course They're talking about licenses on both sides and important customers the whole video programming market here in the us So I think they would be the arbitrator of this but unlike tv translators or Microphones they haven't made billions of dollars of investment and they don't have to do Hundreds of millions of dollars of relocation and not not being moved to new spectrum They're getting squeezed to less spectrum, which is very different a lot of lost opportunity costs You want to ask I guess one last question and then go To the audience because I I don't think I've picked on jamie enough so So I just want to you know kind of playing devil's advocate and and chris kind of alluded to this earlier when he mentioned Five gigahertz unlicensed The mobile industry is bullish on using millimeter wave you know Verizon someone from Verizon is here. They're using 28 Gigahertz sort of so millimeter wave is 28 gigahertz and above the spectrum frontier They're going to use some of that for fixed wireless four or five g So why can't wisps and and other small and rural isps jills members rely on millimeter wave spectrum? Or even just on you know Stick with your unlicensed uh in the future. Yeah, I mean unlicensed Obviously, we're I mean if you go to a tower sites you're out of capacity already So to your to your point, you know, you're at you're almost at you know, 700 megahertz right now a little bit less But uh It's it's you're already getting noise at those sites because it's almost self interference at that point So wisps are out of capacity the telcos don't want to use unlicensed spectrum. They want regulatory certainty um reality with millimeter wave and is it's great and urban it just fundamentally is not going to get the job done In foliage when you go to lower elevations on utility poles or rooftops And and hike in higher capacity areas just even light residential You've some simply you're not going to be able to get through the foliage with the reliability and the speeds that we need We know that five gigahertz penetrates Pretty well not well enough to give us non-line of site service So going down with the experience that we've had with 2.5. We know obviously going lower in spectrum is better It gives us the reliability that is needed and the non-line of site performance So we absolutely are finding a fixed wireless It is all about the mid band for us to be able to get enough penetration In the residential areas which are all about foliage So right now you simply cannot easily provide any near line of site or non-line of site Service in rural areas and we can't do that without getting more spectrum And we need some regulatory certainty to do it The millimeter wave is a great answer for the cellular industry in small cell and probably Backhaul for 5g as well, but it's certainly not the answer for residential areas Yeah, you know, and I know that even from the tv white space deployment We were involved in Which has been done now or is mostly done up in The Maryland panhandle near western virginia the deep creek area and even though it's it's it's a rural And rugged area people live in clusters of housing, but those clusters are heavily lots of trees And and and so on So that would be needed Anything on that joe or can we well the other thing I would just say is the distance that need to be Covered in rural areas. I mean you're going to have those clusters But a lot of the areas aren't so clustered together and you just can't get the distance We'd need to really have it as a rural solution Yeah, I mean typically we see, you know 10 mile needs in in the rural world and there's going to be some foliage You're not always going to be able to hit that unless we definitely can't do it with 5 gigahertz It just doesn't have the propagation that we need You know in the licensing areas for a millimeter wave right now are also Very large All right, so how about We have time for some some questions. Definitely tell us You know who you're with who you are who you're with and thank you I'm David bain with technology safety council. I also happen to serve on the IEEE and TIA satellite engineering standards committee My question is Has there been any any discussion about Use of any of the breakthrough Technologies that have come to light recently that Provide a degree of mutual transparency between conventional and conventionally modulated Signals and any of the new technologies that especially Exactly in the lower mid band provide mutual transparency in other words why why not Why not keep The legacy services in a conventionally modulated way and use the new technologies for the new services So that they won't interfere. I'm talking about transpositional modulation and full duplex and a couple of others. Thank you I know yeah any How's can you I can take that so In fact, that is one of the one of the tools in the toolbox is that we we're looking at compression But these things also Have have standards to be set. They have the the standards. I've not been fully fleshed out for higher Our compression that is one area It's like I said one of the tools in the toolbox to to be able to do what you're what we would like What we are proposing is to go into compression into into higher order modulation to to be able to do more with less Having said that the satellite services just like was describing and I hope you have to answer Get in discussion. They are very highly sensitive. So certain types of modulation are difficult to achieve because of the the Very low signal levels that we receive from satellite. So we don't have the luxury Like we do in terrestrial services to to to go to to be aggressive But having said that in the past few years, we have things have gone a lot better But still not to the point where we can you know Push it as much as you you have in mind, but it's moving in that direction and that's one of the one of the tools Thank you. I'll add uh, I'm also an i-trip lead member for the president of our student branch I'm going to geeky here We're going to go for terrestrial purposes. We will use every coding technique every modulation scheme And I'm sure we'll find a way for like nasa mimo or other transposition lean Schemes to use that up and theoretically call them Other other questions or comments out there Yes Turn it away. Yeah Hi, steve karan lerman center. I'm wondering if you guys could address Sort of along the lines of last question about standards The 3.7 to 3.8 band is part of band 43 for lte And this is really for jamie and chris to kind of address How does standards affect whether this is something you're interested in whether you need an lte? It uh, you know to operate. I know you're not doing that in in the uh in the 600 megahertz band But how does that sort of affect your your policy direction? Thanks I would point out actually the it's just band 41 It's a 40 43 and it actually goes from four seven down below three Well, 43 dedicated is 3700 to 3800 but nobody nobody's allocated above 3800 anywhere in the globe yet So it you know, I keep hearing 3700 to 4200 is the 5g band. I it's fabricated It doesn't exist globally right now. Yeah, exactly and the the challenge is once you have if you have a Band class that serves part of the band you kind of need to serve all of the band And so if it spans down you you do that I mean, it it's a very fair point though to the to making this A manufacturable deployable operational product quickly those of us that are working on cbrs technology Are ready to adapt quickly So I mean this is something that I think is near and dear for the fcc is how fast can we do something? Assuming that there's a good spectrum sharing or a good spectrum clearing plan So we certainly know equipment wise, you know, the whole industry is kind of rallying towards this part of the band and The rf and etc. I mean the costs can be You know, extraordinarily aggressive as a result of getting the volume in that space My general observation is when people spend money spectrum gets put to use People don't spend money spectrum Like wi-fi Oh, but no, no, no, it's the every you know, everyone puts money and wi-fi is heavily invested Everybody invests intel call comm and stuff like that But wi-fi if you remember was available in the early 90s and wasn't invested upon because no one spent money Okay, um Yeah, right right here So peter flinn from via said again. So this is a fascinating discussion Um, and and it really boils down to value and we've mentioned value in a couple of places which means money Okay, it boils down to money. Okay And i'm trying to reconcile because my my wonderful colleagues in the satellite industry Um have floated the number of 15 billion dollars to clear 100 megahertz And I haven't seen anybody from the cellular industry rush to grab that deal just yet Okay, but but that but that number's been floated and it said and it said and it said on that expectation Just a second to say instead of that expectation But I haven't seen anybody from the from the carrier side come in and say Yeah, I got to get me some of that, you know that that they think the value is anywhere close to what the the the current Occupiers of that spectrum are expecting out of that spectrum So and and I and I and the problem that I see is that in that discussion It's a it's a I got to clear the band in order to achieve the value that you want to achieve And that means that I'm trading off this value for that value And that value has to be more than this value. Otherwise, there's no deal, right very simple. Okay When I'm hearing on the unlicensed side is a completely different story. They're now looking to clear the bands They're not looking to substitute a value for another value They're looking the unlicensed band is looking to add value By higher utilization of the band without interfering with the existing value So first of all, let's not call it unlicensed, please Because it will not be a license shared use shared use. Okay. Thank you shared use And so I'm trying to understand there's a fundamental difference in the economic story that's being told here between It's either he wins or he wins versus its shared use and we keep the value we have And and why is that why is that not the fundamental question here? That's a fair point Jamie. Yeah, I mean, I'll I'll take a stab at it I mean that that was why we put the petition in in the first place because you know, we did a study Actually, we partnered together with google and and did a lot of work on trying to look at the ground We talked to the ap tried to find out, you know, and and you know, how much spectrum do you use when you're Sending a radio channel like well, okay, this dish is only running on 23 megahertz. Okay. That's underutilized The sky is very full transponders are but there's opportunity So we believe that that was going to be a situation where spectrum sharing was probably more of an imperative because Spectrum clearing is not an option here across the whole band and I think we know it So is a portion good enough and I I I asked the same question because I think for ryzen's Obviously spending a ton of time on millimeter wave. I don't really know where they sit on this topic AT&T has stayed viciously quiet and then now we have 2.5 gig EBS licenses coming to market as well since all of this came out. So a lot has changed in the last year But you know, that's that's why we filed this originally this way was we felt that spectrum sharing and you know, I think Rachel Bender put it really well the other day. It's like gone are the days That spectrum clearing can be done easily and now we're in a world of spectrum sharing So I I do want to spend the time to get this technologically right And I do want to spend the time to make sure that we don't waste or ruin opportunities that they need, you know For the day before the Super Bowl There are tools that do that and we don't want to put an undue burden But this was also free spectrum given to the satellite industry I think it's incumbent on them as the incumbent to at least Let everybody know exactly what's being utilized and coming up with a system to do that It's very difficult to argue with that and I think that that's where the FCC is likely going to they're committed to Doing the database getting a look at what is is is out there because if we don't categorize that then How am I supposed to trust what the real value is of what needs to be cleared or what is underutilized? Yeah, that's a point. I think it goes all the way back to the beginning of Andy's proposal where he showed The reason we're talking about clearing For mobile at least in the bottom of the band is because it would be extremely challenging for for mobile to share The you know, there's vacant capacity across the entire c-band but for mobile to share that With fixed satellite very challenging. Maybe at some point it can be done in certain places But it won't wouldn't be ubiquitous coverage would have to be here here and here whereas Fixed wireless because it's sectorized it can point that directional antennas can Squeeze in between and so the analogy is very much to the same way that everybody the mobile carriers and Everybody else plans to use citizens band the band below cbrs By working around the navy the navy doesn't change what it does It's very concerned, of course And and still hasn't necessarily signed off on everything But ultimately they don't change what they do you work around them and use the empty capacity and that's That's the thrust of the of the fixed wireless Proposal here. You just have to be very clear that they're very These earth stations are very sensitive to interference It's a bit like a vegetable garden Some things pair well together in the garden other things you can't put the potatoes next to the cucumbers or whatever it might be So you have to be really careful of what you plant next to each other in the garden, right? But at the same time, I mean even the itu agrees like the the basically you can't put anything today In today's rule you get 500 megahertz full band full arc and you have to be about at least 70 kilometers away Like that is you know, that's for co-channel operation It's still pretty aggressive in my opinion, but especially for unused channels You know the itu studies are you know say we can get way way closer several kilometers And obviously we have to respect the the receiver figure on these and you know We don't dispute that at all But that's what we need to work together on because I just don't think there's any other way to get through this cause wants to I think it's it's uh, it's too simplistic. I mean, I appreciate where the Fixed wireless guys are coming from but the I can't overemphasize the sensitivity of satellite signals and there are proven cases that have happened I can give you a picture now that the world cup is going on There was a case in bolivia back in the world cup in 2006 I believe where they allocated the adjacent bound to ymax and they blasted the whole country While watching a soccer game and everybody went berserk So interference it's it's it's too simplistic the thinking. Oh, we'll just work around you The premise of satellite services does not afford. I mean, you have a pristine service like i'm talking Five nines that people have come to rely upon And then to try to to play with it and try to pollute the spectrum with another type of service Right now while we are talking about 5g. I think to be completely Misguided I mean here we have we have a pristine service that is being provided We are trying as as as the current users who have been using it for 50 years We're trying to make way for other services And and then we are we are we are flexible We understand the speed that the of the that the That the mobile side or the 5g operators want But at the same time we have we have a set of constituents that we need to protect And they are key constituents They are broadcasters or people that we rely rely upon and that's what I'd like to say I think Andy may want to uh Yeah, just yeah, and I agree with us, you know, it needs to be protected But I would point out that they're already existing immediately adjacent to one band that's used for point to multi-point 50 watt plus fixed services. You're already Operating immediately adjacent to that service on one side But even more amazingly immediately adjacent on the next side are airplanes that point radars down To measure the distance to the ground flying directly through your satellite beams and you But but the point the point is you're able to you're saying that you have five nines reliability You're able to do that in the presence of this aircraft interference and you're doing it by filtering It's it's it's exactly the same situation that we would say if we're gonna do, you know adjacent channel Point to multi-point it's filtering So you either can or you can't uh operate in the presence of adjacent band interference and apparently you can I don't know. Oh, yeah, yeah, obviously as a representing small cable obviously we're actually the users Whereas these two are talking about Well, you know how their proposals will impact us, you know From our perspective, you know channel sharing Maybe theoretically costless, but in reality, it's unlikely to be and the problem with it is there's there is no Means currently to get reimbursed for those costs I mean and that's that's that's a problem with the proposal and I think that with the satellite Proposal or you know, uh, you know the question really is is How much money will be raised and what cost will be reimbursed and there's been a lack of Detail on those points. I mean for smaller operators who don't have fiber backhaul Available to them already Would require a 10 to 15 mile Fiber uh to to be deployed to them which can cost a million dollars And these small systems may serve a a few hundred subscribers The cable operator themselves cannot afford To pay for that that money will have to if this plan Is going to discontinue service or in some ways impact it those costs have to be recouped somewhere And it would be helpful to see some details on exactly what would be reimbursed and what would it be Sounds like an incentive We only have a couple more minutes, but if These two here could just one after the other and then we'll have to do a quick Quick response no speeches and then we'll be done Hi, Nicholas Dale. I'm an industry analyst and I think we darted around the question But what does 5g mean for each of your constituent communities and end users? So, uh, three really quick things one. I want to thank michelle for the phrase A traditional incentive auction that incentive auctions have now reached that status of being old and established the I will point out we did lose signal to a in the middle of a super bowl game and despite The state of the world today. I don't think we can blame it on the fact that we lost a live stream Super bowl even a super bowl the most watched content out there But to the question about the value proposition If this spectrum was worth And I'm just taking this number to because the math works easy 30 cents a megahertz pop Which is far less than than any of the current commercial bands are worth 100 megahertz would be worth 10 billion dollars 500 megahertz would be worth 50 billion dollars That's the kind of money that is at play here and the value created from being able to reallocate this It's not a comment on what the costs to reallocation are going to be. It's just to say there's quite a lot of value here created Okay, so any Rapid fire responses to those I just wanted to know with respect to what russia before definitely the consortium would reimburse all costs For for the users, but it kind of depends everybody has to say what their cost would be and we haven't seen the cost yet So that would be but and who would be able to participate on the consortium because I think there's been a little lack of clarity over Who would be a member of it and would there be user representation on that consortium in determining? What is going to be reimbursable? Understood, okay, and if carriers are paying 10 billion, you know Hopefully there's enough for cost But I appreciate the sentiment Clear on that Care about our customers. Yes Any final points here on the panel? Yeah, I mean I want to touch on the cost question as well I mean If you actually look at the numbers when it comes down to to mobile, you know How much does it cost per gigabyte as a consumer and versus what you pay on broadband? Still there is today a 50 x to 100 x more cost that you pay to the mobile side So it's not to bash mobile what it's to say is that I cannot participate in the fixed wireless side in Rural areas and places that are you can't afford fiber. It can't afford those kind of dollars per megahertz per pop Um So, you know, this is where we look at this and go all right We have to look at this as some form of infrastructure that's opportunistic Especially if it's in areas that we want to avoid following out In traditional mechanisms and obviously nobody wants to wait for secondary You know transactions here That's what it's going to take if we want to think about rural america getting solved We can't think about it in dollars per megahertz per pop in cities. Yeah, absolutely That that's what it's going to be but that's you know, once when we get out the rural It's it's a very different situation. We talked about broadband. It's a very different situation Yeah And actually an event we had earlier this year was the title was spectrum as infrastructure for rural broadband Thinking that you know, so it's the it's a public resource And how we allocate it is a values question in terms of are we going to get these Broadband services out to everyone in the country or not Can't always be particularly when you're talking about a public resource Can't always be just based on what might be most profitable in particular places All right, well, we're a little bit over time, but this was fascinating Background for this whole debate which will be going on and on this year. Thank you Thank you all