FCC's Wireless Broadband Access Task Force Seeks Public Comment on Task Force Report.

From the report:

On March 8, 2005, the Commission’s Wireless Broadband Access Task Force (Task Force) released its Report to the Commission containing its findings and recommendations. The Task Force hereby seeks comment on the Wireless Broadband Access Task Force Report. We request that interested parties submit written comments on the specific findings and recommendations in the Report and we welcome comments from all interested parties, including, but not limited to, academia, private industry, consumers, and all levels of government. The Report was drafted by FCC staff and was not voted on or approved by the Commission. Accordingly, neither the Report nor any of the recommendations contained therein necessarily reflect the views of the Commission.

The Public Notice is available here (only in .doc or .pdf format):

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-610A1.doc
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-610A1.pdf

And the actual report is available here (only in .doc or .pdf format):

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-257247A1.doc
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-257247A1.pdf

The Docket Number is: 04-163

And you can file your comments at http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/upload_v2.cgi.

The main contact for further information concerning this report is:

Lauren Van Wazer (202-418-0030).

The Wireless Broadband Access Task Force Released this
Overview of their Report. The WBATF website contains additional information on the group. The website is: "devoted to wireless broadband issues...in order to provide consumers and industry with useful information regarding wireless broadband services, and to invite further participation by the diverse and dynamic wireless broadband community in relevant FCC proceedings." Having looked over the website myself, I've found it fairly sparse at the moment and lacking in the useful information it's supposed to contain.

After months of study, the FCC staff who pulled together the report "learned" the following:

• Wireless broadband technologies play a unique role in bringing broadband to everyone, everywhere, at any time.
• There is a range of innovative wireless broadband technologies
  available to consumers.

• Wireless broadband technologies improve the quality of consumers' lives.
• Significant growth in the wireless broadband market can be expected.

Not exactly the most innovative findings... The report did use
some of the work that CUWiN's pulled together over the years (alas,
they didn't properly attribute the graphics). The report focuses on
incumbant telecom service provision models while short-shrifting less
costly, more innovative approaches. However, the report does mention that "the American public benefits most when regulatory policies enable consumers and businesses to fully tap the benefits of emerging wireless technologies" -- which would seem to support maximizing the different business models working on broadband service provision.

The report very much pulls all the punches -- concluding with the
following (rather uninspiring) recommendations concerning license-exempt equipment:

• Promote voluntary frequency coordination efforts by private industry.
• Promote voluntary industry "best practices".
• Consider increasing the transmission power limits in certain bands.
• Work closely with license-exempt WISPs to address, on a proactive basis, their needs relating to FCC policies and regulations.
• Consider hosting a WISP forum on an annual or periodic basis.
• Work closely with the wireless broadband industry to ensure that,
  where necessary, the FCC addresses unlawful intentional violations, such as jamming and power boosting, of the technical rules applicable to unlicensed wireless broadband devices.

Their licensed spectrum recommendations were just as bad, focusing on status quo profit-maximizing solutions instead of ones that maximized the public good or increased public access to the public airwaves:

• Improve access to licensed spectrum: 1. Explore innovative ways to put valuable spectrum on the market; 2. Expedite the transition of the Digital Television (DTV) spectrum [700MHz] for advanced wireless services; 3. When adopting spectrum band plans, consider new flexible configurations.
• Increase the technical and regulatory flexibility of FCC rules: 1.
  Adopt more "flexible use" policies that remove
  impediments to the use of new and advanced wireless broadband technologies and applications; 2. Consider providing incumbent licensees in restrictive bands with additional flexibility, either by granting significant new flexibility to existing licensees or by using creative market-based auction mechanisms; 3. Further facilitate secondary market arrangements that provide wireless broadband service providers with easy access to licensed spectrum.

• [This one very much caught my eye given the recent battles over anti-competitive state laws already passed and under consideration in roughly two-dozen states]Apply a pro-competitive, innovative framework -- one that imposes the
  fewest regulatory barriers at both the federal and state level -- to
  wireless broadband services to maximize consumer benefits: 1. Consider classifying wireless broadband as an "information
  service"; 2. Consider examining whether wireless broadband constitutes an "interstate service" so as to minimize potential
  regulatory hurdles at both the federal and state level; 3. Clarify the
  scope of the deregulatory principles applicable to Commercial Mobile
  Radio Services (CMRS); 4. Consider clarifying the scope of state
  authority in setting "other terms andconditions" relating to wireless broadband services so as to ensure that there is consistent and minimal state regulation of nationwide wireless broadband deployment.

The report takes a quick poke at network convergence; but these recommendations too are rather "blanched":

• Consider, in ongoing and upcoming proceedings, the impact of the increasingly rapid convergence of wireless broadband with other
  broadband technologies and services.

• Evaluate, on an ongoing basis, whether it is time to streamline
  the regulatory treatment that applies to different broadband access technologies and services.

• Look for opportunities to remove outdated rules, and accord an
  increasingly flexible regulatory environment for service providers, to
  facilitate the convergence of wireless broadband and other broadband services and technologies.

The report concludes with several calls for more rather dreary outreach recommendations:

• Continue the effective collaboration with other federal agencies.
• Collaborate more effectively with state and local governmental organizations to promote wireless broadband deployment.
• Build upon and improve the FCC's current outreach efforts with consumers, institutional users, and the industry: 1. Improve the
  FCC's analysis of the wireless broadband industry; 2. Improve outreach to the public and the wireless broadband industry to provide helpful information relating to wireless broadband.

All in all, not the most inspiring document I've seen.