Unlicensed Use of the 6 GHz Band; Expanding Flexible Use in Mid-Band Spectrum Between 3.7 and 24 GHz

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 2 and 15</CFR> <DEPDOC>[ET Docket No. 18-295, GN Docket No. 17-183; FCC 24-125; FR ID 275890]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Unlicensed Use of the 6 GHz Band; Expanding Flexible Use in Mid-Band Spectrum Between 3.7 and 24 GHz</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC) expands unlicensed very low power (VLP) device operation to the entire 6 gigahertz (GHz) band (5.925-7.125 megahertz (MHz)). The VLP devices will operate with the same power levels and other technical and operational requirements that apply to VLP devices in the U-NII-5 (5.925-6.425 MHz) and U-NII-7(6.525-6.875 MHz) portions of the 6 GHz band. These technical and operational requirements are designed to prevent the licensed services that operate in the 6 GHz band from experiencing harmful interference. The Commission's actions will provide additional spectrum for high-throughput, low latency operations for these versatile portable devices. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective May 5, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Nicholas Oros of the Office of Engineering and Technology, at <E T="03">Nicholas.Oros@fcc.gov</E> or 202-418-0636. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's <E T="03">Third Report and Order,</E> in ET Docket No. 18-295, GN Docket No. 17-138, FCC 24-125, adopted on December 11, 2024, and released on December 13, 2024. The full text of this document is available for public inspection and can be downloaded at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-125A1.pdf.</E> Alternative formats are available for people with disabilities (Braille, large print, electronic files, audio format) by sending an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or calling the Commission's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530 (voice), (202) 418-0432 (TTY). <E T="03">Regulatory Flexibility Act.</E> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended (RFA), requires that an agency prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for notice-and-comment rulemaking, unless the agency certifies that “the rule will not, if promulgated, have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.” Accordingly, the Commission has prepared a Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) concerning the possible impact of the rule and policy changes contained in the <E T="03">Third Report and Order</E> on small entities. The FRFA is set forth in Appendix B, <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-125A1.pdf.</E> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> This document does not contain new or modified information collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. In addition, therefore, it does not contain any new or modified information collection burden “for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees,” pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4). <E T="03">Congressional Review Act.</E> The Commission has determined, and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, concurs, that this this rule is “major” under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). The Commission will send a copy of the <E T="03">Third Report and Order</E> to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Introduction</HD> In 2020, the Commission adopted rules making unlicensed device access to 1200 megahertz across the 6 GHz band (5.925-7.125 GHz) more flexible, resulting in increased unlicensed device usage. These rules unleashed a torrent of new devices taking advantage of the newer Wi-Fi 6 and 6E standards to provide users across the U.S. with a better Wi-Fi user experience. More recently, in 2023, the Commission expanded 6 GHz band unlicensed use to permit an additional class of unlicensed access points—very low power (VLP) devices. VLP devices are intended to provide high data rate connections across short distances. The Commission expands unlicensed VLP device operation to the entire 6 GHz band. This will provide additional spectrum for high-throughput, low latency operations for these versatile portable devices. Specifically, the Commission's actions pave the way for these devices to use the latest standards and to take advantage of larger channels across the 6 GHz band. The Commission expects that VLP devices will be instrumental in supporting cutting-edge applications, such as augmented and virtual reality and body-worn technologies, that will help businesses, enhance learning opportunities, advance healthcare opportunities, and bring new entertainment experiences. As the Commission expands the spectrum available for VLP devices, it adopts the same power levels and other technical and operational requirements that apply to VLP devices in the U-NII-5 and U-NII-7 portions of the 6 GHz band, which are designed to prevent the licensed services that operate in the 6 GHz band from experiencing harmful interference. In this way, the Commission facilitates more intensive use of its valuable spectrum resources, thereby enabling exciting new technologies to be deployed to American consumers, while ensuring that incumbent services are protected from harmful interference. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The 6 GHz band has allocations for the Fixed Service, Mobile Service, and Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) across four sub-bands. These four sub-bands—which the Commission refers to as U-NII-5, U-NII-6, U-NII-7, and U-NII-8, respectively—are delineated based on the prevalence and characteristics of the incumbent licensed services that operate in each sub-band as denoted in table 1. Fixed microwave service licensees, specifically those operating point-to-point microwave links that support a variety of critical services provided by utilities, commercial and private entities, and public safety agencies, are the largest user group in the 6 GHz band. These fixed microwave service licensees make significant use of the U-NII-5 and U-NII-7 bands, and also operate in relatively smaller numbers in the U-NII-8 band. The microwave links provide backhaul for commercial wireless providers (such as traffic between commercial wireless base stations and wireline networks), coordinate railroad train movements, control natural gas and oil pipelines, manage electric grids, as well as carry long-distance telephone calls. <GPOTABLE COLS="4" OPTS="L2,i1" CDEF="s50,15,xs54,r100"> <TTITLE>Table 1—Predominant Licensed Uses of the 6 Gigahertz Band</TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Sub-band</CHED> <CHED H="1">Frequency range (GHz)</CHED> <CHED H="1"> Primary allocation </CHED> <CHED H="1">Predominant licensed services</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">U-NII-5</ENT> <ENT>5.925-6.425</ENT> Fixed Microwave. FSS (uplinks). </ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">U-NII-6</ENT> <ENT>6.425-6.525</ENT> Broadcast Auxiliary Service. Cable Television Relay Service. FSS (uplinks). </ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">U-NII-7</ENT> <ENT>6.525-6.875</ENT> Fixed Microwave. FSS (uplinks/downlinks). </ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">U-NII-8</ENT> <ENT>6.875-7.125</ENT> Fixed Microwave. Broadcast Auxiliary Service. Cable Television Relay Service. FSS (uplinks/downlinks) (6.875-7.075 GHz only). </ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS) and Cable Television Relay Service (CARS) operate in the U-NII-6 band on a mobile basis, and in the U-NII-8 band on both a fixed and mobile basis. Licensees use BAS and CARS pick-up stations to transmit programming material from special events or remote locations, including electronic news gathering, back to the studio or other central receive locations. Television broadcast related microwave links, such as television studio transmitter links, television inter-city relay links, and television translator relay links, operate primarily one-way point-to-point systems in the U-NII-8 band. Additionally, Low Power Auxiliary Stations ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> wireless microphones), which operate on an itinerant basis, are authorized to operate in the U-NII-8 band on a secondary basis for uses such as portable cameras, wireless microphones, cues, and backstage communications. The Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) is allocated in the Earth-to-space direction in all four sub-bands, except for the 7.075-7.125 GHz portion of the U-NII-8 band. FSS operations are heaviest in the U-NII-5 band, which is paired with the 3.7-4.2 GHz frequency band in the space-to-Earth direction to comprise the “conventional C band.” Predominant FSS uses of these frequencies include content distribution to television and radio broadcasters, including transportable antennas to cover live news and sports events, cable television and small master antenna systems, and telephone and data backhaul traffic. The 7.025-7.075 GHz portion of the U-NII-8 band also hosts feeder uplinks to Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service space stations. Additionally, portions of the UNII-7 and U-NII-8 bands are allocated for FSS space-to-Earth operations for Mobile-Satellite Service feeder links between 6.700 GHz and 7.075 GHz. In addition to these licensed incumbent services, an international footnote in the table of frequency allocations urges that the Commission takes “all practicable steps” to protect the radio astronomy service in the 6650-6675.2 MHz range from harmful interference. Finally, low-power unlicensed ultra-wideband (UWB) and wideband systems oper ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 119k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━