Review of the Commission's Rules Governing the 896-901/935-940 MHz Band

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 2, 27, 90</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WT Docket No. 24-99; FCC 25-8; FR ID 280144]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Review of the Commission's Rules Governing the 896-901/935-940 MHz Band</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In the document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) seeks comment on a proposed voluntary, negotiation-based process to transition the entire ten megahertz in the 900 MHz band for broadband use in counties where applicants and licensees reach private agreements to do so. In order to implement this proposed framework, the Commission seeks comment on whether the current 900 MHz broadband rules, such as the eligibility criteria, application requirements and procedures, licensing and operating rules, and technical requirements, are the appropriate vehicles for effectuating a ten megahertz broadband licensing framework. Additionally, pursuant to the Order, the Commission delegates to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau of the Commission the authority to modify or terminate the current freeze on certain applications in the 900 MHz band. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before May 16, 2025; and reply comments are due on or before June 16, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Electronic filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS): <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. If more than one docket or rulemaking number appears in the caption of this proceeding, filers must submit two additional copies for each additional docket or rulemaking number. Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> Contact the FCC to request reasonable accommodations (accessible format documents, sign language interpreters, CART, etc.) by email: <E T="03">FCC504@fcc.gov</E> or phone: 202-418-0530. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information on this proceeding, contact Morgan Mendenhall of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB), Mobility Division, at 202-418-0154 or <E T="03">morgan.mendenhall@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) and Order, document FCC 25-8, adopted on January 15, 2025, and released on January 16, 2025, in WT Docket No. 24-99. The full text of this document is available for public inspection at the following internet address: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-seeks-increase-broadband-services-900-mhz-band.</E> <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act.</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, a summary of this document is available on <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> 1. In 2020, the Commission realigned the 900 MHz band to make available six of the band's ten megahertz for the deployment of broadband services and technologies. To facilitate a rapid transition, the Commission adopted a negotiation-based mechanism that, if private agreements are reached, would make available on a county-by-county basis six megahertz of low-band spectrum for the development of broadband technologies and services (also referred to as “3/3” broadband because of the paired 3 megahertz spectrum), while reserving the remaining four megahertz of the band for continued narrowband operations. The Commission also implemented a framework whereby it would issue new initial licenses to applicants meeting certain eligibility requirements. The Commission also created rules that permit a 900 MHz broadband licensee to relocate mandatorily a limited percentage of covered incumbents—except those with complex systems—from the new broadband segment by paying reasonable relocation costs, including providing comparable facilities. In addition, the Commission adopted operational and technical rules to minimize harmful interference to narrowband operations. The Commission also issued an <E T="03">Order of Proposed Modification</E> regarding AAR's 900 MHz nationwide ribbon license to prevent disruptions to the railways, enhance rail safety, and fully clear a virtually nationwide incumbent from the 3/3 900 MHz broadband segment. 2. On February 28, 2024, ten entities filed a petition for rulemaking asking the Commission to adopt a framework that would increase the existing broadband allocation in the 900 MHz band by providing an option for ten megahertz broadband (or “5/5” broadband) networks in the band. Petitioners stated that this ten megahertz broadband spectrum opportunity will aid in ensuring that utilities, critical infrastructure, and business enterprise entities have access to additional capacity to support their 900 MHz private wireless broadband deployments. Under their proposed plan, Petitioners asserted that narrowband incumbents would remain protected under the existing framework in the rules and would only vacate an existing narrowband segment to allow 5/5 megahertz broadband operations if the relevant parties made a private agreement to do so. Petitioners suggested that no changes are necessary to the current harmful interference, technical, or performance requirement rules to implement 5/5 megahertz broadband operations. Likewise, Petitioners proposed that, as with the current rules, the licensee of an authorization for an 5/5 900 MHz broadband segment could be required to make any necessary anti-windfall payments to the U.S. Treasury. 3. In the NPRM, the Commission proposes to implement a framework to transition the entire ten megahertz in the 900 MHz band for broadband use and seeks comment on the eligibility criteria, application requirements and procedures, licensing and operating rules, and technical requirements, among other issues. Additionally, in the Order, the Commission delegates authority to WTB to modify or terminate the current freeze on certain applications in the 900 MHz band. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Enabling Increased Broadband Deployment in the 900 MHz Band</HD> 4. <E T="03">Band Realignment to Create a 5/5 900 MHz Broadband Segment.</E> In the NPRM, the Commission proposes to realign the 900 MHz band to create a 5/5 megahertz broadband segment that would be available on an optional and voluntary basis and in a manner that ensures the protection of incumbent and adjacent band licensees. The Commission seeks comment on whether this proposal aligns with and further advances the Commission's important goals for this band to create additional market-driven opportunities for robust broadband networks, while maintaining the narrowband option for B/ILT and SMR spectrum users. Additionally, the Commission seeks comment on whether this proposal furthers important goals of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (the Act), including improving the efficiency of spectrum use. 5. The Commission proposes to designate the 896-897.5 MHz, 900.5-901 MHz, 935-936.5 MHz, and 939.5-940 MHz segments as a Miscellaneous Wireless Communications Service governed by part 27 of the Commission's rules and add an informational reference to “Wireless Communications (Part 27)” in the Table of Frequency Allocations. The Commission seeks comment on this proposal and the conclusion that the proposed approach is consistent with the Commission's authority in section 303(y) of the Act. The Commission seeks comment on the proposal to designate the entire band for broadband operation, the costs and benefits of this proposal, and any alternative proposals, and asks commenters to further develop the record by explaining why a ten megahertz broadband segment in the band is appropriate at this time. 6. <E T="03">Voluntary, Negotiation-based Transition.</E> The Commission tentatively concludes that a market-driven, voluntary exchange process is the best approach for relocating site-based and geographic-based incumbents and further transitioning all ten megahertz in the 900 MHz band for broadband use, and seeks comment on this proposal. Additionally, the proposal in the NPRM will preserve the right to mandatorily relocate the remaining 10% (or less) of covered incumbents, if any, except for complex systems, only as it pertains to the 3/3 900 MHz broadband segment for both 3/3 900 MHz broadband licensees and 5/5 900 MHz broadband licensees. However, a 5/5 broadband applicant must negotiate a full, voluntary clearing or protection of all incumbents in the current four megahertz 900 MHz narrowband segment. The Commission seeks comment on this proposal and alternatives, such as allowing mandatory relocation across the entire ten megahertz of spectrum in the 900 MHz band under certain circumstances. The Commission ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 90k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━