The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released a draft Policy Statement, "Principles for Promoting Efficient Use of Spectrum and Opportunities for New Services." This action builds on the FCC's April 2022 Notice of Inquiry, which considered whether and the extent to which the FCC may regulate both the transmitter and receiver components of wireless systems and the resulting impact on spectrum management. The approach in the Policy Statement is the FCC's way of finding a path toward better management of spectrum sharing and coexistence without resorting to the direct regulation of receivers.
The Policy Statement aims to address three main areas of concern: first, the increasingly noisy radiofrequency (RF) environment; second, a recognition of the shared responsibilities that both transmitters and receivers have in reducing the impact of harmful interference; third, the need for robust data on the operations of both transmitters and receivers when making spectrum management decisions.
Noisy RF Environment. While acknowledging the myriad of factors that contribute to a noisy RF environment and the resulting harmful interference, the FCC shied away from the expectation of 100% service guarantees. Instead, interference protection for particular servicers would vary, with some receiving higher levels of service reliability than others. Thus, the FCC does not appear inclined to adopt a uniform or absolute expectation of service availability, reasoning that doing so could undermine the efficient use of spectrum resources.
Shared Responsibilities Among Transmitters and Receivers. The FCC plans to proactively support "good neighbor" policies that are designed to promote coexistence among spectrum services. For transmitters, the FCC will continue to regulate emissions via its service rules to ensure out-of-band emissions are minimized to the greatest extent practical, including potential design features that would aid in interference mitigation. In a warning to receiver manufacturers, the FCC said operators and users should not assume that receivers designed for their original RF environment will be categorically protected. Instead, receiver designers were encouraged to mitigate undesired signals by technical and design improvements, such as digital filtering, antenna design, and dynamic frequency selection.
Potential Disclosure Requirements for Needed Data. Moving forward, the FCC will consider whether to require transmitters and receivers to disclose relevant information and system characteristics associated with particular services. With respect to transmitters, the relevant information could include data on spectrum mask, emission type, power level, and antenna gain/power/pattern. Receiver manufacturers might be expected to disclose details on filter masks, interference resiliency, receiver selectivity, intermodulation rejection, noise figure/factor, and signal-to-interference-noise (SINR) requirements.
Last, the FCC will explore in future rulemaking the possibility of employing interference limits policies in particular spectrum bands. Such an approach would require further study of the particular bands and services at issue, including technical considerations and the rights and protections that might attach to incumbents and new entrants.
Although not binding, the Policy Statement makes clear that the FCC will be disinclined to take action to protect receivers that are not designed with good engineering practices and with consideration of the spectral environment. We expect that the draft will be adopted at the FCC's April 20 Open Meeting without substantive changes.