Fence-Mending on the Frontier

With the World Radiocommunication Conference 2000 (WRC-2000) just four months away, the U.S. State Department in January held a meeting of government and industry representatives to make a final push toward formulating a coherent U.S. position on 3G spectrum. WRC-2000 is a key part of the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU's) effort to help develop fully interoperable 3G systems by harmonizing spectrum allocations and developing an interoperable, worldwide standard.

Some nations already have begun implementing national 3G policies and awarding spectrum for 3G services. In the short term, such pro-active initiatives might help advance international acceptance of a particular 3G approach and strengthen the negotiating position of those countries whose 3G initiatives are already under way. But these actions also might spur the development of incompatible 3G systems. That could undermine both ITU's efforts and 3G's promise of global roaming and economies of scale.

A DIPLOMATIC APPROACH ITU continues to push for harmonized spectrum and interoperable standards for 3G. As early as WRC-1992, ITU identified 230MHz of spectrum within the 1.885GHz to 2.025GHz and 2.11GHz to 2.2GHz bands for use by IMT-2000 systems and incorporated them as a footnote in its International Table of Frequency Allocations. At WRC-2000, ITU hopes to identify additional spectrum for 3G systems and global control channels to facilitate their operation and worldwide roaming capabilities.

The international community also has begun work to harmonize 3G radio and network technologies. ITU's challenge is to reconcile the standards agreed upon by the independent groups that are developing standards for specific technologies. The goal: a family of interoperable, worldwide standards. Major working groups include:

* Operator Harmonization Group (OHG), an international group harmonizing CDMA-based standards that has compiled a technical framework for countries to consider and implement as desired

* The 3G Partnership Project (3GPP), an international group created by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) that will produce technical specifications for 3G systems that evolve from GSM

* 3GPP-2, launched by the International Committee of ANSI's board of directors to help develop the technical specifications for 3G systems based on GSM/MAP and ANSI-41 architectures

* UWCC, an international consortium of more than 100 wireless carriers and vendors that support the EDGE, TDMA and WIN standards.

In December 1999, ITU took a major step in its standardization efforts when a group of its technical experts agreed on six network-related standards, the first in a series of standards to be developed this year to facilitate global roaming. Although these standards first must be approved by all ITU members before they're adopted, they represent a significant development in the standardization process.

EUROPE RAMS AHEAD Many governments have begun their own 3G initiatives in the hope of giving their approaches a head start. For example, the European community already has begun allocating spectrum for 3G systems. In 1997, the European Radio Committee (ERC) designated 155MHz of spectrum for terrestrial IMT-2000 applications and 60MHz for satellite applications to promote spectrum harmonization within Europe and to align Europe's allocations with ITU's. ERC's draft proposal for WRC-2000 allocates additional IMT-2000 spectrum, including 2.52GHz to 2.67GHz for terrestrial applications and 2.5GHz to 2.52GHz and 2.67GHz to 2.69GHz for satellite.

The European Union has adopted a decision that requires member nations to award licenses for 3G spectrum and launch 3G systems no later than the beginning of 2002. Several nations have begun this process. In March 1999, Finland became the first nation in the world to grant 3G licenses, and the United Kingdom recently published a plan for 3G spectrum auctions. Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Switzerland all expect to award licenses before year-end.

Europe's aggressive spectrum allocation and licensing initiatives might increase the likelihood that its bands will become the de facto worldwide 3G bands or at least influence them. The world community might be hard-pressed not to consider the European initiatives as presenting a fait accompli or at the very least a set of allocations that must be accommodated in any global harmonization scheme.

SEMI-UNITED STATES Rather than allocating and licensing spectrum dedicated to 3G, the United States prefers to give companies the flexibility to deploy 3G systems in a variety of bands already allocated to mobile applications.

Along these lines, in one of its draft proposals released in preparation for WRC-2000, the United States advocated identifying 1G/2G cellular bands and the remaining portions of the PCS bands not previously identified for IMT-2000. This proposal would allow those companies licensed to provide 1G/2G services to migrate to 3G in bands that might be licensed in other parts of the world for the same use.

On Nov. 18, 1999, the FCC, clearly mindful of the upcoming WRC meeting, released a policy statement for reallocating spectrum for several new uses, including 3G. The FCC said it will consider the allocation of 90MHz, a portion of which corresponded to spectrum the ITU had identified for IMT-2000, for an Advanced Mobile and Fixed Communications Service to include use by IMT-2000 systems.

Despite the release of the draft proposal and the FCC policy statement, U.S. attempts at devising a coherent IMT-2000 spectrum position have been largely unsuccessful. The January 2000 meeting represented a last-ditch effort to build a U.S. consensus. Without a spectrum consensus, the United States likely will ask the international community to create a process for reviewing candidate 3G bands and to defer the allocations until that review is complete.

The U.S. government has taken a different approach to 3G technology. It opted to take no formal position on the standardization effort and instead allow the industry to negotiate technological standards. The approach already has had some success with wireless-data services, which will help spur 2.5G. The industry also has been able to agree on a way to share proprietary information to harmonize 3G technologies.

Even so, without a clear U.S. spectrum position, it's possible that Europe's pro-active efforts will eclipse U.S. initiatives. As a result, U.S. carriers and vendors might lose an important opportunity to shape ITU's 3G work. Rather than capitulate, the United States should press the ITU to adopt spectrum allocations and technical standards that are flexible enough to accommodate both the United States and Europe. Above all, the United States should retain its government's prerogative to use spectrum domestically in whatever way best serves the U.S. public interest.