The mmWave Coalition met with Julius Knapp, Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology and an extended OET staff representatives. The meeting was a follow-up to an ex parté filing by the Coalition on the allocations above 95 GHz. Mike Marcus led the discussion and presented the Coalition’s position on wider, contiguous allocations. Uses for communications, spectroscopy and other applications present opportunities for use of the wide mmWave+ bands, known colloquially as “EHF,” or Extra High Frequency. The FCC, balancing other interests and incumbents, issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking released as Docket 18-21 in February 2018.
The presentation by Mr. Marcus featured efforts underway internationally to promote R&D of various bands above 100 GHz. The message is that the US should be leading the development of technologies and applications for very high capacity communication links, sensing and other promising uses. In addition ex parté comments were filed by the coalition.
This area continues to evolve and, as demonstrated uses emerge, the expectation is that further allocations may be expanded to capitalize on the use of these bands.
The mmWave Coalition is continuing to advocate for smart FCC rule making for frequencies between 95 and 275 GHz where there are currently allocations, but no rules. These bands are critical to future millimeter wave technologies.
During 2018, ten organizations across the business and technology spectrum participated in the Coalition. They included: Nokia, GlobalFoundries, Qorvo, Keysight Technologies, Azbil, Nuvotronics, Virginia Diodes, American Certification Body, RaySecur and NYU Wireless.
New organizations are actively being recruited by existing members in order to create a voice from cutting edge technology companies on the importance of the frequencies between 95 and 275 GHz for the next evolution of technologies beyond 5G and that leverage millimeter wave spectrum.
In 2018, the Coalition was pleased to welcome NYU Wireless and its Director, Professor Ted Rappaport. Ted has been instrumental in advancing the millimeter wave spectrum for commercial uses. NYU Wireless along with Dr. Rappaport holds the annual Brooklyn 5G Summit every April with many multi-national organizations attending https://brooklyn5gsummit.com and pushing this next revolution of spectrum technologies.
The major focus and accomplishment for the Coalition in 2018 was to respond to the FCC’s Spectrum Horizons Notice for Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) and bringing the mmWave Coalition into fruition as a major voice with the FCC on millimeter wave matters. Three documents were submitted by the Coalition to the FCC along with two follow up in person meetings.
In those documents and meetings, the Coalition’s primary focus was to advocate for at least a few non-fragmented mmWave bands on the order of 20-40 GHz wide and for a predictable rules framework for THz Spectroscopy. The Coalition now has the FCC’s and NTIA’s attention and needs to continue this important advocacy to facilitate robust services above 95 GHz. Not only is the Coalition’s work important to achieving key policy goals, but participation in the regulatory process on this cutting edge topic also raises the profile of each member company among government and industry leaders. The Coalition’s documents filed with FCC can be found here.
The main objective of the mmWave Coalition for 2019 is to get FCC to publish a first set of rules for bands above 95GHz that is aligned with the Coalition’s goals and will provide the certainty needed to encourage more investments in these bands. In order to achieve this, we will bring forward new technical inputs that leverage the work being done by Professor Rappaport (see link) and others to help answer various key questions that FCC has issued in its NPRM.
mmWC OET Meeting
mmWC Notice of Ex Parté
Membership Page
