Here is GSAT response. Excellent. October 13, 2015
Via Electronic Filing
Marlene H. Dortch, Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
Re: Ex Parte Notice : Terrestrial Use of the 2473-2495 MHz Band for Low-
Power Mobile Broadband Networks – IB Docket No. 13-213
Dear Ms. Dortch:
Globalstar hereby responds to Google, Inc.'s (“Google’s”) October 10, 2015 ex parte
letter in which it suggests that wireless operations on Channel 14 represent too big and too
important an opportunity to entrust only to Globalstar.
Recently, Globalstar filed technical
data regarding a deployment of its Terrestrial Low Power Service (TLPS) technology on a
college campus in Chicago, Illinois this past summer. This data confirmed that Globalstar
can integrate TLPS operations on Channel 14 into existing Wi-Fi networks and thereby
improve the experience of all who are utilizing the network, without interfering with any of
the current uses in the band. Indeed, in a campus demonstration designed to assess data
throughput, participating client devices experienced a substantial (on average over 90%)
increase in throughput when TLPS operations on Channel 14 were implemented.
Significantly, this increase in throughput was experienced by devices operating on all four
non-overlapping 802.11 channels, demonstrating the ability of TLPS to relieve existing Wi-
Fi congestion immediately.
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We appreciate Google’s review of our recent ex parte and its recognition that this
submission “highlights that consumers would benefit dramatically if Wi-Fi Channel 14 . . .
became available for public use.”
Globalstar expected such dramatic benefits when it
petitioned the Commission almost three years ago for authority to offer this innovative new
service, while maintaining its core commitment to provide critical mobile satellite services to
the public.
TLPS will generate enormous public benefits with widespread industry
acceptance and consumer adoption, and Globalstar’s belief in the potential of this service has
compelled its efforts over the past three years, even in the face of industry opposition largely
fueled by companies that offer competing services.
Of equal importance (and seemingly lost on Google) is that the relief Globalstar seeks
is in direct response to the Commission’s request that licensed operators look for new and
innovative uses of their spectrum which have the potential for public benefit. Our petition is
in complete alignment with the Commission’s bedrock policy of providing licensed spectrum
operators flexibility that will increase spectrum efficiency by utilizing their frequencies in
ways that make possible innovative new service offerings.
Despite the Commission’s Marlene H. Dortch
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history of promoting flexibility so that consumers can benefit from these new, innovative
offerings, Google now argues – for the first time – that as a policy matterthe Commission
should force a sharing regime upon Globalstar similar to the one that the U.S. Government
voluntarily adopted for its own spectrum in the 3.5 GHz proceeding. While this tiered
sharing regime was an appropriate and agreed-upon solution in the 3.5 GHz proceeding, here
Google is advancing its self-interest by proposing to replace the Commission’s existing
flexible spectrum policies with a forced “one-size-fits-all” approach rendering licensed
spectrum subject to sharing obligations that Google itself could administer.
Google claims – with absolutely no empirical support – that it is “likely” possible to
allow general unlicensed use of Channel 14 while still protecting Globalstar’s satellite
services from harmful interference.
Google could likely make the same unsupported claim
with respect to any licensed operator’s spectrum and even to the proprietary networks of any
unlicensed operator. Taken to its logical extreme, Google’s new policy position would have
severe negative implications for competition in the wireless industry as all spectrum could
become “Google-ized” under its administration, including emerging Wi-Fi First service
offerings. What licensed spectrum operator would ever propose a new, innovative spectrum
usage solution if, to do so, it would run the risk of having its ideas controlled by Google,
resulting in the elimination of any commercial benefit and a higher likelihood of potential
interference with its core licensed services?
In addition to establishing harmful precedent, Google’s “one-size-fits-all” approach
would, at a minimum, significantly delay the dramatic consumer benefits that are otherwise
achievable in this proceeding, potentially create harm to Globalstar’s licensed satellite
services, and contravene the Commission’s sound policies promoting license flexibility and
an “all-of-the-above” approach to spectrum use . Marlene H. Dortch
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Contrary to Google’s position here, and as Commissioner Rosenworcel aptly
explained in an op-ed piece and in her recent Senate hearing testimony on the need for more
productive use of spectrum, the government should reward enterprises that develop ways to
use spectrum more innovatively and efficiently in order to create incentives for such
innovation and efficiency.
In this case, Commissioner Rosenworcel’s goals could be
achieved even without supplying the kind of spectrum “reward” she described. Here, all the
Commission needs to do is allow an existing licensed operator to use spectrum more
intensively and flexibly, a fundamental policy that was a central component of the National
Broadband Plan.
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Google attempts to justify its forced sharing regime by claiming that Globalstar would
restrict its TLPS offering to a “miniscule number of Globalstar users.”13
Nothing could be
further from the truth. As Google concedes, consumers will benefit dramatically from
Channel 14 operations, which renders illogical any claim that Globalstar would seek to limit
such benefits to a “tiny fraction” of consumers and thereby minimize the service’s
commercial potential.
The use of TLPS will not be limited to customers of Globalstar’s
satellite services, but will instead be broadly available to consumers as described below.
While Google has been rewarded extraordinarily for its own innovation and
ingenuity, it appears conveniently troubled by the fact that the public may actually have the
opportunity and willingness to pay for a higher quality wireless service from another source.
Yet, despite its position here, Google charges consumers for use of its own innovative service
offerings such as Project-Fi and Google Fiber.
In fact, unlike Project-Fi, Microsoft Wi-Fi,
or a host of other differentiated Wi-Fi based and Wi-Fi First services, Globalstar reiterates
that it has no plans to charge consumers directly for TLPS. Rather, Globalstar has
consistently stated that, in order to maximize consumer utility of TLPS and thus its
commercial value, it would enter into one or more partnerships with other companies to
leverage both their existing investment in infrastructure and their customer base. Consumers
may not need to be charged an extra fee for using TLPS at all; they may simply benefit from
an improved mobile broadband experience when using a Globalstar partner’s client device or Marlene H. Dortch
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Wi-Fi network. Moreover, as the Chicago deployment confirmed, users of all the non-
overlapping Wi-Fi channels will be better off anywhere TLPS is deployed, since the
availability of TLPS will spread users over 33% more spectrum at 2.4 GHz and thereby
reduce existing Wi-Fi congestion.
Almost three years after Globalstar filed its petition, this proceeding appears to have
the come full circle – from claims that harmful interference from TLPS would threaten the basic
Wi-Fi ecosystem to a realization that TLPS offers so much promise that this opportunity
cannot be limited to the one “miniscule” company that developed it. With its latest filing,
however, Google ignores the reality that TLPS as proposed in the NPRM17 represents the
very kind of innovative, consumer-oriented service that the Commission has long encouraged
and continues to seek. As Chairman Wheeler recently reiterated, “[C]ompetition is
paramount. It is the best assurance of industry dynamism, that opportunities for
improvements in quality and reductions in cost will be pursued assiduously, and that the
benefits will be shared with consumers.”
We urge the Commission to enable the dramatic consumer benefits made possible by
this proceeding and to move forward, without further delay, to adopt the rules it proposed
two years ago.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ L. Barbee Ponder IV
L. Barbee Ponder IV
General Counsel & Vice President Regulatory Affairs
AI
