By Rich Heidorn Jr.

WASHINGTON — Utilities asked FERC on Thursday to lobby against a Federal Communications Commission proposal that the companies say could disrupt their mission-critical wireless communications.

Speaking on the final panel of the commission’s annual technical conference on reliability, representatives of the Edison Electric Institute and the Utilities Technology Council (UTC) urged FERC to oppose the FCC’s proposal to require utilities to share the 6-GHz wireless spectrum with unlicensed users, saying they fear it could cause interference with their communications. But wireless companies told FERC the utilities’ fears are unfounded.

Electric utilities use the spectrum (5,925 to 7,125 MHz) for point-to-point microwave links providing communications with substations, fault sensors, two-way meters and service crews. It is also used to provide situational awareness in rural areas where wireline networks are not available.

The UTC — which represents water, gas and electric utilities that use the spectrum — joined with the Edison Electric Institute, the American Petroleum Institute, the American Public Power Association, the American Water Works Association and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association in joint comments opposing the FCC’s proposal.

“Electric companies use the 6-GHz band for [supervisory control and data acquisition] and tele-protection systems that monitor and control the balance of power on the grid, which must operate constantly in real time with sub-second latency to avoid system instability and power disruptions,” J.P. Brummond, vice president of business planning for Alliant Energy, testified on behalf of EEI on Thursday. “EEI joins with UTC to recommend that the commission coordinate and formally engage with the FCC and other stakeholders in regular meetings.”

FCC NOPR

The FCC proposed the change in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking last October, saying it was in response to growing demand for access and a congressional directive to identify additional spectra for wireless broadband (18-295, 17-183).

“Unlicensed devices that employ Wi-Fi and other unlicensed standards have become indispensable for providing low-cost wireless connectivity in countless products used by American consumers,” the NOPR said. “The broad spectrum swaths that we propose making available in this frequency band could promote new technology and services that will advance the commission’s efforts to make broadband connectivity available to all Americans, especially those in rural and underserved areas.”

The commission cited estimates that North American mobile traffic, including unlicensed Wi-Fi devices, grew 44% in 2016 and is projected to grow nearly 35% annually through 2021.

The FCC’s proposal is based on existing rules on Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) devices that have been operating for years in the 5-GHz band, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology used by smartphones, streaming video, cordless phones, security systems, garage door openers and baby monitors.

The commission said unlicensed use of the new spectrum is a “natural fit” for Internet of things (IoT) devices, which some project will grow to 15 billion by 2022.

The FCC began considering opening the 6-GHz band with a 2017 Notice of Inquiry. “Filers representing incumbent interests uniformly emphasized the need to protect those incumbent operations, with individual filers expressing differing levels of optimism as to whether successful sharing mechanisms could be established.”

Some companies that originally supported unlicensed use throughout the band without restriction, including Apple, Cisco Systems, Google and Qualcomm, now support requiring automated frequency coordination (AFC) for all outdoor and some indoor devices. AFC relies on a “database lookup scheme” to ensure that unlicensed users are not encroaching on an existing user’s priority access to the frequency in a specific area.

In response, a group representing fixed microwave incumbents, the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC), “appears to be more open to the possibility of finding successful shared use mechanisms in the band than it had been,” the FCC said.

Widely Used

Fixed point-to-point wireless in the 6-GHz spectrum is used by a range of critical services in addition to electric utilities, including police and fire dispatch, railroads, natural gas and oil pipelines, and long-distance phone service.

Alliant’s Brummond told FERC that the importance of his company’s wireless communications was illustrated in its response to a 2018 tornado in Marshalltown, Iowa. “The radios that our crews used during the recovery efforts were invaluable since public networks were overloaded right after the tornado hit,” he said.

Alliant’s Iowa generation and dispatch operations use the 6-GHz band “in support of bids” into MISO’s markets, Brummond said. Interference could also harm the company’s ability to control its generators and calculate accurate system load, he added.

The 6-GHz spectrum is currently available only to licensed operators that UTC said “undergo a rigorous process of frequency coordination” to prevent interference.

While interference can occur under current rules, the UTC said, the other entities in the band are known, allowing for arrangements to eliminate conflicts.

Under the FCC’s proposal, utilities would not easily know who is causing interference, UTC said. “Instead, they would need to track down interference all over their 6-GHz network and make any necessary adjustments for an event that may never occur again. This is a highly technical and time-consuming proposition without any guarantee that the interference mitigation efforts would be successful,” it said.

John Marinho, vice president of cybersecurity and technology for CTIA, which represents the U.S. wireless communications industry, told FERC that the FCC should continue its “flexible-use policies” to respond to spectrum demand while requiring AFC to prevent interference.

John Kuzin, regulatory counsel for Qualcomm, told FERC much the same. “We would not be supporting allowing unlicensed use of this band if it could not be done without protecting the current incumbent users. Because the point-to-point incumbent links are fixed and their operational parameters are in an FCC database, protecting them from unlicensed operations is straightforward. The 6-GHz band presents a great opportunity for new unlicensed technologies to support new devices, services and applications for these incumbent industries, as well as millions of American consumers.”

UTC said it is not convinced that AFC will protect its members, calling the technology “untested, unproven and hypothetical.”

Adrianne Collins, vice president of power delivery for Southern Company Services, filed written testimony with FERC also expressing doubts. “Southern Co. does not agree the 6-GHz band is the right band to implement unproven sharing technologies,” she wrote. “Given its extensive service territory in both urban and rural areas, the 6-GHz band is the only suitable band that can accommodate the bandwidth and performance objectives over very long microwave paths.”

UTC acknowledged that interference in the 6-GHz band “is unlikely to have a cascading impact on electric reliability.”

But it said its members have invested millions in 6-GHz systems. “If we can no longer rely on 6 GHz to provide these services, we will essentially be forced out of the band to seek alternatives, and there are few, if any, spectrum bands with the same qualities as 6 GHz, which provides wireless transmissions across longer geographic areas (propagation) very quickly (low latency),” UTC said. “Even for those who do have alternatives, redesigning and re-engineering their communications systems, we have been told, will be a lengthy and highly technical process, taking perhaps up to 10 years in certain instances.”