Today: FTC/FCC Policy Forum on Robocalls, NTIA Report on Spectrum Efficiency
FTC/FCC Policy Forum on Robocalls
The FCC and FTC announced they will hold co-host a Policy Forum and a Technology Expo both aimed at furthering the fight against illegal robocalls. The Policy Forum will be held March 23 2018. Topics for discussion include policy regulatory challenges posed by illegal robocalls and what the FTC and FCC are doing to both protect consumers and encourage the development of private-sector solutions. The event will be carried live at fcc.gov/live.
The expo will take place on April 23, 2018, and will provide a platform for showcasing innovative technologies, devices and applications that will improve consumers' daily lives by combatting illegal robocalls. Requests to participate must be submitted by March 23, 2018. Click here for more information.
NTIA Report on Spectrum Efficiency
NTIA’s research laboratory, the Institute for Telecommunications Sciences (ITS) released a new report on spectrum efficiency and how future systems can make better use of spectrum. The report found broad consensus on fundamental spectrum efficiency metrics, which consider increasing productive spectrum use and reducing spectrum blocking. Studies also agreed that spectrum efficiency metrics are most appropriate for comparing similar spectrum dependent systems or for optimizing the deployment of similar systems within a frequency band. Based on the research, ITS makes a number of recommendations addressing spectrum sharing, and suggestions for how best to focus future spectrum efficiency studies to enable the United States to maximize spectrum opportunities. Chief among its recommendations are:
- Only similar systems delivering like service to users should be compared to each other for SE metrical purposes.
- SE metrics and comparisons should be relative, not absolute.
- Band-dependent SE should compare similar radio systems operating in those bands.
- Recent technical innovations should be significantly included in future SE studies and metrical development.
- Receiver selectivity characteristics are just as important for spectrum blocking as transmitter out of band (OoB) and spurious characteristics.
The report notes that the importance of spectrum efficiency will only grow more important as spectrum sharing increases and network operators look to utilize ultra-dense networks to build capacity.
____________________________
The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s daily blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of an Inteserra Briefing.
