Potential Use Cases
Developing a National Spectrum Strategy
The Public Notice inquired about a variety of potential use cases for the Lower 37 GHz band, including AMS, fixed wireless broadband, point-to-point links, Internet of Things networks, device-to-device operations, augmented reality applications, smart cities, smart grids, and as part of private networks. However, the FCC anticipates that operations will initially be limited to point-to-point and point-to-multipoint operations while other use cases continue to develop.43 Commenters generally agreed with the FCC’s description of the expected use cases. For example, Charter Communications and Starry are using the Lower 37 GHz band on an experimental basis to develop new technologies and models around wireless offloading and fixed wireless broadband, “demonstrating the significant potential for meeting market needs for high-capacity licensed millimeter wave spectrum.”44
Commenters view the Lower 37 GHz band as well-suited to deliver high speed, low latency multigigabit and 5G services over short and medium distances, such as real-time augmented reality-powered data sharing for innovations in smart cities, schools, offices, homes, libraries, hospitals, factories, and autos.45 The band’s ability to support concentrated deployments over small geographic areas advances sharing.46
Commercial uses cover a variety of data-intensive applications, ranging from home internet to wireless backhaul.47 Non-Federal wireless operators who were winning bidders of 37.6-38.6 GHz licenses at auction described using this spectrum for additional bandwidth for stadiums and arenas during large events through distributed antenna deployments indoors.48 The cable industry, which generally did not participate in the Upper 37 GHz auction, also views the Lower 37 GHz band as poised to address the increased demand for mobile network capacity “by allowing providers to offload traffic from other bands to this high-capacity spectrum.”49 Under this scenario, Lower 37 GHz channels would serve as secondary carriers for mobile broadband service by deploying radios in the band alongside Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) base stations in the 3.5 GHz spectrum band.50
Based on responses to the FCC’s Public Notice, DoD’s engagement with the DIB and prior comments filed at the FCC and NTIA on this matter, potential Federal use cases include those described above as well as some potential additional cases that DoD is exploring.
The Lower 37 GHz band enables diversity to DoD’s 5G Strategy by providing high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity for mission-critical applications.51 This spectrum offers large bandwidth and high data rates, making it suitable for applications such as real-time video streaming, remote control of unmanned vehicles, and high-speed data transfer for point-to-point, base-to-mobile and point-to-multipoint scenarios. The band can potentially improve commercial infrastructure at military installations, offering directionality used to secure DoD’s unique capabilities such as Port/Flight Line network communications. In addition, this band permits the deployment of private 5G networks that can provide resilient communications, real-time situational awareness, and enhanced command and control capabilities in expeditionary and tactical environments.
There is currently research and experimentation with respect to capabilities in this band which address DoD requirements and are exclusively designed for DoD missions; in the future this research may include:
- Use Case 1 – Unmanned Systems: DoD is interested in evaluating unmanned systems to provide terrestrial or maritime to aeronautical mobile and potentially space to aeronautical mobile (maritime, terrestrial) unmanned systems in the 37-37.2 GHz band. This spectrum can provide unmanned systems with high bandwidth data for force protection video, communications, lifesaving medical supplies, logistics, sensor power restoration, undersea, and maritime capabilities. For initial terrestrial use cases, operations are anticipated up to 800 feet and a 0-to-5-kilometer radius, with an expectation that requirements and technological capabilities may evolve over time.
- Use Case 2 – Wireless Power Transfer (WPT): DoD is interested in evaluating WPT in 37-37.2 GHz to provide a variety of capabilities currently in development by our research labs to deliver untethered power to and through unmanned systems, wireless communication systems, underwater vehicles, electric vehicles, sensor recharging, satellite-to-aircraft, space-to-moon, and several other potential uses cases. DoD is interested in collaboration with Industry on WPT equipment development, which would operate within the confines of the military priority band. WPT is a technology which allows electrical energy to be transmitted point-to-point from a power source to a receiver without the need for physical wires. It is also known as wireless power transmission, wireless energy ]transmission, or electromagnetic power transfer. WPT to vehicles has the potential to benefit DoD in many ways as this technology resolves battery drainage challenges from mobile vehicle radios, provides tighter beamwidths, is more cost effective and may offer better safety standards than the current power transfer in higher frequency bands. In addition to offering significant time/cost savings to delivering power to distant/hard to reach nodes, wireless power has several economic and commercial market benefits for space, unmanned, maritime, multi-domain operations, electric, and autonomous vehicles.
This report does not recommend any new allocations to support these use cases. Instead, the expectation is that experimentation with these use cases, and potentially others, would proceed using standard procedures for experimental operations. Depending on the success of those efforts and any necessary showing of compatibility with other operations under existing allocations, at some point in the future it might be appropriate to propose additional service(s) be added to the Federal Table of Frequency Allocations.
43 See FCC Public Notice at 2.
44 See Joint Comments Of Charter Communications, Inc., Federated Wireless, Inc., Open Technology Institute At New America, Qualcomm Incorporated, Starry, Inc., and WISPA (“Joint Comments”), WT Docket No. 24-243, at 3.
45 See Comments of NCTA – The Internet and Television Association, WT Docket No. 24-243, at 1.
46 See Comments of AT&T Services, Inc., WT Docket No. 24-243, at 2.
47 See Comments of Starry, Inc., WT Docket No. 24-243, at 2 (filed September 9, 2024) (“The combination of power and available bandwidth makes the band well-situated to serve myriad commercial uses, including fixed wireless broadband and mobile broadband.”) See Joint Comments, at 3 (“Millimeter wave spectrum is particularly useful for high bandwidth applications over short or medium distances. This includes mobile applications that perform well in dense areas and fixed broadband applications that support gigabit speeds to end users; internet-of-things applications, like video, that require high bandwidth; mobile or fixed broadband backhaul or mobile broadband fronthaul; and myriad other uses that will evolve over time.”).
48 See Comments of Verizon, Inc. WT Docket No. 24-243, at 3 (“Verizon also uses millimeter-wave spectrum to support distributed antenna system deployments indoors. For example, concertgoers and attendees of other events who want to livestream video, post pictures, and upload other content online to share their experiences are often able to do so because of the capacity gains afforded by large channels of millimeter-wave spectrum Verizon has deployed in large event venues.”).
49 Id at 5
50 Id at 5 (“As a result, when CBRS connections are constrained by smaller bandwidths, end-user devices could establish connections with the radios in the Lower 37 GHz band. The band’s extra-wide channels would boost peak data transfer speeds and improve the performance of applications that require high sustained throughput or reliably fast round-trip packet transfers.”).
51 See Department of Defense 5G Strategy, May 2020 at 3 (“DoD must develop and employ new concepts of operation that use the ubiquitous connectivity that 5G capabilities offer to increase the effectiveness, resilience, speed, and lethality of our Forces.”)