Spectrum Sharing and Frequency Reuse

The growing demand for wireless services makes “green field” spectrum very difficult to find. There is an increase in interest in providing new wireless services by sharing available and underutilized spectrum. These approaches have to be designed so that they do not have an impact on the environment. The environmental issues have lead to several spectrum policy battles in recent years. This is because there are vastly different viewpoints on what is considered a harmful interference and what is considered a reasonable receiver in a given context. These battles can discourage investment in innovative wireless technology that requires non-routine approvals.

This session takes a technical and policy perspective on the underlying causes behind the controversies. It reviews recent controversial examples such as GPS/LightSquared, AWS-3, UWB, and Northpoint.

Date and time: 7 PM – 9 PM, Sunday, January 15, 2012.  This session is open to the public (no registration required).

Co-chairs: Jeffrey Pawlan and Michael Marcus
Sponsors: MTT-20 (MTT technical Committee on Wireless Communications) and the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc)

Presentations:

Michael Marcus: Whitespace communications and the adaptive sharing of TV channels in the USA.

Jeffrey Pawlan: SDR and Cognitive Radio hardware and how it facilitates frequency reuse and spectrum sharing.

Nuno Borges Carvalho: Whitespace communications in Europe.

Antoinette Cook Bush: challenges of seeking in parallel both regulatory approval and investment capital for innovative wireless technologies in contexts where nonroutine approval for the technologies are needed.

Michael Marcus: The future of sharing satellite downlink bands with terrestrial communications.

Richard Reaser: GPS and LightSquared: a case study in sharing

Speaker Bios

Michael Marcus
Michael Marcus is a native of Boston and received S.B. and Sc.D. degrees in electrical engineering from MIT. Prior to joining the FCC in 1979, he worked at Bell Labs on the theory of telephone switching, served in the Air Force where he was involved in underground nuclear test detection research, and analyzed electronic warfare issues at the Institute for Defense Analyses.

At FCC his work focused on proposing and developing policies for cutting edge radio technologies such as spread spectrum/CDMA and millimeter waves. Wi-Fi is one outcome of his early leadership. He also participated in complex spectrum sharing policy formulation involving rulemakings such as ultra-wideband and MVDDS. Awarded a Mike Mansfield Fellowship in 1997, he studied the Japanese language and spent at year at the FCC’s Japanese counterpart.
 
He retired from FCC in March 2004 after serving as a senior technical advisor to the Spectrum Policy Task Force and co-directing the preparation of the FCC’s cognitive radio rulemaking. Immediately after retirement he lived in Paris France for 3 years, consulting for US and European clients. In 2006 he was appointed Special Advisor to Mrs. Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society & Media.
 
He is now Director of Marcus Spectrum Solutions LLC, an independent consulting firm based in the Washington DC area and focusing on wireless technology and policy. As a consultant to Adaptrum, Inc. he has been an active participant in the FCC’s TV white space deliberations. He is also Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. Recognized as a Fellow of the IEEE “for leadership in the development of spectrum management policies” and he also received IEEE-USA’s first Electrotechnology Transfer Award (1994).

Jeffrey Pawlan
Jeffrey Pawlan (M 1989, SM 1996) has been a consultant as owner of Pawlan Communications for 20 years. Prior to that, he had worked for many companies in California in very diverse areas of analog, RF, and microwave design and has been an engineer for 40 years. Some of his work was for NASA projects including the very successful design of the SARSAT/COSPAS search and rescue satellite ground stations. He also taught engineering part-time. Born and raised in the Los Angeles area, he attended UCLA and several other universities. He enjoyed learning many different fields and has 13 years of higher education including a Doctorate degree.

He has worked on projects for consumer, industrial, and military applications covering a wide range of the spectrum from LF to 50GHz. In addition to his primary involvement with the MTT society, he is also a member of the UFFC (frequency control) concentrating on low phase noise oscillators and phase noise measurements, a member of the AP-S, and also the Communications Society. He has published several papers and has two patents. He is serving as a member on the IEEE SCV Section ExCom and also is on the ExCom of the Central Area, Region 6. He is a member of two MTT technical committees, MTT-9 and MTT-20.

He has been designing RF and microwave hardware for Software Defined Radio uses within instrumentation and military satellite communications since 1984. For the past eight years he has been concentrating on Software Defined Radio technology with his own radio designs including the development of very capable software and hardware. He has presented talks at several engineering conferences, a workshop at the 2010 MTT IMS in Anaheim, the 2011 IMS in Baltimore, and also at chapter meetings and a short course.

He was a guest lecturer at the Czech Technical University of Prague last year. Recently he was a guest lecturer at the University of Aveiro Institute of Telecommunications in Portugal where he presented a one week course on RF design and SDR. He is a member of the MTT Speakers Bureau and will be presenting a half-day tutorial on SDR at the WAMICON conference in April.

Nuno Borges Carvalho
Nuno  Borges Carvalho(S’92–M’00–SM’05) received the diploma and doctoral degrees in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from the Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal in 1995 and 2000 respectively. From 1997 to 2000 he was an Assistant Lecturer at the same University and a Professor since 2000. Currently he is an Associate Professor at the same University, and a Senior Research Scientist at the Instituto de Telecomunicações.

He has worked as a scientist researcher at the Instituto de Telecomunicações, and was engaged to different projects on nonlinear CAD, circuits and systems design and RF system integration. His main research interests include CAD for nonlinear circuits/systems, nonlinear distortion analysis in microwave/wireless circuits and systems and measurement of nonlinear phenomena, recently he has also been involved in design of dedicated radios and systems for newly emerging wireless technologies.

In 2007 he was a visitor researcher at the North Carolina State University.
Prof. Borges Carvalho is a member of the Portuguese Engineering Association and an IEEE Senior Member. He was the recipient of the 1995 University of Aveiro and the Portuguese Engineering Association Prize for the best 1995 student at the Universidade de Aveiro, the 1998 Student Paper Competition (third place) presented at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium, the 2000 IEE Measurement Prize. He is also the co-inventor of three registered national patents.

He is a reviewer for several magazines including the IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportion Systems, as some International journals from the Institute of Physics.

He is an active member of the MTT-20 Technical Committee and the vice-chair of the MTT-11 Technical committee. He co-authored the book Intermodulation in Microwave and Wireless Circuits from Artech House, 2003.

Antoinette Cook Bush
Antoinette Cook Bush is a partner in charge of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP’s  Communications Group. She originally joined the firm in 1993, where she practiced until 2000. She returned in 2003 and represents companies in administrative, legislative and transactional matters involving communications issues as well as other legislative matters. Her clients include entities involved in the broadcast, cable, satellite, telephone and mobile communications business. She also represents a number of not-for-profit companies. Specifically, Ms. Bush’s clients have included News Corporation, Viacom Inc., Sprint Nextel, Univision Communications Inc., Sony Entertainment and Motion Picture Association of America.

Ms. Bush served as the executive vice president of Northpoint Technology Ltd. and BroadwaveUSA, Inc. from 2000 to 2003, where she oversaw the legal, regulatory, legislative and business development aspects of Northpoint operations.

Prior to joining Skadden, Arps in 1993, Ms. Bush served as senior counsel to the Communications Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. The subcommittee has oversight responsibility for the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and public broadcasting. She was the principal staff person responsible for legislation involving communications issues, including the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 and the Public Telecommunications Act of 1992, which authorized funding for public broadcasting.

Richard Reaser
Richard L. (Rick) Reaser, Jr. is Head, Spectrum and E3 Department at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems where he plans and coordinates SAS use of electromagnetic spectrum and Electromagnetic Environmental Effects (E3) efforts through technical and administrative processes consistent with applicable laws and regulations to meet customer product needs. He currently serves on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC).

Mr. Reaser joined Raytheon in August 2006. Prior to joining Raytheon, he was deputy system program director and chief engineer for the $32 billion Navstar Global Positioning System. He served as deputy director of spectrum management in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and held spectrum positions in the White House and State Department. He was technical advisor to the US Ambassador to the World Radio Communications Conference (WRC) 2000 and was a US Spokesperson at WRC-2003. He negotiated landmark navigation and communication signal and spectrum agreements between the United States, Russian Federation, France, Japan and European Union. He also represented Defense Department interests in 2002 Ultra Wideband (UWB) and 2003 Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) Ancillary Terrestrial Component (ATC) Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rulemakings. Mr. Reaser has held a variety of engineering and management assignments in military space communication, navigation, imagery dissemination and infrared detection programs.

Mr. Reaser earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering mechanics from the U.S Air Force Academy. He holds master’s degrees in systems technology (command, control, and communications) and national resource strategy from the Naval Postgraduate School and National Defense University, respectively. He has Level III Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act certifications in program management, system engineering and test. He retired from the Air Force after 28 years of service at the rank of Colonel.