Federal Communications Commission DA 99-2743 Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D.C. 20554 ) In the Matter of ) ) Amendment of Part 2 of the Commission’s ) Rules to Make Non-Substantive Revisions ) to the Table of Frequency Allocations ) MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Adopted: December 16, 1999 Released: December 20, 1999 By the Office of Engineering and Technology and the Office of Managing Director: I. INTRODUCTION 1. By this action, we amend the Table of Frequency Allocations ("Table")1 and supporting sections2 of the Commission’s Rules in order to more clearly display the Table and to assist the Federal Register staff by making it easier for them to maintain the Table in the Code of Federal Regulations. We take this action with the concurrence of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration ("NTIA").3 We also take this opportunity 1 47 C.F.R. § 2.106. 2 47 C.F.R. §§ 2.100, 2.104, and 2.105. 3 The Commission, which is an independent agency, administers non-Federal government spectrum and the NTIA, which is an operating unit of the Department of Commerce, administers Federal government spectrum. See 47 C.F.R. § 2.105(a). Section 305(a) of the Communications Act as amended, 47 U.S.C. Sec. 305(a), authorizes the President to assign frequencies to Federal government stations. This authority has been delegated to the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, who also serves as the Administrator of NTIA. See Pub. Law 102-538, 106 Stat. 3533 (1992). NTIA also approves the spectrum needs of new systems for use by Federal departments and agencies and maintains the Federal Government Table of Frequency Allocations in its Manual. On December 16, 1999, NTIA, on the recommendation of the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee ("IRAC"), gave its concurrence to this Memorandum Opinion and Order. The IRAC is composed of representatives appointed by twenty-three member Federal departments and agencies. Liaison between the IRAC and the FCC is effected by a representative appointed by the Commission to serve in that capacity. The IRAC serves in an advisory capacity pertaining to the allocation, management, and use of the radio spectrum. The IRAC advises the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, U.S. Department of Commerce, and reports to the Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of Spectrum Management. Federal Communications Commission DA 99-2743 to make the following types of non-substantive4 amendments: The International Table in the Commission’s Rules is updated to reflect the [International] Table of Frequency Allocations as it is found in the 1998 International Telecommunication Union ("ITU") Radio Regulations;5 International footnotes in the United States Table that have not been substantively revised are re-numbered; Expired footnotes or portions of footnotes are removed from the United States Table; The special-use frequencies column of the Table is deleted; and Various typographical errors and omissions are corrected. As a by-product of this action, we will now be able to place the Table on the Commission’s web site and to update the on-line Table shortly after any amendments to the Table have been released.6 This ministerial action does not make any substantive change to any licensee’s legal rights and responsibilities. II. DISCUSSION 2. The Table of Frequency Allocations consists of the International Table of Frequency Allocations ("International Table") and the United States Table of Frequency Allocations ("United States Table") and is codified at Section 2.106 of the Commission’s Rules. The International Table is subdivided into the Region 1 Table (column 1), the Region 2 Table (column 2),7 and the Region 3 Table (column 3), and is included in the Commission’s Rules for informational purposes only.8 We are updating the International Table to reflect the [International] Table of Frequency Allocations as it is found in Article S5, Section IV, of the 1998 Radio Regulations.9 We are also updating Section 2.104 of the Commission’s Rules, which describes the International 4 A non-substantive revision is one that is purely editorial in nature; e.g., re-numbering a footnote. 5 See ITU Radio Regulations, Edition of 1998 ("1998 Radio Regulations"). This revision of the Radio Regulations, complementing the Constitution and the Convention of the ITU (Geneva, 1992), incorporates the decisions of the World Radiocommunication Conferences of 1995 ("WRC-95") and of 1997 ("WRC-97"). We anticipate that the Commission will commence a proceeding shortly to consider any remaining decisions of the World Administrative Radio Conference of 1992 and of WRC-95 and WRC-97 that have not previously been considered. 6 The on-line Table may be found at http://www.fcc.gov/oet/spectrum/. We caution users of the on-line Table that the Table as published by Federal Register remains the legal source document. 7 Region 2 is essentially composed of North and South America. See Appendix at § 2.104(b) for the ITU’s official definitions and map of the Regions. 8 See 47 C.F.R. § 2.104(a). 9 The provisions of these Regulations apply provisionally as from January 1, 1999, unless an earlier date is specified in Article S59. Therefore, we are amending 47 C.F.R. § 2.100 to state this fact. 2 Federal Communications Commission DA 99-2743 Table, to reflect Section I (Regions and areas) and Section II (Categories of services and allocations) of Article S5 of the 1998 Radio Regulations.10 We observe that the ITU has re- numbered all of the international footnotes in the International Table using the "S" numbering scheme.11 Therefore, we are deleting all international footnotes that use the old numbering scheme from 47 C.F.R. § 2.106, except for the twenty substantively revised international footnotes that have previously been adopted domestically. These international footnotes will be retained at this time and will be listed immediately behind the "S" numbering scheme international footnotes.12 3. At present, the United States Table consists of Federal Government Table of Frequency Allocations ("Federal Government Table," column 4), the Non-Federal Government Table of Frequency Allocations ("Non-Federal Government Table," column 5), rule part cross references (column 6), and special-use frequencies (column 7).13 The United States Table is described in Section 2.105 of the Commission’s Rules.14 The Federal Government Table,15 the 10 47 C.F.R. § 2.104. These changes include deleting permitted service from the category of services and deleting reference to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the definition of Regions 1 and 3. (WRC-95 changed all permitted services to primary services.) 11 The note immediately after the "International Footnote" heading in § 2.106 is revised to read as follows: "The International Telecommunication Union has recently re-numbered international footnotes using the "S" numbering scheme and has substantively revised the text of certain of these international footnotes. These international footnotes shall be listed immediately below this note in I. Until such time as the Commission has considered the substantively revised international footnotes that have previously been adopted domestically, the old international footnotes shall apply in the United States. These footnotes appear immediately after footnote S5.565 in II." 12 See Appendix A. Footnotes that have been substantively revised by a prior WRC will be addressed in an implementation rulemaking. See note 5, supra. 13 Henceforth, we will use the adjectives "Federal government" and "non-Federal government" instead of "Government" and "non-Government." We are making this change because the Commission has regulatory authority for all non-Federal government radio services, including those operated by State and local government licensees. 14 47 C.F.R. § 2.105. As previously noted, the ITU has deleted permitted services from the category of services. There are no permitted services allocated in the United States. See Appendix at § 2.105, wherein permitted services are deleted from the category of services. We are also updating § 2.105 to reflect the fact that the islands of Quita Sueno Bank, Roncador Bank, Serrena Bank, and Serranilla Bank are no longer under United States jurisdiction. These islands were transferred to Colombia, effective September 17, 1981. We will also list Johnston Island and Palmyra Island as Johnston Atoll and Palmyra Atoll, which conforms to how they are described by the Department of State. 15 See 47 C.F.R. § 2.105(d)(2), re-numbered herein as (d)(3). The Federal Government Table is based on NTIA’s Manual of Regulations and Procedures for Federal Radio Frequency Management, September 1995 Edition, Revisions for September 1996, January and May 1997, Chapter 4 ("NTIA Manual") and various Commission allocation orders that were approved by the IRAC but which have not yet been added to the NTIA Manual. 3 Federal Communications Commission DA 99-2743 rule part(s) cross references,16 and the special-use frequencies are included in the Commission’s Rules for informational purposes only. We find that the special-use frequencies column (column 7) does not list any information not already contained in the pertinent service rules and therefore delete column 7 from the Table and delete its description from § 2.105(d)(6).17 We clarify that the United States Table consists only of the Federal and Non-Federal Government Tables; i.e., the rule part cross references are no longer considered part of the United States Table.18 4. In order to make it easier to understand how shared spectrum19 is allocated, we have merged the Federal and Non-Federal Government Tables for those frequency bands that have exactly the same allocations and footnotes. We believe that this action also highlights differences in shared spectrum between the Federal and Non-Federal Government Tables, i.e., there must be some difference between the Federal and Non-Federal Government Tables or they would have been merged.