January 26, 2018 Ex Parte Marlene Dortch, Secretary Federal Communications Commission 445 12th Street SW Washington, DC 20554 Re: Expanding Flexible Use in Mid-Band Spectrum between 3.7 and 24 GHz, GN Docket No. 17-183 Dear Ms. Dortch: On January 25, representatives from Apple Inc., Broadcom Corporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Facebook, Inc., Google LLC, Intel Corporation, MediaTek, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Qualcomm Incorporated met with representatives from the Office of Engineering and Technology, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, and the International Bureau. A complete list of the participants in these meetings is attached to this letter. Demand for unlicensed spectrum is expected to grow enormously in the coming years. In fact, the Wi-Fi Alliance has concluded that between 500 MHz and 1 GHz of additional unlicensed spectrum may be needed by 2020 to support Wi-Fi’s growth. The above companies, representing a broad-based coalition of mobile operating system providers, semiconductor manufacturers, content providers, and access point equipment manufacturers, all see the 6 GHz band as a unique opportunity to meet this need. We believe that it is critical for the FCC to open access to additional unlicensed spectrum as soon as possible and that the interests of incumbents—in some cases our customers and industry partners—must be protected. We have therefore worked collaboratively on a thorough engineering analysis that will aid the Commission in moving quickly to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on sharing in the 6 GHz band. In these meetings, we presented that study, prepared by RKF Engineering Solutions. The study analyzed sharing between unlicensed operations in the 6 GHz band and existing services. RKF conducted a comprehensive independent analysis to determine the impact of a nationwide deployment of unlicensed services on satellite, microwave, and mobile incumbents. RKF’s findings are clear: unlicensed services can successfully coexist with the primary services present in the 6 GHz band. Unlicensed services will not cause harmful interference to Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) because the power levels of unlicensed devices at the satellite receivers are so low. Interference 1919 M STREET NW, EIGHTH FLOOR | WASHINGTON DC 20036 | T 202 730 1300 | F 202 730 1301 | HWGLAW.COM Ms. Marlene H. Dortch January 26, 2018 Page 2 of 2 from existing Fixed Service (FS) transmissions significantly exceeds any potential interference that might be caused by unlicensed operations. RKF’s findings also demonstrate that unlicensed services can successfully coexist with the 6 GHz band’s FS incumbents. RKF directly addressed concerns that individual unlicensed devices situated on high floors, at close range, through a window, or other corner-case geometries may pose an unacceptable risk to FS receivers, and it concluded that these corner cases are extremely rare. And even when they occurred in the study, their impact was exceedingly small: in no case did the interference cause any FS link to fall below its availability design criteria. For mobile services, RKF’s study showed that a small impact to incumbent links is possible. The study evaluated the introduction of unlicensed devices in a mobile services deployment scenario where the likelihood of interference impact was highest (i.e., in an urban environment with high population density, in the presence of Broadcast Auxiliary Service base stations and mobile, truck-mounted transmitters). Even in that worst-case scenario, unlicensed operations did not cause a degradation in service approximately 99 percent of the time, and in the remaining 1 percent of the time, the link margin could be maintained by the mobile operator in a manner consistent with the current operating and setup practices for these highly variable ad hoc deployments. Unlicensed services like Wi-Fi have proven to be highly complementary to licensed wireless broadband services. RKF’s study demonstrates that unlicensed services can similarly coexist successfully with the range of licensed services present in the 6 GHz band. We believe that the need for new unlicensed spectrum is urgent, and we hope that providing a detailed and thorough engineering analysis unusually early in the process, before the NPRM stage, will aid the Commission in working quickly to meet that need. Pursuant to the FCC’s rules, I have filed a copy of this notice electronically in the above- referenced docket. If you require any additional information, please contact the undersigned. Sincerely, Paul Margie Counsel to Apple Inc., Broadcom Corporation, Facebook, Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Microsoft Corporation Enclosures cc: meeting participants MEETING ATTENDEES Donald Stockdale (WTB) Mark Neumann, Apple Inc. Chris Andes* (WTB) Chris Szymanski, Broadcom Corporation Steven Buenzow* (WTB) Mary Brown, Cisco Systems, Inc. Peter Daronco* (WTB) Chris Hemmerlein, Facebook, Inc. omas Derenge (WTB) Michael Tseytlin, Facebook, Inc. Ariel Diamond (WTB) Austin Schlick, Google LLC Nese Guendelsberger (WTB) Chuck Lukaszewski, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Matthew Pearl (WTB) Peter Pitsch, Intel Corporation Paul Powell (WTB) James Wang, MediaTek Inc. Rebecca Schwartz (WTB) Paula Boyd, Microsoft Corporation Blaise Scinto* (WTB) John Kuzin, Qualcomm Incorporated Dana Shaffer (WTB) Ted Kaplan, RKF Engineering Solutions, LLC David Marshack, RKF Engineering Solutions, LLC omas Sullivan (IB) Paul Margie, Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP Jose Albuquerque (IB) Paul Caritj, Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP Christopher Bair (IB) Diane Garfield (IB) Jennifer Gilsenan (IB) Kal Krautkramer (IB) Julius Knapp (OET) Bahman Badipour (OET) Brian Butler* (OET) Aole Wilkins El (OET) Michael Ha (OET) Karen Rackley (OET) Hugh VanTuyl (OET) * Participated telephonically. Frequency Sharing for Radio Local Area Networks in the 6 GHz Band January 2018 Prepared by: RKF Engineering Services, LLC 7500 Old Georgetown Road Bethesda, MD Prepared for: Apple Inc., Broadcom Limited, Cisco Systems, Inc., Facebook Inc., Google LLC, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, MediaTek Inc., and QUALCOMM Incorporated 1 Table of Contents Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ 2 1.0 Executive Summary ............................................................................................................. 4 Fixed Satellite Service .............................................................................................................. 4 Fixed Service ............................................................................................................................. 5 Mobile Service ........................................................................................................................... 7 2.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 9 2.1 Background ........................................................................................................................... 9 2.2 Objectives ......................................................................................................................... 9 2.3 Approach .......................................................................................................................... 9 3.0 RLAN Deployment and Operating Assumptions .............................................................. 12 3.1 RLAN Deployment Assumptions .................................................................................. 12 3.1.1 Number of Active RLANs and Deployment Distribution ....................................... 12 3.1.2 Population Density ................................................................................................... 16 3.2 RLAN Operating Assumptions ...................................................................................... 16 3.2.1 Distribution of Source RLAN Power Levels ........................................................... 17 3.2.2 Bandwidth and Channel Distribution....................................................................... 24 3.2.3 Distribution of RLAN heights ................................................................................. 24 3.2.4 RLAN Operating Mitigations ........................................................................................ 26 3.2.5 Interference Protection Criteria and Further Considerations ......................................... 27 3.2.5.1 Conservative Interference Threshold ....................................................................... 27 3.2.5.2 Typical Parameters and Effects that Reduce Interference Not Included in this Analysis ……………………………………………………………………………………...28 4.0 Propagation Models ........................................................................................................... 31 4.1 RLAN to FSS Propagation Models (Earth to Space) ..................................................... 31 4.2 RLAN to Terrestrial FS or MS Propagation Models ..................................................... 32 4.2.1 Selection of Propagation Models up to 1 km ........................................................... 33 4.2.2 Selection of Propagation Models beyond 1 km ....................................................... 34 5.0 Sharing Results .................................................................................................................