ISART 2022 • Evolving Spectrum-Sharing Regulation through Data-, Science-, and Technology-Driven Analysis and Decision-Making

Synopsis of Tutorial and Panel Topics

Tutorials

Tutorials and submissions received in response to the ISART 2022 call for input will be available to registered participants at least a week prior to the symposium.

• Tutorial Series #1: Current U.S. Regulatory Process to Establish Spectrum Sharing: Pre-recorded tutorial presentations succinctly describe each step of the current spectrum regulatory process. The tutorials are designed to provide background on how the spectrum sharing regulatory process currently works so that the panels can focus on evolving those processes. The recorded tutorials will be available to registered ISART participants a week prior to ISART, i.e., June 6. After ISART, they will be made available to the public via the NTIA ITS YouTube channel.
• Tutorial Series #2: Lessons Learned from Spectrum Sharing Regulatory Efforts and Use Cases: Recognizing lessons learned from the development and implementation of spectrum sharing regulatory rules over the past decade can lead to process improvements. Each of these recorded tutorial presentations focuses on one individual prior spectrum sharing proceeding and any lessons learned from that particular proceeding. These tutorials are designed to provide background for registrants less familiar with past proceedings and enable panelists to reference specific proceedings without needing to explain the context. The recorded tutorial will be available to registered ISART participants a week prior to ISART. After ISART, they will be made available to the public via the NTIA ITS YouTube channel.

Panels

ISART 2022 begins the afternoon of June 13, 2022, and continues through June 16, 2022, alternating afternoon and morning sessions. 

• June 13, 1 to 4 pm MDT
  • Opening Keynote. Alan Davidson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator
  • ISART22 Opening Panel. The ISART Chairs and members of the Technical Planning Committee explain the motivation behind this year’s theme and the impetus for the goal of the symposium: To chart a roadmap and gain consensus for data-, science-, and technology-driven means to evolve and expedite spectrum sharing analyses and regulatory decision-making. Concept: Iterative regulatory reform.
  • Presentation by Charles Cooper, NTIA Associate Administrator, Office of Spectrum Management
  • Industry Panel. Learning from lessons of the past should enhance process reform efforts. This panel provides industry perspectives on the linear processes utilized for spectrum sharing efforts over the past decade, identifies universal lessons learned, and addresses ways to build upon knowledge gained to enhance, expedite, and improve the processes. Goal: Industry recommendations on process improvement and spectrum sharing parameters. What are the key concerns industry typically has relative to the spectrum sharing regulatory process? Have these concerns been different depending on the sharing scenario (FED-Industry, Industry-Industry). How has the anticipated/expected technology to be deployed by industry impacted the regulatory process and when is that information typically shared with the regulators? Are there additional industry specific lessons learned from prior spectrum sharing efforts that should be considered when looking at regulatory reform?
• June 14, 9 am to 12 pm MDT
  • Keynote: Evan Kwerel, Senior Economic Advisor, Office of Economics and Analytics, FCC, on Spectrum Auctions
  • Economics Panel. All the best of intentions and plans to develop a flexible framework that allows for an iterative approach to regulatory and licensing rules must also work for industry by creating additional spectrum value and maintaining sufficient certainty for business to operate. This panel discusses both the potential obstacles and opportunities for changing regulatory approaches to develop an iterative regulatory approach that might maximize the value and use of the spectrum over time. Could it be possible to generate more value from spectrum by allowing for some flexibility in sharing rules after licensing? How important is stability to companies’ long-term capital expenditure decisions, including decisions to spend billions at spectrum auctions for licenses with expectations of renewal rights to access spectrum long term? Could there be a regulatory approach that would allow for adjusting license rules to enhance the value and use of the spectrum once licenses are assigned? Could there be opportunities for moving towards shorter term investments in the telecommunications sector? Are there competitive assignment approaches that could work for shorter term licenses and investments? How would spectrum valuation—and consequently auction revenues and SRF contributions—be impacted?
  • Data Sharing and Transparency Panel. Availability of spectrum data is limited because (1) proprietary constraints exist to maintain IP and competitiveness, (2) government data policies and restrictions exist to ensure national security, and (3) data acquisition is expensive. This causes (a) long time delays and conservative assumptions in spectrum management analyses, and (b) limited progress in data science applied to spectrum. This panel explores administrative, technological, and system solutions to data sharing and transparency. What types of data sharing and transparency strategies can help us overcome the current barriers faced by spectrum analysts/researchers? Do we have concrete recent examples of where data sharing and transparency has been improved? What were the key mechanisms that enabled these improvements (e.g., governance changes, open data, open code, etc.)? Can these examples be replicated in other areas, or further expanded in terms of scope, such as across models, frequencies, applications, use cases, and enhanced across time and space?
• June 15, 1 to 4 pm MDT
  • Keynote: Fred Moorefield, Deputy Chief Information Officer, DoD CIO, on Cost-Benefit-Risk Related to National Security
  • Risk-based Interference Analyses. As a complement to worst-case interference analyses, is it practical for regulatory feasibility studies to adopt a quantitative risk assessment approach, where for example the probability (e.g., in time and space) and consequences (e.g., performance degradation) of interference are considered? With the diversity of systems/services, missions, and designs, what is the process to define unacceptable vs acceptable risk? Could risk-informed methods lead to criteria that systems must not generate or suffer harmful interference? Are new quantifiable definitions of harmful interference needed and achievable? What models are needed for risk-based interference analysis? What are the technical, community-acceptance, and tooling requirements for a process to support the analyses? How could on-going interference risk management facilitate successful operation? Can quantitative risk assessment be combined with other decision support methods like cost-benefit analysis?
  • Model Standardization: Propagation Case Study. Model standardization at a scientific level is required to expedite and ultimately improve the higher-level spectrum sharing analyses and decision process. Scientific consensus, in general, is difficult to achieve. In this panel, we focus on standardization of propagation models because of the unique challenges associated with its scientific complexity, diversity of use cases and conditions, and non-deterministic and highly-variable outcomes. Are existing propagation model standardization processes adequate for the challenges of today? Is there adequate architecture with well-defined interfaces available to standardize the diverse set of existing and new propagation models? Is there incentive for the community to work together toward standardization of propagation models? What validation requirements are needed for community/stakeholder acceptance and trust of new models?
• June 16, 9 am to 12 pm MDT
  • Presentation by John Chapin, Special Advisor for Spectrum, National Science Foundation, on Fast Interference Management
  • Technical Enablers for Evolving Regulatory Processes. Evolving regulatory processes result in changing the regulatory requirements in a band after equipment has been deployed. Post-deployment regulatory changes have traditionally been constrained by the high cost of doing new compatibility studies, agreeing on the costs and benefits of the new rules, implementing and deploying new equipment, and designing new sharing or spectrum access mechanisms, as well as the associated high risk to existing revenue streams or mission capabilities. What technical solutions, components, designs and approaches are being developed that will reduce these costs and mitigate these risks? How can translation of spectrum science R&D results to practice be improved to accelerate use of these new approaches?
  • Wrap-up/Roadmap Panel. What are next steps? The panel moderators summarize the most important take-aways from the discussions and consider whether community consensus is possible on any well-developed idea or solution that was discussed and which areas or ideas warrant further research or stakeholder group involvement.