Federal Communications Commission FCC 11-120
STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER MIGNON L. CLYBURN
Re: Amendment of Part 101 of the Commission’s Rules to Facilitate the Use of Microwave for 
Wireless Backhaul and Other Uses and to Provide Additional Flexibility to Broadcast Auxiliary 
Service and Operational Fixed Microwave Licensees; Petition for Rulemaking filed by Fixed 
Wireless Communications Coalition to Amend Part 101 of the Commission's Rules to Authorize 60 
and 80 MHz Channels in Certain Bands for Broadband Communications; WT Docket No. 10-
153; RM-11602
The federal government is often criticized by those who believe that pro-consumer regulation 
automatically harms business development.  This item is an example of how the FCC uses its regulatory 
authority to the benefit of both consumers and businesses. 
By adopting the rules in this item, the Commission takes important steps to give mobile service 
consumers, particularly those living in rural areas, more competitive choices.  How?  By encouraging 
businesses to deploy more services.  As our past two Mobile Services Reports have demonstrated, 
backhaul transport is necessary to deploy mobile service.  But backhaul imposes significant costs on 
mobile service providers, especially in rural areas.  Providers are increasing their use of microwave 
communications to reduce those costs.  So, by permitting microwave communications in more spectrum 
bands, these rules enhance the flexibility of service providers to find the most cost effective backhaul 
transport solutions for their respective business models.  These changes to Part 101 of our Rules could 
enable as much as 650 megahertz of spectrum, for backhaul transport, in rural areas.  Consequently, these 
rules enhance the ability for rural consumers, to receive more mobile services.  They also create new 
business opportunities for companies, that want to offer more backhaul transport to mobile service 
providers, and companies that seek to serve mobile wireless consumers. 
I was pleased to see, that the item does not stop at adopting rules to permit more use of 
microwave communications in rural areas.  It also adopts a Further Notice on proposals that could further 
reduce the costs to deploy mobile wireless services.  For example, allowing the use of smaller antennas 
should lower the costs that providers currently incur to manufacture and maintain antennas.  This proposal 
could also allow existing towers to accommodate more antennas.  Collocation of antennas tends to 
streamline the process for obtaining local government approval of siting applications.  Therefore, smaller 
antennas should also reduce the administrative costs associated with network deployment.  
The proposal to permit wider channel bandwidths in the 6 and 11 GHz bands is also promising 
for those rural areas that are hardest to serve.  Wider channels, allow providers to build backhaul links 
that are more reliable and able to accommodate increased demand for broadband services.  It is possible, 
in the least populated rural areas, that there is sufficient spectrum available in the 6 and 11 GHz bands, to 
allow the use of wider channels, and spur greater deployment of wireless broadband services.  I encourage 
the industry to continue to provide us with creative proposals.   
I commend Chairman Genachowski for his leadership in directing the staff to find practical 
solutions to the challenges facing mobile service providers in rural areas.  And I wish to thank Rick 
Kaplan and his staff at the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, for their hard work on this important 
item.