Clarendon Foundation has entered into spectrum leasing arrangements with the two largest wireless operators, Clearwire Corporation of Kirkland, Washington and Xanadoo LLC of Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

EBS Spectrum Leasing of "Excess Capacity Airtime"

EBS licensees are permitted to lease their excess capacity spectrum, subject to the rules adopted in the Secondary Markets Report and Order. In the Secondary Markets Report and Order, the Commission took important first steps to facilitate significantly broader access to valuable spectrum resources by enabling a wide array of facilities-based providers of broadband and other communications services to enter into spectrum leasing arrangements with Wireless Radio Service licensees. These flexible policies continue the FCC's evolution toward greater reliance on the marketplace to expand the scope of available wireless services and devices, leading to more efficient and dynamic use of the important spectrum resource to the ultimate benefit of consumers throughout the country.

FCC Secondary Market rules limit spectrum leasing arrangements to the length of the license term. However, EBS leases entered into under the FCC's pre-existing ITFS leasing framework have been grandfathered and may remain in effect for up to fifteen years, so long as such leases are not materially changed.

EBS licensees must adhere to the following substantive use requirements, which are designed to maintain the traditional educational purposes of ITFS:

There must be a minimum of 20 hours per 6 MHz channel per week of educational use of EBS spectrum.

For analog facilities, EBS licensees must retain a right to recapture an additional amount of 20 more hours per channel per week capacity for educational purposes.

For digital facilities, the EBS licensee must reserve at least 5% of its transmission capacity for educational purposes.

The EBS licensee must retain responsibility for compliance with FCC rules regarding station construction and operation.

Only the EBS licensee can file FCC applications for modifications to its station’s facilities.

The EBS licensee must retain some right to acquire the EBS transmission equipment, or comparable equipment, upon termination of the lease agreement.

Spectrum Bridge, Inc. has created the world's first online real-time marketplace for licensed radio spectrum, the Spectrum Exchange, or SpecEx.

Leasing "Unused" Spectrum: Geographic Partitioning, Channel Disaggregation & Time Share

Many EBS Licensees have leased the "excess capacity airtime" on all of their channels to wireless operators, such as Clearwire, Xanadoo, or DigitalBridge.

EBS Licensees that have not leased their channels to a wireless operator are nevertheless able to monetize their spectrum and meet substantial service requirements by leasing "unused" portions of their licensed spectrum. In its Secondary Market Initiative, the FCC described 3 methods for packaging and leasing unused spectrum, which are:

Geographic Partitioning (the licensed area verses the actual coverage area of the network);

Channel Disaggregation (the low power bands verses the high power mid-band); and

Time Share Leasing (hours of operation which end after the last class of each school day).

Another opportunity to lease unused spectrum would be before the wireless network is constructed and launched.

Packaging of spectrum is explained in detail in the January, 2009 issue of "The EBS Advisor."

EBS Licensees can obtain assistance in packaging and marketing their unused spectrum from Spectrum Bridge, Inc., which operates SpecEx: The Online Marketplace for Spectrum.™ This is discussed in the Markets and Maps section of this website.

SpecEX is also a resource that EBS Licensees and wireless operators should consider as a resource to use in meeting the FCC requirements to provide substantial service on each channel by May 1, 2011.