FCC Spectrum Dashboard - The Final Episode October 18, 2016 15:00

Mid-August, the FCC updated the language on their only user friendly interface for US Wireless spectrum ownership, the FCC Spectrum Dashboard.  The wording change, placed in the middle of the page in red letters, reinforced what we indicated in our R.I.P. FCC Dashboard from August 2015.  The Spectrum Dashboard is NOT being updated. Data in the Spectrum Dashboard was last updated on July 7, 2014.  

So what are your options now to access spectrum ownership data for US licenses.  The FCC Universal Licensing System (ULS) exists for your license by license queries as long as you know frequency band, channel, and the original market structure underwhich the spectrum was auction.  For example, if you wanted to find the PCS band A channel licensee for Denver County, CO, you would perform a market search starting at this FCC Market Search Site in ULS.  You will select CW - PCS Broadband for the Radio Service Code and you need to remember the the PCS Band A channels were originally auctioned at MTA licenses.  So now select, MTA for Market Type and select MTA022 for Denver.  Also, select Channel Block A.  If you are looking for PCS C licenses, you would use the BTA Market Type and AWS-3 G block channels would use the CMA market, for example.

Submitting the query yields the results below:

So now you have a list of the licensees and lessees for the Denver MTA PCS channel A.  How are you going to determine which carrier controls the license for the A block channel in Denver.  You now need to investigate each call sign.  Click on the underlined callsign (WQKN957) if you are following my example.  On the next displayed screen, select the Market Menu.  Now you are able to see the counties and the frequencies included in that callsign.

So what you can see from this screen shot of the results is that this call sign only includes a 5x5 MHz slice of the A block spectrum, in a limited number of counties primarily outside of the Denver metro area.

So if you are saying there has to be a better solution, there is!!! 

Spectrum Ownership Viewer and Spectrum Database