Registration of stationary receive-only sites for pickup licenses in the 6875-7125 MHz and 12700-13200 MHz bands will become mandatory as of April 1, 2013. Although the FCC adopted this requirement in a new Section 74.605 of its rules in August, 2011, public notice of the effective date has only recently been published in the Federal Register. Registration can be accomplished through the Commission's Universal Licensing System. It has always been a good idea to register such sites – but now it is required.
The context for the adoption of this new regulation is the Commission's effort to increase spectrum availability and efficiency for wireless backhaul services. Wireless backhauling concerns the carriage of traffic for mobile telephone users between cell towers and trunk networks. The FCC allocated the two bands mentioned above for wireless backhauling on a shared basis with television pickup stations. Stationary receive-only sites do not need to be licensed because they are not the source of transmissions. However, they need to be identified and registered in the Commission's database so that the agency can protect them in its efforts to coordinate spectrum use among the different services.
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