Licensees Blast FCC's Proposal On Interference 'Temperature'

• Published in: Telecommunications Reports Vol. 70; no. 8; p. 22
• Main Author: Kirby, Paul
• Format: Trade Publication Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Aspen Publishers, Inc 15.04.2004
• Subjects: Bandwidths; Efficiency; Electric noise; Infrastructure; Licenses; Microwave communications; Noise; Personal communications systems; Policy making; Proposals; Public safety; Receivers & amplifiers; Regulatory agencies; Task forces; Telecommunications policy; Temperature; Wireless carriers; Wireless communications; United States > US
• ISSN: 0163-9854

In joint comments, Cingular Wireless LLC and BellSouth Corp. mocked the FCCs suggestion that the use of interference temperatures would provide licensees more certainty. "The only certainties are that allowing new unlicensed users to access licensed spectrum will cause increased interference, regardless of the metric used for governing such access, and that the value of the licensed spectrum for accommodating public communications needs will be diminished," they said. "If the Commission believes that an interference temperature rule will allow it to pack more users into a band, it should start by applying it to the congestion that it perceives to exist in unlicensed bands." Other major wireless carriers that submitted comments criticizing the interference temperature proposal included Verizon Wireless, AT&T Wireless Services, Inc., and Nextel Communications, Inc. In separate comments, the Wireless Communications Association International and the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition opposed the NPRM' s proposal to employ the interference temperature in fixed service (FS) spectrum. The FWCC cited three reasons the FS spectrum is "singularly unsuited" to such a regime: (1) FS channels carry "critical public safety and infrastructure communications"; (2) because "FS receivers use large, highly directional antennas, they are extremely sensitive to the azimuth (direction) of an emitter"; and (3) "FS signals are subject to extreme and variable levels of atmospheric fading." It cited test results that show unlicensed devices can interfere with FS receivers and said the Commission should not permit unlicensed devices in the spectrum to operate above part 15 power levels. The companies said that "a fixed interference temperature in satellite spectrum would impair, not improve, efficiency." They added that the FCC is using "a onesided definition of spectrum efficiency." "To accurately assess the impact of a new interference model on overall efficiency, the Commission must also evaluate the uses of the spectrum being made by existing operations," they said. Agilent Technologies, Inc., said "there is a specific implementation of the interference temperature concept that has a reasonable chance for success. This implementation would combine the interference temperature concept with the concept of frequency servers and be limited initially to one secondary use model that assumes a mobile device communicating with a fixed access point connected to the Internet." Shared Spectrum Co. called an "open-loop" interference temperature architecture "practical."