NARUC Telecom Committee Wants More Testing of Possible Spectrum Interference

But unlicensed Part 15 device users, who occupy the 902-928 MHz band that Progeny is licensed to operate in, fear interference from the high-powered solution, and call for more comprehensive testing involving more parties and support D.C. Public Service Commission Chairman Betty Ann Kane’s proposed resolution, which echoes their testing goal. The NARUC telecom committee unanimously sided with the Part 15 parties in support of the resolution Tuesday after wrestling with the issues in a debate and panel discussion.

"This is kind of the Holy Grail for the public safety folks,” Parsons told NARUC. He praised the virtues of spectrum sharing and said it’s currently being done in the band elegantly. Progeny has undergone multiple rounds of testing and with the FCC involved, which he called “the expert agency” to defer to: “We've been going through the process."

But Progeny’s service risks disrupting everything from meter readers to wireless Internet service providers to hearing aids, several panelists said. Progeny would operate at far higher levels of power than Part 15 users, at 30 watts rather than four, said Wireless Internet Service Providers Association Counsel Stephen Coran. He said two thirds of the band would be unusable for fixed wireless broadband. “Substantial reduction in throughput,” he said as he showed off a visual that indicated either a potential reduction of 50-60 percent or more in the number of WISP customers who can be served by each access point or a reduction of 50-60 percent of aggregate bandwidth amount each access point provides. Coran judged early testing of Progeny’s service to be “slanted” and criticized the reliance on overall average throughput reduction of uplink and downlink: “It’s like putting one foot in boiling water and one foot in freezing water and saying everything is fine.” Parsons countered by saying if you don’t average, you get unusual math: “I am an engineer and you do average the two,” he said.

The draft resolution faced vigorous debate in the NARUC telecom subcommittee, which largely consists of PUC staff, Saturday and Sunday (CD Feb 5 p7). It passed the subcommittee 7-4 with two abstentions, and then the telecom committee Tuesday afternoon. One commissioner warned against “wading too far in the weeds” in what may be a “technical dispute.” During the resolution debate, Commissioner Paul Kjellander of the Idaho Public Utilities Commission described a “moment of clarity” he received during the panel that further testing, whether it takes six months or a year, grants a reaffirmation of safety and of secure investment was time well spent. “I view this as taking the time to get it right,” said Commissioner Catherine Sandoval of the California Public Utilities Commission, favoring the resolution and citing how “vulnerable” the Part 15 users are. The passed resolution will advance to the NARUC board for final consideration and adoption Wednesday.

Testing should involve the utilities industry, which has invested tens of billions of dollars in modernizing the grid, said Utilities Telecom Council General Counsel Mike Oldak. “For the electric utility industry, we run at the speed of light” and any delay to that speed means things on fire, he said. “Comprehensive, independent testing” is needed “with a broader list of participants,” he said. “We remember LightSquared,” Kane said Tuesday, referring to past concerns about that company’s interference with GPS technology. She emphasized the resolution’s focus on the FCC not handling such cases on a “case-by-case” basis until it’s “adopted Part 90 rules that establish technical requirements, including whether to adopt stricter transmission power limits, for M-LMS licensees which will guard against unacceptable interference to Part 15 users in the 902-928 MHz band,” as the staff-edited resolution read.

State commissioners should think of how any possible interference would affect ratepayer investments, said Laura Stefani, the Goldberg, Godles, Wiener & Wright attorney representing the Part 15 Coalition and Itron. Progeny has to avoid causing “unacceptable interference” in the spectrum band, but that definition is “inherently subjective” and one Progeny doesn’t feel it’s violated, she said, saying she doesn’t suspect a resolution between the company and the coalition anytime soon. The coalition supports the proposed NARUC resolution as it stands, she said.

Parsons emphasized what he saw as the value of the service as well as its essential harmlessness. If any NARUC commissioners called 911 from the basement hotel room in Washington where they gathered, “not a one of you is gonna get found!” with current technology, he said. Progeny will change that, he said. He described a broad list of groups that came together for investigation of this location-finding issue and tests of that nature that concluded in December and will be released March 6. “We are very pleased with how we performed,” Parsons said. The FCC tests as well as a three-year trial in the Bay Area should satisfy concerns, he said. The service “wouldn’t work economically” at four watts rather than 30 and would likely be delayed at least six months if it were to undergo more testing, he estimated. Progeny has made attempts to reduce interference, he added, making efforts to ensure the 30 watts are sent one way rather than two ways and that it would have a low duty cycle, with only a fraction of the available towers on in any given instance.