No Major Changes Expected to TV White Spaces NPRM
The FCC is expected to approve an NPRM Friday, pushed by Microsoft, which would allow white space devices to operate at higher power levels in less congested areas. There likely won't be major changes from Chairman Ajit Pai's proposals (see 2002060013), industry and FCC officials said in interviews. The biggest change is expected to be inclusion of a footnote, which says channels 36 and 37 issues needs to be addressed separately, they said.
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Channel 37 is potentially controversial, since GE Healthcare insists new operations in the TV spectrum must not harm sensitive wireless medical telemetry services operating there (see 1906110039). Questions are likely about whether WMTS should eventually be moved out of 600 MHz, which is considered prime spectrum, officials said. GEHC didn't comment Tuesday. GEHC commented last year that it wasn’t opposing the Microsoft petition. That's because of assurances from Microsoft it doesn’t affect channel 37.
The Open Technology Institute at New America sought changes. The group asked “about a potential technical issue concerning the important proposal to authorize mobile use of TVWS within geo-fenced areas defined by the TV Bands Database,” said a filing in docket 20-36. “This improvement in the TVWS rules can enable connectivity to school buses, farm equipment, and other very productive uses that would not interfere with over-the-air television viewers.”
Broadcasters and the NAB want to make sure the white spaces proceeding doesn’t become “a backdoor spectrum allocation,” said One Media Executive Vice President-Strategic and Legal Affairs Jerald Fritz in an interview. “It’s broadcast spectrum for use by broadcasters.” Other uses must be secondary, he said.
Some of the planned uses for distributed transmission systems as part of the transition to ATSC 3.0 could be adjacent to or make use of white spaces spectrum, said broadcast industry officials. The FCC is expected to consider a petition on DTS from NAB and America's Public Television Stations later this year. Use of the white spaces shouldn’t be allowed to affect broadcaster hopes for DTS, Fritz said. The DTS proceeding and the single frequency networks it would encourage aren’t necessary for 3.0 to launch but are important for “full market deployment,” Fritz said. NAB declined comment.
NAB officials told an aide to Pai the FCC should approve the NPRM as-is. “Much of the draft reflects significant agreement reached between NAB and Microsoft after months of discussions,” NAB said. “We look forward to working with the Commission and Microsoft to develop final rules that allow greater flexibility for potential white spaces operations in rural areas while continuing to provide robust protections for licensed services.”
The draft proposes to increase the maximum permissible power level for fixed devices in “less congested” from 10 watts to 16 watts effective isotropic radiated power. It defines these areas as ones where at least half the channels in the band of operation are vacant. The FCC proposes to increase the maximum permissible antenna height above average terrain for fixed white space devices from 250 meters to 500 meters, “subject to a coordination/notification procedure with TV broadcasters.” The agency plans “minimum required separation distances from protected services in the TV bands” and to allow higher power mobile operations in geo-fenced areas.