Qualcomm warned FCC Fri. that ultra-wideband (UWB) emissions in G...

“half the time that the caller dials 911 the caller cannot be located within the parameters that the Commission has set” for E911, said Jonas Neihardt, head of Qualcomm Washington office. New Qualcomm test results come within weeks of target that FCC had set for bringing up UWB as item at Feb. agenda meeting. Lab tests evaluated impact of UWB emissions on GPS-enabled phones, which are being used to pinpoint caller locations within accuracy requirements set by FCC. Tests found that UWB emission in GPS spectrum “significantly raises the noise floor of the GPS sensor to the extent that it will render the GPS device useless in reporting position location information” to public safety answering point, Qualcomm said in ex parte filing. Equipment-maker urged FCC to not allow UWB devices to operate within GPS band “until suitable measures have been taken to limit sufficiently the UWB emissions within the band.” Qualcomm said it also wanted Commission to wait on UWB operation in GPS spectrum until “empirical testing conclusively proves that there will be no further system degradation once these measures have been implemented.” Qualcomm said its tests using GPS-enabled PCS handsets found that single UWB devices degraded performance by: (1) Raising effective noise floor of GPS receiver. (2) “Significantly” reducing satellite availability. (3) Negatively affecting position accuracy. Qualcomm has been raising concerns at FCC about potential for UWB devices to create interference in GPS bands, but several sources said new data were more specific about interference details. “In this study, we are able to reach a greater level of granularity,” Neihardt told us. “The goal here is to understand the impacts so that we can all work to figure out an approach to mitigate this interference,” he said: “The goal here is not to stop UWB. The goal is to understand the problems that exist.” Others raised concerns about timing of Qualcomm’s submission. “After more than 3 years of proceedings, Qualcomm is choosing to file this at the last minute,” said Time Domain Vp- Corporate Strategy Jeff Ross, who said company still was reviewing Qualcomm data later Fri. Ross cited testing by Johns Hopkins U. (JHU) Applied Research Labs and Applied Research Labs at U. of Tex. (UT), NTIA and Stanford U. “When you take into account the level proposed by the FCC, the JHU/UT report implies that noise-coded UWB signals of the power levels proposed by the FCC will not cause interference by 1 to 1.5 meters.” Ross said: “If Qualcomm has reached another conclusion, we will be interested to see the science they used to arrive at that.”