CTIA Offers Olive Branch on 700 MHz Mics
The CTIA, along with public safety groups, offered wireless microphone makers a compromise Monday on rules designed to shut down the use of wireless mics in the 700 MHz band in the U.S. The groups proposed in a letter to the FCC that equipment makers like Shure that want to export the devices label them in a way that would avoid all confusion over whether they can be used here.
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“There was no intent to interfere with the lawful manufacture and sale of wireless microphones,” said CTIA spokesman John Walls. “We're just addressing the 700 MHz interference issue within the United States.” A Washington representative for a high-technology company called the proposal “a good compromise.”
The CTIA, APCO, the National Emergency Number Association and the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council proposed that equipment makers be required to remove any FCC identifier from the products. The FCC also should require equipment makers to “make clear in labeling on the device itself and all sales and marketing materials … that the products are not authorized for sale or operation in the United States,” the letter said.
The FCC also should “explicitly state” it is prohibiting the manufacture, import or shipment of all such 700 MHz devices for domestic use and proscribe their import into the U.S., the letter said. The CTIA and the public safety groups asked the FCC to move immediately “to ensure a smooth … June 12, 2009 DTV transition.”
Shure said in a March 2 letter to the FCC that an outright prohibition on manufacture of microphones built to operate in the 700 MHz band by U.S. companies would violate Section 302(c) of the Communications Act, which limits the ability of the commission to regulate equipment manufactured solely for export. Shure did not have an immediate response to the latest CTIA filing.
Meanwhile, Motorola officials met with Acting Chairman Michael Copps’ advisor Paul Murray to urge FCC action on the wireless mic prohibition and a few other issues before commissioners, said an ex parte filing. Motorola supported the firm deadline earlier urged by the CTIA and the public safety groups. The prohibition “is necessary to protect both critical public safety and commercial networks from harmful interference from incompatible low power devices,” Motorola said.