Industry Asks for Changes to the FCC’s Proposed Hearing Aid Compatibility Rules
Motorola, TIA, CTIA and other industry players asked the FCC to maintain the de minimis rule in some form for larger manufacturers when it revises its hearing aid compatibility rules (HAC), in a vote scheduled for Thursday’s commission meeting. One of the results of the order is that Apple’s popular iPhone could become hearing aid-compatible.
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"As innovative wireless devices continue to hit the market, we want to make sure our rules keep up and that the benefit of these innovations are available to people who wear hearing aids,” said a senior FCC official Friday. A second FCC official said the FCC was considering changes based on industry concerns. “We understand … and we're putting our thinking caps on to try to do something about it,” the official said.
Under the rule, manufacturers offering one of two digital wireless handsets compatible with a particular air interface are exempt from the HAC requirements in connection with that air interface technology. The FCC released its Sunshine Notice on the meeting late Thursday that listed a report and order and further notice of proposed rulemaking on its HAC rules.
Apple representatives met with Rick Kaplan, aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman and General Counsel Austin Schlick on Wednesday to discuss the HAC rules. An ex parte letter by the company said they discussed an earlier filing, which contended that eliminating the rule “would impose far greater regulatory burdens on the most innovative companies” and asked the FCC to phase in any change. “It could do so by permitting manufacturers to comply with HAC rules by giving consumers an optional phone setting that improves hearing aid compatibility in the problematic legacy GSM 2G 1900 MHz situation through a small reduction in transmit power when the consumer uses his or her handset in this unique situation, and only in this situation,” Apple said.
"The de minimis rule was adopted to ensure that the Commission’s HAC rules do not thwart innovation and competition from new market entrants, new technologies, and new handsets,” Motorola said in a filing Thursday. “It is clear … that some manufacturers have exploited the flexibility offered by the de minimis rule to the detriment of consumers with hearing loss,” the company said. “Motorola does not believe, however, that this should lead the Commission to eliminate the rule altogether or limit its applicability by excluding ‘large businesses’ from its scope.”
Representatives of TIA, CTIA, Nokia, T-Mobile, Samsung, Clearwire and Research in Motion also met with Milkman last week. Modification to the de minimis rule “should account for manufacturers and service provider’s use of the rule to promote new technologies, particularly on new air interfaces, and determine whether consumer demand warrants a more expansive deployment,” TIA said in an ex parte filing for the group. The TIA filing proposes a compromise under which the current de minimis exception would remain in place for all manufacturers and service providers for at least two years after Federal Register publication of any modified rule. For protocols yet to be launched, such as LTE, and for which the current standard doesn’t yet apply, such as WiMAX, “an appropriate trigger for the minimum two year period is warranted,” the filing said. “Once the applicable two-year period has expired, if three of fewer handsets are offered for an air interface, at least one must be HAC compliant,” they suggested. “A limited exception should be retained, even after the two-year period, for legacy handsets as they are phased out of a portfolio.”