Broadcom, GE Healthcare, at Odds on Opening Channel 37 for Unlicensed Use
Broadcom and GE Healthcare disagree on the extent to which TV Channel 37 can be safely used for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed devices, since the channel is already dedicated in part to medical sensors and the wireless medical telemetry service (WMTS), GEHC said in a filing at the FCC. The frequency also is used for radioastronomy.
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A WMTS proponent told us Tuesday device manufacturers are concerned that the commission is indicating Channel 37 will be part of the TV spectrum opened for unlicensed use after the incentive auction, while questions remain. “It just seems like the commission is going out of its way to make a decision now, or say that it’s allowing unlicensed devices in Channel 37, even before they set the rules ensuring that incumbent services can be protected,” the lawyer said.
"This much is clear to Broadcom: use of a geo-location database and a technically reasonable protection radius will allow unlicensed devices to coexist safely with WMTS in Channel 37,” that company said in a March 28 filing at the FCC (http://bit.ly/1jwhCtR). “Based on the estimated number of hospitals operating WMTS equipment in the United States, it would not be unreasonably challenging to map such equipment to enable protection through database techniques and exclusion zones.”
GEHC fired back in a letter dated Monday. “GEHC ... disagrees with Broadcom’s assertions,” the GE affiliate said. “The parties’ recent discussions left unresolved a number of issues, including not only the appropriate size of the exclusion zones that would be required to protect WMTS, which as a safety service requires extremely low outage probability, but also the fundamental reliability and security of the automated geo-location database scheme on which exclusion zone enforcement (and, therefore, WMTS protection) would be entirely dependent. Regardless of size, exclusion zones can only be effective when enforced.”
The WMTS Coalition reported on a meeting of its members Thursday with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. During the meeting, WMTS Coalition representatives said TV Channel 37 is the only WMTS band currently used in the U.S. for fetal monitoring, and the band is also used extensively in cardiac rehabilitation, noting that, by their very nature, Channel 37 WMTS systems cannot tolerate even isolated incidents of interference,” the letter said. “The WMTS Coalition representatives also mentioned that, due to WMTS licensees’ extensive use of distributed antenna system ... architectures, interference to even one WMTS antenna could result in interference through out an entire healthcare facility.”