More Must Be Done To Encourage Use of Spectrum Above 95 GHz, Marcus Says
Marcus Spectrum Solutions filed in support of a 2013 IEEE-USA petition seeking a declaratory ruling by the FCC that technology above 95 GHz is presumptively “new technology” in the context of Section 7 of the Communications Act. Marcus offered a…
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list of U.S. companies active in technologies above 95 GHz, which can't sell products for licensed or unlicensed use due to the lack of radio service rules above that frequency. “These US firms compete with overseas firms … that exist in very different regulatory environments,” Marcus said. “While clearly addressing these legal ambiguities about the legality of the products of the above US firms is not a high priority for the FCC staff, future capital formation for such firms as well as possible mergers might be delayed or threatened by routine ‘due diligence’ that discovers these ambiguities.” Other nations take the spectrum seriously, Marcus said. It pointed to a Japanese 120 GHz system used at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and a Singapore government-funded program at 135 GHz. “The US government does not target communications technologies for government-supported R&D even though our national competitors do,” the firm said. “Our free enterprise system is generally more effective. But it is not effective if firms seeking to develop new technologies subject to nonroutine approvals, e.g. technology above 95 GHz, cannot show investors a transparent regulatory system that will consider requests for spectrum access on their merits and in a timely way.” The filing was posted Tuesday in docket 13-259.