Wi-Fi Advocates Concerned About Wheeler Globalstar Proposal
Public interest groups continue to have concerns about the FCC’s proposed order on Globalstar's launch of broadband using terrestrial low-power service (TLPS), interest group officials said Monday. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a TLPS order Friday (see 1605130059). Public interest officials expect to be briefed on the order in meetings this week at the FCC.
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“I haven’t heard that anyone has changed their position,” said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future program at New America. “Across the board, the public interest community has asked for further testing to be sure that this would not undermine Wi-Fi channel 11, which is kind of a mainstay.” Public interest groups had hoped the FCC would require tests before authorizing service, Calabrese said. “Once equipment is out there and operating it’s much more difficult to recall it if there are problems.”
Calabrese said he had heard from the FCC that Globalstar was likely to proceed on a limited, trial basis, but did not know until Friday the order had been finalized. His group and Google also asked separately that schools, libraries and the public should be able to use Wi-Fi Channel 14 on a secondary basis where it is not in use, he said.
The Wireless ISP Association also raised objections Monday. “WISPA is disappointed the draft order will, apparently, not require any field testing or lab testing before Globalstar gets operating authority,” said Stephen Coran, Washington counsel. “Our primary concern all along has been to ensure that millions of unlicensed users and devices in the adjacent band do not suffer harmful interference, and it doesn’t look like the FCC is giving that fair treatment.”
The draft order authorizes gradual, controlled rollout of Globalstar operations, an FCC official said Monday. Globalstar would be permitted to deploy TLPS to enterprises at 25 locations a month the first three months, increasing to 50 locations a month in the following six months if no problems occurred, the official said. That would increase to 100 locations a month in the following six-month period.
Numerous safeguards are built in, the official said. Among them is a requirement that all access points must be controlled by a central network operating system capable of adjusting the transmit power for, and even turning off, individual access points. The plan also requires testing of network impact at each individual location and publicly available reporting of the locations of all access points, as well as outreach to nearby users and a means to report and address interference.
As a further condition of its license, Globalstar also would have to provide access to at least 15 locations that are open to the public, so interested parties can observe the impact of the network on performance of other systems if they want, the official said. The FCC would reserve the right to act if there appears to be a significant detrimental impact to Part 15 devices due to the company’s operations.
“There has been some concern that an FCC approval could be a Pyrrhic victory if the agency attached heavy limits on power output or out-of-band-emissions that restricted the value of Globalstar’s proposed service,” wrote Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant in a research report. “We suspect the technical parameters are likely to approximate what Globalstar initially proposed 2.5 years ago. That would be positive for its new service.”
The news sent Globalstar’s stock price up 35 percent Friday. It closed up 30 cents for the day Monday, up 12.24 percent, at $2.75 per share.