Cell Booster, 4.9 GHz Items Expected to Get 5-0 Votes Thursday
The proposed wireless infrastructure rules have been controversial (see 1803150058), but a proposal to eliminate the personal-use restriction on provider-specific consumer signal boosters and a Further NPRM on the 4.9 GHz band are expected to be approved by commissioners Thursday mostly as put forward March 1 by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, agency and industry officials said Monday.
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Cell boosters were at one point controversial, but in 2013 commissioners approved 5-0 a compromise worked out with industry (see 1302210066), a process that took almost two years. Pai said then too many boosters are in consumer hands to “put the genie back in the bottle.”
Booster-maker Wilson Electronics and T-Mobile asked the FCC to lift the personal-use restriction on consumer cell-signal boosters imposed in 2013, and allow more customers to use boosters. Last year, the FCC took comment and most supported lifting the restriction (see 1703240041). Neither a second report and order nor a Further NPRM teed up for a vote at Thursday’s meeting is generating much opposition. T-Mobile was the only party to file in the proceeding, 10-4, since Pai circulated the item.
T-Mobile reported on a call with Erin McGrath, aide to Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, that included discussion of cell boosters. The carrier supports FCC efforts “to allow greater use of Provider-Specific signal boosters so that a range of entities, and not just individuals, can benefit from the enhanced signal strength that those devices may provide,” said a filing. “However, T-Mobile remains concerned that those protections may not be effective for the expanded use of Wideband Consumer Signal boosters and may present a greater interference risk to carrier systems.”
The draft order says the record shows “the signal booster rules have functioned as designed.” As of late February, the FCC had certified 138 signal boosters with no problems, the draft says: “Given the positive results highlighted above, we find that we can expand the availability of Consumer Signal Boosters without creating a risk of unacceptable interference.”
The 4.9 GHz FNPRM also delves into an area the FCC has explored before -- how to spur more use of the band, which has been available for use by public safety agencies since 2002. “Although nearly 90,000 public safety entities are eligible under our rules to obtain licenses in the band, there were only 2,442 licenses in use in 2012 and only 3,174 licenses in use nearly six years later in 2018,” the draft FNPRM says. “With no more than 3.5 percent of potential licensees using the band, we remain concerned that, as the Commission stated in 2012, the band has ‘fallen short of its potential.’”
The last time the FCC addressed the band in depth, commissioners approved revised rules 5-0 in June 2012. As with the cell-booster item, the 4.9 GHz docket, 07-100, had only one filing in the past 30 days. T-Mobile addressed the band in the same call with McGrath on which it discussed boosters. “Like the Commission, T-Mobile recognizes that the 4.9 GHz band has been historically underutilized,” the company said. “We therefore support Commission proposals … to evaluate how this spectrum can be available to others, including, potentially, commercial wireless providers, while still ensuring that public safety entities have access to reliable communications.”