Proposed Changes to UWB Rules Get General Support, Some Pushback
Many ultra-wideband companies want the FCC to explore changes to the rules, but the GPS Innovation Alliance (GPSIA) said the current rules are working. Reply comments were due Wednesday in RM-11844 on a June filing by engineering company Robert Bosch, which said the FCC should launch an "early” and ”comprehensive” review of Part 15, Subpart F regulations on ultra-wideband devices and systems (see 1907190010). Now the FCC will have to decide whether to launch a rulemaking or take no further steps.
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GPSIA sought an extra 30 days to file comments (see 1908060032), but the FCC rejected that. “The existing UWB rules are technically sound and strike the right balance between protective safeguards and enabling new non-interfering shared spectrum uses,” the alliance said: “Neither Bosch nor any party filing in the proceeding has presented any data on which the Commission can justify disrupting this balance and commencing a rulemaking to reexamine the existing UWB rules.” No commenter addressed the potential impact of “higher-power UWB emissions to sensitive non-communications spectrum uses (most significantly, GPS) that are power constrained with signals effectively buried in the ambient noise floor,” GPSIA said.
Aviation Spectrum Resources, owned by airlines and other airspace users, also urged caution. The company joined with GPSIA in seeking a delay. “The potential threats to aviation safety from UWB devices, and unlicensed devices generally, merit a conservative approach and the maintenance of strict requirements absent clear demonstrations in support of waivers in particular contexts or generic rule adjustments,” the company said: The Bosch petition and the supporting comments are “short on studies, data, and analysis that the relaxed rules allowing for the expanded UWB deployments they envision will not pose an increased threat of harmful interference to authorized services, including safety-of-life aviation services.”
The UWB Alliance told the FCC 11 commenters supported the Bosch petition in the initial comment round (see 1908190029) with objections raised by GPSIA alone. “We disagree with the GPSIA characterization of the petition as radical change,” the UWB Alliance said: “Hyperbolic statements such as stating ‘little consideration given to the significant interference impact on existing licensed and unlicensed services’ have no basis, as obviously such consideration is key in the rulemaking process. Suggesting that a rulemaking effort will ‘squander scarce Commission resources and would not serve the public interest’ is unfounded by the record of support for the Bosch petition.” The Bosch petition seeks only “modest, incremental changes” to align the UWB rules with “current reality,” the group said.
Bosch said in response to GISPA it’s not seeking “sweeping changes” to the rules. “Quite the opposite: Adoption of the proposed modified rules will facilitate the development and provision of new, innovative UWB products in the United States marketplace by manufacturers, without creating the potential for interference to incumbent licensed and unlicensed services,” Bosch said.
Many of the companies that filed initial comments also supported the change, in replies. UWB company Zebra Technologies said the FCC should consider “removal of the restriction on fixed outdoor use of UWB.” Initial concerns “regarding the formation of high-speed networks seem to be overly restrictive,” Zebra said: Many real-time locating systems “can be greatly enhanced by having ‘beacons’ in known locations which occasionally transmit a short packet.”