Fight Intensifies Over Pivotal Request for 5G Booster Waiver
Pivotal Commware’s request for waiver of FCC industrial signal booster (ISB) labeling requirements for its Echo 5G signal booster was opposed by many replying through Tuesday in docket 19-272. SureCall urged other booster distributors to make their opposition clear (see 1910030032). And many weighed in.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
AT&T agrees with earlier arguments (see 1910010072) by T-Mobile: “Pivotal’s device is akin to a Consumer Signal Booster, and as such should be subject to the labeling requirements for Consumer Signal Boosters at a minimum.” If the FCC grants the waiver, or similar waivers, “impose conditions that will ensure the Echo and similar devices do not cause interference to licensed wireless networks,” AT&T asked.
Pivotal countered arguments that the device should be classified as anything other than an ISB. It's "the service provider, not the consumer, that is purchasing the Device,” Pivotal said: “The Device is not available at retail. That alone makes the Device fundamentally different” from a consumer booster. The Echo is also “authenticated, and fully controlled by, the service provider,” Pivotal said: “The Device will not operate in the 28 GHz band absent automated authentication upon commissioning by the service provider.”
SureCall, which opposes the waiver, said the Echo also shouldn’t be classified as a consumer booster like other devices that meet network protection standard (NSP) rules. Allowing consumer booster labeling “would give Pivotal a government-sanctioned monopoly on the sale of Consumer Signal Boosters that are authorized to operate in millimeter wave frequencies,” SureCall commented: It would permit Pivotal to market its noncompliant booster “as comparable with NSP-compliant Consumer Signal Boosters that are more expense to manufacture due to the additional technology involved in satisfying the NPS to prevent harmful interference to wireless networks.”
“We oppose this request because it would effectively permit wireless carriers to market Pivotal’s signal boosters directly to consumers even though the boosters do not meet the technical requirements for Consumer Signal Boosters, including the critically important Network Protection Standard,” said booster distributor WPS Antennas. Boosters that don't comply with the NSP continue "to plague the signal booster industry,” said Simple Foundry, a retailer and distributor of consumer signal boosters. “User reviews of these non-NPS compliant boosters routinely talk of customers being told by the carriers to permanently shut the booster down because of the interference they’re causing on the carrier’s network.”
“If clear labeling and standards are eliminated, this could cause an uncontrollable onslaught of unapproved systems that could cause harmful interference to the precious wireless networks that consumers rely upon for broadband access,” said AlternativeWireless.com. “As the Commission is aware, NPS-compliant Consumer Signal Boosters are more expensive to manufacture than non-NPS-compliant boosters,” said distributor RockSignal. “These additional technical capabilities, however, were deemed necessary by the Commission to ensure the integrity of wireless networks.”