NAB, Wi-Fi Advocates Disagree on FCC Response to 6 GHz Remand
NAB urged the FCC to reserve 55 MHz of spectrum for licensed mobile operations, including electronic newsgathering (ENG), as part of the agency’s response to U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s remand of part of the FCC’s 6 GHz order. Wi-Fi advocates said the FCC should address the court’s concerns and move on to a further liberalization of the rules (see 2204080042). Replies were posted Thursday and Friday in docket 18-295. The court otherwise upheld the order, which opened the band for sharing with Wi-Fi (see 2112280047).
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“Promises regarding innovation in the 6 GHz band cannot rewrite Part 15 of the Commission’s rules to reverse the Commission’s clear obligation to protect licensed users,” NAB said: “No commenter has even attempted to explain why allowing unlicensed users access to precisely 1200 MHz of spectrum will unleash a wave of investment and innovation, while access to 1145 MHz, that would reserve 55 MHz for licensed mobile users, will strangle such innovation. The most likely explanation for this omission is that it simply won’t.” NAB added, “The interfering signal level from a 6 GHz Wi-Fi device at an ENG receiver would be lower than that from a 2.4 GHz device at the same power level, but the ability of a Wi-Fi device at 6 GHz to detect ENG operations in the band would be correspondingly reduced as well.” Engineers for the Integrity of Broadcast Auxiliary Services Spectrum supported NAB.
NAB and broadcasters continue to argue that a contention-based protocol won’t protect licensed mobile ENG operations from unlicensed devices, high-tech companies said. “The record demonstrates, however, that those allegations are vague, unsubstantiated, and unreliable,” said Apple, Broadcom, Cisco Systems, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Qualcomm. “NAB and its supporters fail to account for the many differences between the 2.4 GHz band and the 6 GHz band that render their direct comparison inappropriate,” the companies said: “Nothing in the record warrants a modification of the Commission’s 6 GHz rules, and neither the record nor sound policy justifies NAB’s even more extreme request for a spectrum carve-out for ENG operations.”
The Wi-Fi Alliance asked the FCC to respond quickly to the remand and reaffirm its conclusions in the 2020 GHz order. “Nothing in the comments changes the fact that NAB’s interference assertions were and are vague and meritless and that the Commission was correct to reject them” in the order, the alliance said: “Any request for a spectrum carve-out is beyond the scope of the remand.”
“Commenters … overwhelmingly agree that the Commission can easily explain that NAB’s unsubstantiated assertions regarding harmful interference in the 2.4 GHz band have no bearing on the Commission’s conclusion that mobile indoor operations face an insignificant risk of harmful interference from unlicensed 6 GHz LPI [low-power indoor] devices,” NCTA said. “NAB failed to present credible evidence of harmful interference from Wi-Fi or other unlicensed devices in the 2.4 GHz band in response to the Commission’s 6 GHz NPRM,” the cablers said. “Even if NAB could substantiate its claims ... given dissimilarities between the 2.4 GHz and 6 GHz bands, those claims would have no bearing on the rules for unlicensed ... operations that the Commission adopted in the 6 GHz Order.”