FCC Releases Receiver Principles, Other Drafts for April 20 Commissioner Votes

The FCC’s proposed policy statement on receivers lays out core principles to “help inform the Commission’s future actions and stakeholder expectations about interference from spectrally and spatially proximate sources,” according to a draft released Thursday for the commissioners’ April 20 open meeting. The draft draws on recommendations in a 2015 report by the FCC’s Technology Advisory Council.

Also before the commissioners is a draft order on non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) fixed satellite service (FSS) interference protection that would sunset interference protection processing round systems have from later-approved ones after 10 years and an order and NPRM on revised rules targeting Chinese carriers still operating in the U.S. (see 2303290068), among other items. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel also proposes ambitious new rules for wireless emergency alerts.

“Receiver characteristics, especially the dynamic range of desired and undesired power over which receivers are designed to operate, can be as important as transmitter characteristics in enabling efficient spectrum use and co-existence among different services,” says the draft receiver item. It warns of potential future rules, saying the agency may consider “whether spectrum users should be expected to make improvements to transmitters and receivers over time to mitigate the potential for harmful interference.”

The relatively short 14-page draft notes the potential benefits of better receivers: “The properties of receivers, and their immunity to out-of-band interference in particular, offer an increasingly promising pathway to manage spectrum needs in a balanced and comprehensive way.”

Among the principles delineated are that “interference and harmful interference are affected by the characteristics of both the transmitting service(s) and nearby receiving service(s) in frequency, space, and/or time.” Operators, users and makers are “expected to consider how to accommodate a changing RF environment as services are deployed more closely in spectral distance.” The FCC advocates “data-driven regulatory approaches to promote co-existence.”

The FCC shouldn’t regulate receiver performance but instead turn its current receiver proceeding into an NPRM, said Commissioner Nathan Simington at the 2023 Free State Foundation event this week. By “just putting something on paper about the receiver characteristics that are expected” the agency will have opened a public, organized discussion on the topic instead of “just allowing them to be tested and stuff behind the scenes,” Simington said.

The FCC “is just not technically equipped to mandate receiver standards” and would need to hire 100,000 engineers to be able to do so, Simington said. However, spectrum is a limited resource, he said. “And so to what degree do we have to defer forever to incumbent services that have superannuated receiver quality?”

Security Audit

The security item starts with an order requiring a one-time collection of foreign ownership information from holders of international Communications Act Section 214 authorizations. It seeks comment on rules requiring carriers to renew these authorizations every 10 years, “or in the alternative,” requiring periodic updates “enabling the Commission to review the public interest and national security implications of those authorizations based on that updated information,” the security draft says. It seeks comment on how the application process could be improved.

“The overarching objective of this proceeding is to adopt rule changes that will enable the Commission, in close collaboration with relevant Executive Branch agencies, to better protect telecommunications services and infrastructure in the United States in light of evolving national security, law enforcement, foreign policy, and trade policy risks,” the draft says: Records show there are about 7,000 international section 214 authorization holders, “though we estimate the more accurate number is closer to approximately 1,500 active” holders.

The information collected will allow the commission to better determine the number and whether they have reportable foreign ownership, the draft says. “The information will enable the Commission to identify those authorization holders that are no longer in business or are in business but discontinued service under their international section 214 authority.”

The FCC's proposed NGSO FSS sunsetting provision got significant disagreement among satellite operators (see 2204270015). In the draft order, the agency says protection of earlier-round NGSO FSS systems "must ensure a stable environment for continued service and investment but should not hinder later-round systems indefinitely." It says it chose the 10-year span partly because many later-round systems will be near or past their nine-year full deployment milestone.

The draft order also would limit the use of default spectrum-splitting to NGSO FSS systems approved in the same processing round and mandate that systems approved in later processing rounds coordinate with earlier-round systems or demonstrate they will protect them. Later-round systems would have to submit an interference analysis using a degraded throughput methodology to show they will protect earlier-round systems if there's no coordination agreement.

The agency also put out an accompanying draft Further NPRM that asks about how to come up with a degraded throughput methodology and about capping aggregate interference from later-round NGSO FSS systems into earlier-round systems.

WEA Enhancements

The WEA draft Further NPRM proposes a number of enhancements, including that alerts be made available in the 13 most commonly spoken languages in the U.S. other than English. It proposes to enable alerting authorities to send thumbnail-sized images through WEA “which would be particularly beneficial in the context of AMBER Alerts” and allow authorities to send links to “location-aware maps.” The alerting draft proposes giving authorities control over how mobile devices present the WEA audio attention signal or vibration cadence.

The draft proposes establishing an FCC-hosted WEA database. “At present, to access information about WEA’s availability in their jurisdictions, alerting authorities and the public must review all of the WEA election letters filed with the Commission,” it notes: “Even then, those letters are often unclear about whether a Participating … Provider participates in whole or in part and their level of support for WEA geographically and on different types of mobile devices.”

The draft also proposes minimum reliability requirements. “We note that our rules already require WEA messages to be delivered to 100 percent of the target area,” the item notes: “We are concerned that this requirement is not sufficient to ensure that the public can rely on their Participating … Provider to deliver to them promptly the WEA messages intended for them every time, including when they enter the alert’s target area after the alert’s initial transmission.”

“While WEA has been helpful for many, there remain gaps that limit its effectiveness,” the draft says: “Notwithstanding the potentially lifesaving benefits WEA can offer, some alerting authorities hesitate to use WEA because they do not understand or have confidence in how the system will perform in their jurisdictions during an emergency.”

LPTV Rules Update

The draft low-power TV order on the agency’s April agenda would update rules for LPTV and translators to reflect the digital transition. The draft would require LPTV stations to comply with station identification requirements but not translators, and require a minor modification permit for all LPTV station relocations. LPTV stations are currently allowed to relocate less than 500 feet without a permit. The order would also update the coordinates used to determine land mobile radio protections, and update the FCC rules for assigning LPTV call signs.

'Close a Perceived Loophole'

Commissioners will consider an order that would "close a perceived loophole" in current rules on access stimulation by extending the rules to IP enabled service (IPES) providers' terminating traffic, said a fact sheet. "Despite multiple orders and investigations making clear the commission will not tolerate access arbitrage, some providers continue to manipulate their call traffic or call flows in attempts to evade our rules," the draft item said. The order, if adopted, would require IPES providers to calculate the ratio of their terminating and originating call volumes. The draft item noted most commenters "agree that the IPES provider is in the best position to calculate its own traffic ratios," but the order would require providers to "include in their traffic ratios all calls made to and from telephone numbers they receive directly from a numbering authority." IPES providers would also be subject to the same terminating-to-originating traffic ratio triggers as local exchange carriers.

The draft order would adopt USTelecom's proposal to remove "two-way voice" and "real-time" from the definition of an IPES provider to avoid potential loopholes. The definition would also include "entities that receive terminating traffic, regardless of whether they also originate traffic," and amend the definition of an intermediate access provider to include IPES providers that "may receive traffic from an intermediate access provider." The commission would give providers 45 days to comply with the rules following the effective date.

Frequency Allocation Revisions

The FCC also released a draft order amending part 2 of the commission’s rules to make “non-substantive, editorial revisions” to the commission’s frequency allocation table, “primarily” decisions from the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference and an NPRM proposing modifications based on the 2015 WRC. The NPRM tees up changes to service rules, including for the amateur radio, aviation, cable television relay, fixed microwave, private land mobile and satellite services, and for broadcast auxiliary and TV broadcast auxiliary stations, the draft says.