FCC INTERFERENCE TEMPERATURE PROBE CONTINUES
Despite generally negative comments from many groups, the FCC will press forward with its investigation of “interference temperatures,” Edmond Thomas, chief of the Office of Engineering & Technology said Tues. Thomas told us he wasn’t surprised many comments asked the FCC to drop the proceeding. Several sources said that among FCC’s Spectrum Policy Task Force’s recommendations, the interference temperature proposal most clearly landed with a thud.
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“It’s the incumbents,” Thomas said. “Remember what interference temperature is. We're saying that in a particular part of the band we're going to set a level above the noise floor that basically says that as long as the interference doesn’t exceed that level it’s by definition not harmful.”
Incumbents invariably oppose these kinds of changes, Thomas said. He compared the opposition to the hard line staked out by amateur radio (HAM) in the Commission’s broadband over powerline (BPL) proceeding. He said incumbents believe “this is a lousy idea because you're polluting my band. It’s the same argument in a different flavor that HAMs are making in BPL, the same argument that people made with ultra-wideband, the same argument that people made with Northpoint. It’s the argument we get all the time.”
Thomas noted that the FCC’s proposal thus far is very limited. Last Dec., OET proposed applying the new temperature approach to unlicensed operation within the fixed (FS) and fixed satellite service (FSS) uplink band at 6525- 6700 MHz and the FS, FSS, and BAYCARS band at 12.75-13.25 GHz (excluding 13.15-13.2125 GHz). “The Commission hasn’t made up its mind how far we're going to go with interference temperature, if at all,” Thomas said. “We picked only 2 bands. They're very safe bands. They're high power uplinks for satellites. And we're going to test the idea and see if it has potential. It’s entirely possible that we throw a party that nobody comes to.”
Thomas also said FCC has made clear to public safety groups it won’t test interference temperature in bands that could affect their communications. “Why would we ever do it in a public safety band?… It ain’t happening in my lifetime. And we're not going to do it in radio-astronomy. We may not do it anyplace else.”