Most Back Delay for WCS Buildout Mandate, Coalition Says

The group observed that high tech players such as Intel, Motorola and Navini Networks agree on the need for delay. The coalition accused the satellite radio companies of trying to rewrite history, at least regarding digital audio radio service (DARS) repeaters XM and Sirius use to extend their reach. The WCS operators have cited lack of surety about DARS rules as a source of uncertainty. Absent final rules, operators won’t know to what extent they are “vulnerable to brute force overload and intermodulation interference” from DARS terrestrial repeaters, they said.

“In essence, XM and Sirius suggest that the WCS licensees knew of the risk of interference from DARS terrestrial repeaters when the WCS auction was held and assumed that risk,” the WCS Coalition said: “What they conveniently ignore, however, is that at the time of the WCS auction, the DARS terrestrial repeaters were described merely as low power ‘gap-fillers.’ The record clearly establishes that the high power transmitters that XM and Sirius now seek to operate under permanent DARS rules -- and that are so troubling to the WCS licensees planning to deploy wireless broadband or other advanced wireless services -- were not proposed until after the WCS licenses had been granted.”

XM said it welcomed the WCS Coalition call for a speedy resolution of the terrestrial repeater proceeding, but argued against the joint request for a WCS buildout extension. The WCS interests are using the lack of final satellite radio terrestrial repeater rules as a “scapegoat for WCS licensees’ own failures,” XM argued. Sirius didn’t file replies.

XM, which tried to buy WCS Wireless and its WCS licenses, said it had a “fully functional” WCS system on the drawing board when the WCS Wireless transaction died in May due to regulatory delay. XM told the Commission it had supply commitments from WCS equipment manufacturers and had developed a “realistic plan” to implement a WCS system throughout “much of the U.S.” prior to the Commission’s construction deadline. “It is hard to understand how WCS licensees with far greater capital resources and technical prowess could not accomplish the same over a 10-year period,” XM argued.

WCS licensees failed to implement WCS systems on time for their own economic and business reasons -- and because they've been warehousing spectrum, XM argued. WCS licensees “were well aware of the potential constraints” facing the service when they won their WCS licenses at auction “and were compensated for that risk through discounted auction prices,” XM argued. Since then, XM and Sirius have built terrestrial repeaters in about 60 markets, XM said. If anything, the lack of final DARS rules has benefitted WCS licensees by compelling satellite radio to operate terrestrial repeaters on a non-harmful interference basis, they argued.

XM also took on the NAB, which had urged the FCC to bar satellite radio from delivering local content. The NAB asked the FCC to resolve DARS, then adopt a rule barring satellite radio from using any technology -- including terrestrial repeaters and/or GPS-enabled receivers -- to deliver local content. XM said it has no intention of using terrestrial repeaters “to originate local programming,” and argued that the NAB’s content requests “have no place” in the WCS proceeding or in the DARS repeater rules.