OET Will Do Another Round of Tests on White Spaces Devices
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology has committed to a second round of tests on devices designed to operate in the broadcast white spaces, supporters and opponents said Friday. OET called in representatives of the sides for a meeting Friday afternoon, and officials said they would do field and lab tests like the ones done earlier this year on any devices submitted.
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The White Spaces Coalition plans to provide OET prototype devices from Microsoft and Phillips of the kinds tested previously. Other companies, including Motorola and Shared Spectrum Company, are also expected to submit devices for testing.
Questions remain about devices that would operate in the white spaces, FCC officials said, and no decision has been made about whether to permit the use of portable devices.
“We're delighted that the FCC has decided to move forward with testing,” said former OET Chief Ed Thomas, who represents the coalition. “We look forward to them corroborating the results we put on the record. The kind of testing they're going to do is very similar to what we did.”
“It was not clear from the meeting the nature and extent of testing that will be done,” said David Donovan, president of MSTV. “We hope the FCC will test all relevant aspects of these devices to ensure that they will be able to write rules so as to not cause interference to over-the-air broadcast TV.”
In a filing last week, officials of Maximum Service TV said OET Chief Julius Knapp had promised further tests. He had “further stated that the additional testing would be ’transparent’ and that Friday’s meeting will provide an opportunity to discuss the additional testing and the procedures to be used,” said a filed letter from the company. MSTV said its questions include the types and numbers of devices to be tested, whether OET will test devices at more locations than it has in the past and whether the devices will be “representative of devices that will be manufactured.”
Meanwhile, Cisco said in a filing at the FCC that the commission hadn’t examined all proposals that could prevent portable devices in the white spaces from causing interference. “The proponents of IEEE 802.22 have outlined a proposal for a geospatial database that could manage fixed devices,” Cisco said. “However, there are other management tools available to IEEE 802.11 users, such as the IEEE 802.11y standard which is nearing completion.”