Wi-Fi Alliance Raises Terrestrial Low-Power Service Concerns
The Wi-Fi Alliance is pushing back at assertions that terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) for broadband will alleviate traffic congestion for Wi-Fi users, calling such claims “inaccurate and misleading.” In a filing posted Wednesday in RM-11685, Alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa said…
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the claim that using the 2473-2495 MHz band in TLPS would widen the Wi-Fi highway doesn't fly because there are no FCC-approved devices that would work on the proposed TLPS network. “There is no evidence that TLPS will be anything but a private, stand-alone, low-power network,” Figueroa said. “Unless Wi-Fi users pay for the privilege of accessing TLPS, they will have no additional spectrum on which to operate their Wi-Fi devices.” In fact, Figueroa said, TLPS could cause interference to Wi-Fi devices: “The very limited technical evaluation that has occurred to date has been rushed and constrained, and the results are inconclusive.” Globalstar has been lobbying for rules that would let it use its TLPS for broadband, arguing that it would ease Wi-Fi congestion. The Wi-Fi Alliance is among an array of industry groups that have raised concerns about TLPS, including the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, CEA, the Entertainment Software Association, NCTA, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge and the Wireless ISP Association (see 1505220048). In a statement Friday, Globalstar said those concerns "are rooted solely by anti-competitive motivations." The company in March said it "agreed to demonstrate the ability for TLPS to peacefully coexist with incumbent unlicensed operations and the opposition groups were also given a platform to showcase their results, followed by characterization testing at an FCC laboratory. The opposition was given the chance to demonstrate any technical basis for their concerns in a real-world environment. The results from this demonstration were clear and fully supportive of Globalstar’s contentions. Even the opposition’s own results, with an extreme and unrealistic network that was constructed with the sole purpose of trying to somehow show interference, failed to support their purported concerns. As there is no sound engineering support for the other side’s expressed concerns, in a process that has been open for public comment for over two and a half years, it is clear that the opposition is working only to suppress new and innovative entrants like Globalstar and TLPS."