CTA Backs Microsoft in Dispute With NAB Over White Spaces Rules
CTA sided with Microsoft in its dispute with NAB over how often narrowband devices should have to check a database to operate in the TV white spaces (TVWS). The Open Technology Institute at New America and Public Knowledge also backed…
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Microsoft arguments. In January, commissioners approved 4-0 an order requiring other white space devices (WSDs) to check the database at least once hourly. After NAB and Microsoft clashed as the order was before commissioners, the FCC decided to further explore the rules for narrowband IoT devices in a Further NPRM (see 2201270034). Replies were due Monday in docket 14-165. “With demand for IoT applications and services expected to skyrocket in the coming years, using white spaces more efficiently and effectively in rural areas to address opportunities in sectors such as agriculture can help to achieve this goal,” CTA said: “CTA therefore supports the Commission maintaining its current rule for narrowband WSDs which will facilitate the deployment of narrowband IoT devices in rural areas, while providing existing licensees the same level of protection from harmful interference.” NAB’s objections “stem not from any genuine technical concern but solely from the desire to ‘get Big Tech’ and undermine the use of unlicensed spectrum,” OTI and PK said. Against a dearth of evidence of harmful interference “the Commission must balance the public interest benefits of allowing narrowband WSDs to lower costs and improve productivity in less densely-populated areas for farming, ranching, remote sensing, environmental monitoring and a variety of other innovative uses,” the groups said. NAB filed a one-paragraph comment, noting only 211 devices currently use the white spaces nationwide. “The risk that narrowband WSDs will cause harmful interference to licensed wireless microphones is very low,” Microsoft said, responding to concerns raised in the initial comment round (see 2207050059). “The Commission’s conservative narrowband WSD technical rules combined with the paucity of spectrum in urban and suburban areas, will effectively limit commercial narrowband WSD use cases to those that can be successful in exurban and rural areas such as precision agriculture and remote sensing,” the company said.