WASHINGTON-The private wireless and medical communities will have to wait until next year to find out if the Federal Communications Commission houses wireless medical telemetry service at 1.4 GHz.
The FCC probably won’t decide where to house medical telemetry service until first-quarter 2000, which again delays the private wireless industry’s hope of converting the 450-470 MHz band to a low-power pool.
Medical telemetry devices, which include heart and blood-pressure monitors, long have been secondary users in the TV and land mobile bands-using free spectrum for a variety of medical monitoring devices.
The system worked well until last year when TV broadcasters began converting to digital service. When a Dallas station converted, it knocked out the medical telemetry devices at Baylor University Medical Center. The Baylor hospital was forced to reprogram all of its devices to a new frequency. Since medical telemetry devices are secondary users, they must move if interference occurs.
The Land Mobile Communications Council, which is proposing to use low-power frequencies as part of the refarming proceeding, also is prodding the commission to resolve the issue. LMCC’s plan would allow low-power operators to migrate from the 450-470 MHz band so high-power operators can use that spectrum as part of the seven-year refarming private wireless proceeding. Medical telemetry devices, which use low-power offsets, would no longer be available if the LMCC proposal were approved.
The FCC also must decide how much spectrum to allocate to medical telemetry devices.
The American Hospital Association believes a minimum of 14 megahertz is necessary to carry out current and future operations, while representatives of the private wireless and low-earth-orbit satellite communities believe AHA has not justified the spectrum.
“It is essential that a sufficient amount of spectrum is allocated so that WMTS systems can be operated without harmful interference from each other and from other licensed and unlicensed services. It is undisputed that the degradation of medical telemetry device signals has the potential to result in serious injury or death to a patient whose monitoring is interrupted or otherwise disputed,” AHA said.
“Our concerns are with the amount of spectrum the hospitals say they need. It is incumbent upon the medical community to justify the needs for this amount of spectrum,” said Don Vasek, director of government relations for the Personal Communications Industry Association, which represents some private wireless interests.
“The medical telemetry parties have failed to provide objectively verifiable and factual analyses of actual market demand and use of medical telemetry equipment that would justify such a generous allocation,” said Final Analysis Communication Services Inc., a mobile satellite service licensee.
Medical telemetry devices could be housed in the six megahertz at 608-614 MHz (channel 37 on the TV dial), but AHA said this will not be enough spectrum since there could be interference problems from digital TV transmissions in channels 36 and 38, and radio astronomy.
An AHA-sponsored task force identified 120 locations where either TV channel 36 or 38 has been assigned for digital TV transmissions. “In at least 10 of the locations, both TV channels 36 and 38 have been assigned, thereby exacerbating the potential encroachment on WMTS use of TV channel 37. At least 122 hospitals and [more than] 32,100 beds will be affected in these 10 locations alone,” AHA said.
Last summer, the FCC proposed housing WMTS at TV channel 37 and additional WMTS spectrum at 1.4 GHz, but the little LEO industry is against those options.
“There is no justification on the record for the allocation to WMTS of any of the proposed NVNG (nonvoice, nongeostationary) MSS feeder link spectrum … as contemplated in Option 1 and Option 2. The request by the medical telemetry parties for spectrum overlapping these bands is based only on the most speculative future possible uses, whereas, in contrast, the NVNG MSS industry, as well as the U.S. government, have identified this spectrum after years of intensive effort and technical analysis as the only possible spectrum in which an international allocation might be achieved for critically needed NVNG MSS feeder links … The medical telemetry industry itself argues that it cannot share this spectrum with NVNG MSS … any allocation of spectrum in these bands to WMTS would harm the NVNG MSS industry,” said Final Analysis.
Another issue is how long the FCC would give the wireless medical community to migrate to the new band or bands. Since manufacturers today offer products that can operate at channel 37, the private wireless industry estimates the transition could take place within two to three years. AHA believes it could take as long as five years, with some devices never leaving the 450-MHz band.
The FCC also will have to decide how to coordinate the migration. Vasek recently attended a meeting with FCC officials where coordination issues were discussed. PCIA said it is “ideally suited to be a coordinator.”
