WASHINGTON-A coalition of top wireless and high-tech manufacturers urged the Federal Communications Commission to reject a California testing lab’s call to revise compliance measurement guidelines for new 5 GHz wireless Internet devices. A government-industry group crafted the guidelines to ensure the devices won’t interfere with military radar.
It is unclear how much weight the FCC will give to criticism of 5 GHz radar-protection testing procedures voiced by Compliance Certification Services, an accredited testing lab and telecom certification body based in Morgan Hill, Calif. The Wi-Fi industry is hopeful the FCC can wrap up the 5 GHz proceeding-which grew out of the 2003 World Radiocommunication Conference and opened an additional 255 megahertz in the 5 GHz band for unlicensed use-by the end of this month so new products can be marketed as soon as July.
But CCS’ criticism could complicate that schedule. Vendors and others already have waited more than two years to exploit new 5 GHz frequencies since the FCC made the additional 255 megahertz available for commercial unlicensed use. Industry is getting impatient.
CCS said the proposed procedures contain “a large number of editorial and technical errors” and that “many editorial errors have substantial technical implications. All of these errors need to be corrected.”
Meantime, key industry players want the FCC to act swiftly to adopt 5 GHz unlicensed equipment compliance methodology that was crafted by a team that included the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Department of Defense, the FCC and wireless and high-tech companies. The parties spent months working on a technical solution to the interference problem, and settled on a “dynamic frequency selection” fix in which 5 GHz Wi-Fi gear monitors frequencies and avoids transmitting on military radar channels. In practice, DFS technology will actually have to be employed over more than 300 megahertz in the 5 GHz band.
“Simply put, the proposed compliance measure procedures do not contain substantive `errors’ as CCS would have the commission believe,” a group including Motorola Inc., Nortel Networks Ltd., Intel Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Dell Inc. told the FCC. “Rather, many of what CCS calls `errors’ are carefully considered choices made by the [NTIA-led] Project Team that both protect military radar and allow robust use of the 5 GHz band by commercial devices.”
The Wi-Fi Alliance, a group of 250 members, support the 5 GHz-DFS testing procedures established by the federal advisory committee and tested successfully afterward. The organization said agreement on the testing protocol will lead to more intensive use of the 5 GHz band. “Opening these bands to wireless local area networking use is also important in order to grow the increasing demand for WLAN by enterprises, residential customers and service providers.”
The Wi-Fi Alliance said more than 120 million Wi-Fi chips were shipped worldwide in 2005, a 64-percent jump from the previous year.
Covad Communications Inc., through its NextWeb Wireless division, also is pushing the FCC to move fast on approving 5 GHz-DHS testing guidelines.
“The reason manufacturers have not begun widely to market [new 5 GHz] equipment is uncertainty regarding the specifications for dynamic frequency selection and transmit power control that must be included in devices that employ the [new 5 GHz bands],” said Covad.
The company added, “Unlicensed wireless broadband spectrum is a critical component for entities seeking to offer alternative methods of last-mile broadband access to small businesses. Unlicensed broadband spectrum is among the very few viable solutions companies like Covad can use to leverage in order to effectively compete with incumbent wireline broadband providers in offering broadband services. Therefore, if the commission is serious about promoting multiple intermodal sources of competition for broadband services, it should aggressively pursue all possible opportunities to make unlicensed spectrum available and useable.”
