WHITE SPACES ADVERSARIES SQUARE OFF OVER POWER LEVELS, DELAY

摘要

Reducing the power levels at which white spaces devices can run would make the unused TV spectrum much less desirable for the kinds of applications that Microsoft foresess, said Craig Mundie, the company's chief research and strategy officer. He was in Washington for last-minute meetings at the FCC before the expected release of a sunshine notice Tuesday night cutting off further lobbying. While Mundie made his pitch, opponents cranked up pressure on the FCC to delay a scheduled Nov. 4 vote. The NCTA called for a delay and for lower power levels than those proposed in the order before commissioners. Under the order circulated by Chairman Kevin Martin Oct. 14, devices that scan the band would face tight restrictions and could operate at power levels no higher than 50 mW on all channels and 40 mW when a TV signal is in an adjacent channel. nnMundie said those levels are acceptable. "We think that power levels in the 40 to 50 mW range are sufficient to get us reasonable propagation in high density areas and quite good propagation in unobstructed areas," Mundie said. "If the power levels were to shrink substantially below that then it would, in effect, neuter the whole proposition." But cable customers would see interference at much lower power levels than the FCC order would permit, NCTA said in a letter to the FCC. The FCC's original white spaces lab study released last year found that unlicensed devices operating at power levels as low as 4.3 mW could cause harmful interference to cable DTV reception at a distance of six feet, the group said. "The cable industry... seeks a significant reduction in the proposed output power of TV band devices in order to minimize the adverse effects of such devices on the 67 million households that receive their television service via cable."