http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/index.htmlSpectrumTalk Blog Updateenmjmarcus@marcus-spectrum.comCopyright 2010 Michael Marcus2011-03-12T17:54:08-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Sat, 12 Mar 2011 18:42:14 -0500mjmarcus@marcus-spectrum.comNone2011-03-12T17:54:08-05:00http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/Sendai.html#unique-entry-id-195http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/Sendai.html#unique-entry-id-195mjmarcus@marcus-spectrum.comFCC Reform2011-03-11T08:08:54-05:00http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/8142c3c56cccac1e1e312f052526f1b9-194.html#unique-entry-id-194http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/8142c3c56cccac1e1e312f052526f1b9-194.html#unique-entry-id-194
“The Federal Communications Commission Collaboration Act is a prudent, balanced proposal that recognizes the benefits of permitting the Commission to do its business collectively ...thank the Representatives for their leadership on this much needed reform and wish them success ...What this bill, H.R. 1009, proposes is a major change to the Carter-era Government in the Sunshine Act, 5 USC 552b. The present law applies not just to FCC, but to the plethora of commissions throughout the federal government from the American Battle Monuments Commission to the Securities and Exchange Commission. But this pending bill only applies to FCC. The commissioners are allowed to meet in closed meetings for certain subjects under the terms of 5 USC 552b(c). Allowed subjects include personnel matters, ITU conference preparation, and “internal personnel rules and practices of an agency”. While such meetings were infrequent but recurring when I joined FCC in 1979, I do not recall any in the past 2 decades. FCC and other regulatory commissions are required to meet at least once a month. For more than a decade FCC has just met this minimum requirement. By contrast SEC meets twice a month and NRC meets 3 times a month. My question for readers, if there was only one reform for FCC this year, would this be your highest priority? Note that you can post to this blog anonymously if you wish and no one, including your blogger, will know who you are.]]>mjmarcus@marcus-spectrum.comFCC Reform2011-03-09T21:00:25-05:00http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/3e57fc5b535dbc47e0ae70e0c06d1db4-193.html#unique-entry-id-193http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/3e57fc5b535dbc47e0ae70e0c06d1db4-193.html#unique-entry-id-193mjmarcus@marcus-spectrum.comNone2011-03-04T12:28:03-05:00http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/a020f5708836013657d3cb81155fde9f-192.html#unique-entry-id-192http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/a020f5708836013657d3cb81155fde9f-192.html#unique-entry-id-192
It’s badly needed. In the battle over broadcast spectrum, broadcasters are facing a formidable phalanx of telecommunications, consumer electronics and high-tech companies and their powerful Washington lobbies. Included are some of the biggest names in American industry today: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Google, Intel, Cisco Systems and Microsoft. John Eggerton in the real Broadcasting & Cable chimes in with a piece entitled “Sparring Over Spectrum” which ends with “Broadcasters are facing a tough battle for their frequencies in the face of the broadband deployment push, which recently got a shove from the White House’s National Wireless Plan. While the FCC has been pushing for incentive auction authority to compensate the broadcasters who give up spectrum, it has not yet gotten it. The FCC could mandate the move without payment, but broadcasters would fight that with everything they’ve got.” Which leads us to the “elephant in the room” question: if the National Broadband Plan is successful and virtually all American homes get 100 Mbps broadband at an affordable cost, exactly why do we need 50 channels of over-the-air TV spectrum? Now I have a sailboat and do sometimes watch OTA TV from the boat in remote areas, but do we really need 50 OTA channels for such users? If the mobile parts of NBP are successful we will also have widespread mobile broadband to satisfy the video needs of boaters and campers. In the UK, broadcasters, e.g. US citizen Rupert Murdoch, do not own any spectrum, they provide digitized programming with advertising to 3rd party Arqiva which multiplexes them together on DTV transmitters for public use. Is that so bad?]]>mjmarcus@marcus-spectrum.comenforcement2011-03-03T09:58:42-05:00http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/d7110e2482463dd2de998df926ceea1f-191.html#unique-entry-id-191http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/d7110e2482463dd2de998df926ceea1f-191.html#unique-entry-id-191
Intel states that those devices that use software defined radio as a manufacturing technique and are not intended to be modified in the field should not be required to be declared as software defined radios, and that the Commission should impose requirements on only those devices where the manufacturer intends to allow modifications in the field. Vanu, Inc., a manufacturer of software defined radios, believes that mandatory certification as software defined radios may be desirable when harmful interference may result from a foreseeable modification to the device’s software by a third party. It states that the Commission could adopt security requirements that are not limited to radios that meet the definition of software defined radios. The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council and the SDR Forum believe that the Commission’s concern should not be that a radio could be reprogrammed on an individual basis because the number of radios potentially affected that way would not be significant. ...While Motorola did not participate in this issue, it is likely they had a role in drafting the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council position on this issue as Motorola has a long history of speaking through user groups on such issues. As a result of these concerns, the former 2.932(e) was replaced with the present 2.944 which does not apply to transmitters unless the “software is designed or expected to be modified by a party other than the manufacturer”. Thus the Canopy unit in question is exempt from any security requirement on its software because it was not marketed to allow user changes of the operating band and is not declared to FCC to be an SDR. ... 2) Motorola violated its equipment authorization grant and intentionally shipped a unit capable of operating on 5605 MHz ...Note that the 3rd case would have been covered by the former 2.932(e) but is not covered by the present 2.944. So while I don’t have a lot of sympathy for AT&T in this case, it would appear that either Motorola is at fault in its sale of the Canopy unit, in which case its dealers would also be culpable or this case highlights an error in the logic used by the Commission in 2005 for watering down the former 2.932(e) requirement into the present much weaker 2.944 requirement. It is ironic that when I spoke to the SDR Forum on a panel last year (just prior to the group changing its name to Wireless Innovation Forum) someone asked the panel if the FCC SDR security rules were too weak. I think they are and are the most likely root cause of this incident, but that is what the SDR Forum and others myopically asked for in Docket 03-108 and the FCC complied, ignoring concerns stated by Cingular/Bellsouth at the time. Let’s hope FCC gives us a full explanation of what really happened in San Juan so we can avoid similar events in this and other bands. While we are at it, it would also be useful for FCC and NTIA to publicly state why TDWR interference is a recurring problem given that NTIA was able to dictate the terms of the U-NII rules for the shared band. I suspect that DoD dominated the IRAC discussions of the issue and FAA naively assumed that DoD would watch out for all federal radars, not just military units, so did not realize until it was too late that TDWR was different than the military units in some key aspects.]]>mjmarcus@marcus-spectrum.comSpectrumTalk Blog2011-03-01T10:22:17-05:00http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/457471800f0f03fa6632c4d9486c15a3-190.html#unique-entry-id-190http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/457471800f0f03fa6632c4d9486c15a3-190.html#unique-entry-id-190mjmarcus@marcus-spectrum.comex parte2011-02-26T10:24:55-05:00http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/dcab7f4b9ce49890acf1a9985d30d38c-189.html#unique-entry-id-189http://www.marcus-spectrum.com/Blog/files/dcab7f4b9ce49890acf1a9985d30d38c-189.html#unique-entry-id-189