Steady flow of ex parte arguments on various sides of ultra- wide...

GPS interests and air transport groups told Commission that Time Domain had proposed “completely inadequate level of in- band protection” in 3 letters to Commission this summer. Groups disagreed with Time Domain contention that while GPS receivers were more susceptible to continuous wave (CW)-like UWB emissions than those resembling white noise, nothing in FCC record pointed to sensitivity of any system other than GPS to CW-like UWB emissions. “This distinction is beside the point,” groups said. “Each UWB waveform is unique and testing to date has been done on an extremely limited set of UWB waveforms.” Groups pointed to what they saw as “clear” record that all UWB signals shared characteristics that “cause harmful interference to a variety of authorized systems,” including GPS, cellular, federal radar. Groups signing filing include Motorola, Nokia, Qualcomm, Sirius Satellite Radio, U.S. GPS Industry Council, XM Radio. “Time Domain’s denial of the growing body of interference evidence in this docket means that this process has not served the nation by advancing to a common technical understanding and solution,” filing said. Groups again urged that FCC not issue UWB order without releasing further notice of proposed rulemaking. In ex parte filing last week, Cingular Wireless also urged FCC to proceed with caution on UWB, citing concern on potential interference involving UWB systems, base stations and handset receivers in cellular and PCS systems. “Effects could include cell shrinkage, coverage holes, degraded voice quality and decreased throughput of data,” Cingular said. “UWB will impact GPS for both location and network synchronization. Assisted GPS systems would be even more susceptible to interference. Additional analysis is needed.” Among wireless carrier’s recommendations to FCC was that it limit UWB devices to spectrum above 6 GHz for most systems and below 1 GHz for ground- penetrating radar.