Its Ground System Noncompliant, XM Tells FCC
XM has been operating 240 of its 800 or so terrestrial repeaters outside FCC rules, the satellite radio operator said this week in a request for Commission permission for further modifications to its ground system. The admission, included in 30-day request for FCC Special Temporary Authority, has WCS wireless licensees -- XM’s spectrum neighbors -- up in arms. XM began Sept. 23 a “series of remedial actions” to bring most of its repeaters into compliance with its 2001 temporary FCC license, it said without explaining that need. The 30-day application for changes soon will be followed by a 180-day request, XM said.
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XM and Sirius use ground repeaters to boost satellite signals where they're blocked, as in dense cities or tunnels. The satellite radio operators long have been at odds on repeater specifics with BellSouth, Sprint Nextel, AT&T, Comcast and other WCS licensees. WCS spectrum holders can’t roll out broadband services they plan in 2.3 GHz frequencies sandwiching satellite radio because of interference from XM and Sirius, they said. XM’s Oct. 2 filing explains, in part, why.
XM’s repeater network varies “in numerous instances” from the network authorized by the STAs the Commission has granted, XM said. Many variances are minimal, XM said, but many others are “more significant” departures from specific authorizations granted in XM’s existing grants of STA.
XM said about 210 repeaters were operating at slightly higher power (2 dB) than authorized, 19 repeaters were in use on sites without FCC clearance and 11 repeaters were operating at more than 2 dB above authorized power. XM said it turned down the first 210 repeaters, turned off 15 of the 19 not covered by license and reduced to authorized power 9 of the 11 running more than 2 dB too high. In the Oct. 2 STA request, XM asked permission to return to operation some repeaters it turned off, to turn a few repeaters back up to full power and to keep running the 6 repeaters it left alone. XM said the repeaters in question serve Ann Arbor, Boston, Buffalo and other cities and major roadways in Birmingham, Cincinnati, Detroit, Nashville, N.Y.C., Sacramento, San Francisco, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.
An XM spokesman called the filing a “blanket update.” When XM designed its ground system, the firm expected to use as many as 1,500 terrestrial repeaters. It’s using about 800, the spokesman said. XM took “voluntary action” on repeater network inconsistencies to “address the sites that are different than what’s on file,” the spokesman said. Many repeaters run below authorized power levels, and some are using an antenna of a different kind, the spokesman said: “But in general, there are far fewer high power sites than originally authorized.”
“I'd be very surprised if the Enforcement Bureau didn’t launch an investigation” into “how this occurred, when this occurred, and what management knew and when,” said WCS Coalition attorney Paul Sinderbrand, advocate for a group of WCS licensees. Sinderbrand said it wasn’t clear whether the violations acknowledged by XM had been “going on for months or years.” He said the violations “certainly reflect a flagrant violation on XM’s part” of its responsibility under its current STA.
XM couldn’t place some repeaters as planned, due to difficult zoning processes or because sites “simply were not available,” said Senior Vp-Space Systems Jeffery Snyder in an Oct. 2 letter to the FCC. Snyder said XM’s terrestrial repeater network “evolved” after its 2001 STA because of “interference among sites being built, the results of additional drive testing, zoning and leasing issues, and requirements of other administrations, such as Canada.”
In Boston, for example, many settings needing terrestrial repeaters “didn’t offer suitable sites,” Snyder said. That was true in most northeastern U.S. markets, Snyder said. In many cities, XM engineers ended up deploying a high-power central repeater to serve as an anchor site in “the core of the urban area,” he said. The resulting “fish- scale” design has an omnidirectional repeater in the middle and additional repeaters positioned at its flanks to fill in gaps, he said.
XM will reveal with its subsequent actions whether it “has a cowboy attitude” about rules, said Sinderbrand, asking “why are they disclosing this now?” and suggesting XM’s method -- putting the information in an STA request -- was disingenuous.
XM told the FCC it’s willing to coordinate with WCS interests any repeater affecting an operational WCS base station. “But XM is not aware of any operational WCS base station” in any cities it listed in its STA request, it said. XM said it hasn’t received information from any WCS licensee regarding plans for WCS deployment.
Pending at the Commission is a WCS coalition request to extend wireless build-out requirements so satellite radio and WCS can work out interference problems before WCS expansion. Also pending: (1) An FCC rulemaking dating to 1997 that would put final rules in place for satellite radio terrestrial repeaters. (2) Sirius’s recent request to add 16 terrestrial repeaters to its network of 140 (CD Oct 4 p6).
Sinderbrand said FCC aides he has talked with are as “anxious as we are” to see the terrestrial repeater NPRM completed, though he wouldn’t comment on specific holdups. Sindebrand said NPRM resolution is necessary before wireless broadband companies can deploy WCS service: “Before we put billions of dollars into a WiMAX infrastructure, we have to know what’s going on next to us.” The technologies and business plans are ready, he said, but a rollout isn’t prudent “until this cloud is lifted.”