AT&T to Allow Technically Compliant Signal Boosters
AT&T affirmed it will consent to the operation of all signal boosters that meet the technical requirements developed in the compromise between carriers and booster manufacturers last summer, it told aides to FCC commissioners Tuesday. It’s the latest in a string of 8th-floor meetings with carriers and the booster industry as the commission prepares to release a report and order at its Feb. 20 meeting. The circulating order aims to adopt new technical and operational requirements for boosters to “significantly enhance wireless coverage for consumers, while protecting wireless networks from interference,” according to the meeting agenda. Questions remain over whether carriers need to consent before consumers can use the products.
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AT&T told commission officials it “supports a Commission holding affirming that carrier consent is needed to operate a signal booster on a carrier’s licensed spectrum,” said its ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/ZaMFag). But to be effective, the commission must pair its new signal booster rules with increased enforcement of non-compliant boosters, AT&T said. The commission should also disregard the idea of requiring consumer registration of the devices; that “will be ineffective due to low compliance,” AT&T said. A centralized database developed by carriers and booster manufacturers could work if the booster could only be activated after registration, AT&T said.
Wilson Electronics, a manufacturer of signal boosters, generally supports network protection standards to ensure signal boosters don’t harm wireless networks, but it objects to a requirement that consumers need carrier consent before they can use the boosters, company representatives told aides to Chairman Julius Genachowski (http://bit.ly/VUYQl9) and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn (http://bit.ly/WYQzyC). Such a requirement could impede sales of well designed boosters, and is unnecessary “given that the Commission and the industry are in agreement that the new standards will ensure that signal boosters cause no harm to wireless networks,” Wilson said. If the commission does implement such a requirement, it should also require that carriers “cannot unreasonably withhold or delay their consent,” Wilson said. To ensure “orderly deployment” of new boosters, any new rules shouldn’t come into effect until the beginning of 2014, it said.
The commission should modify Section 1.903(c) of its rules to authorize the use of boosters under existing carrier licenses, Cellphone-Mate said in a letter dated Monday (http://bit.ly/ZaSJzn). That section provides prior authorization for certain specialized mobile devices. “It has become clear” that modifying that section “is the more parsimonious, flexible, and legally sound approach” than the commission’s earlier proposal to license signal boosters under Section 307(e) for a citizens band radio service, the booster manufacturer said. The commission already has “ample authority” under Title III of the Communications Act to permit the use of signal boosters without the express consent of the major carriers, the booster manufacturer said. The data roaming order, recently upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, provides “clear legal and policy precedent for the authorization of signal boosters,” it said. “The Commission’s exercise of authority in the Roaming Order and the Commission’s authority to authorize the use of boosters under carrier licenses are highly analogous."
In meetings last week with Wireless Bureau officials and aides to each commissioner, Cellphone-Mate highlighted the various uses of wideband signal booster products, calling them “critical to reliable service for customers in rural areas” (http://bit.ly/VV5QOX). Major carriers often object to installation of such systems, or are “extremely slow in providing approval,” Cellphone-Mate said. Although the safe harbor technical rules negotiated by carriers and the booster industry are “significantly more restrictive than is necessary,” Cellphone-Mate will support them “in the interest of compromise,” it said in an attached slide presentation. Because of these voluntary restrictions, there will be no need for carriers to approve installations of technically compliant boosters, it said.
The New America Foundation strongly criticized any carrier consent and registration requirements. In a meeting Thursday with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, NAF said any such requirements would be “arbitrary and profoundly anti-consumer,” and only in place because of “a fear of legal challenge by carriers” if the commission were to give a blanket authorization of boosters (http://bit.ly/VV41S4). The draft order “has devolved” into a “purposeless (and unenforceable) burden on consumers that is both unrelated to mitigating interference to carriers and unrelated even to the theory that a consumer’s right to transmit somehow derives from the license of his or her own carrier,” NAF said.