FCC Looking For More Flexible Interference Protection Regime

The Federal Communications Commission has sought input on whether it can take a dynamic approach to interference protections between wireless companies and TV broadcasters after the incentive auctions, or whether it must create minimum geographic separations.

Some broadcasters (notably Sinclair) and wireless companies have argued for minimum geographic separation if the FCC uses a variable band plan that will have broadcasters and wireless companies using the same or adjacent channels--proposals for such separations range from 100 kilometers to 500 kilometers. But the FCC said those proposals came with "limited" technical analysis. "We are concerned that prescribing a pre-defined separation distance as proposed by some commenters may be spectrally inefficient and overly conservative," the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) said in a public notice requesting comment. OET wants more input on the potential for adjacent and co-channel interference under four different scenarios, and more to the point how on "an alternative methodology that could enable the Commission to accommodate market variation in a more spectrally efficient manner than that proposed by various commenters."