FCC Invites Comments on Improving Receiver Performance

Early in 2012, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski tasked the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council (TAC) to study the role of receivers in ensuring the efficient use of spectrum and to provide recommendations on avoiding obstacles posed by receiver performance to making spectrum available for new services. Acting on this request, the TAC working group on Receivers and Spectrum provided actionable recommendations to the Chairman at the TAC’s December 2012 meeting and has recently formalized these recommendations in a white paper for the Commission to consider. The FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) invites comment on the TAC white paper and its recommendations to help determine what next steps may be appropriate.

In addition to the work of the TAC, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was tasked by Congress in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 to study spectrum efficiency and receiver performance. The report recommends the Commission consider small-scale pilot tests and other methods to collect information on the practical effects of various options for improving receiver performance.

Also, in July 2012, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) published a Report that noted the important role of receivers in spectrum policy and regulation, and recommended receiver interference limits be defined to specify the level of radio interference that receivers should be expected to tolerate without being able to make claims of harmful interference. The TAC white paper focuses on this definition of “interference limits” in making its policy proposals.

OET seeks specific comment on the TAC white paper, which recommends multiple actions the Commission could take to implement an interference limits policy. OET also seeks comment on the overall interference limits policy approach proposed in that white paper and information on the practical effects of various options including the method used today relative to receiver standards and specifications, the use of multi-stakeholder organizations in the development of interference thresholds, and the role of the FCC.

Comment Date: June 21, 2013
Reply Comment Date: July 8, 2013