Rules. It seems as soon as we enter this world, we’re forced to comply with a blanket set of rules that someone else has decided for us.
You can’t have dessert until you finish your vegetables.
Turn off the light when you leave a room.
Balance the budget.
Effective July 1, 1997, all CTIA-certified handsets will not interfere with hearing aids that are designed and tested to meet the requirements contained in the European Commission electromagnetic compatibility product standard for hearing aids.
This rule seems to be causing some trouble with James Valentine, a PCS investor who has been touting the benefits of CDMA technology while crying foul about the use of rival GSM technology in U.S. PCS systems because GSM phones used in Europe have been found to interfere with hearing aids.
Valentine contends CDMA pocket phones do not disrupt hearing aids, and that he and others should not be forced to pay extra for a feature that is not needed. Valentine wants CTIA President Tom Wheeler fired.
Wheeler probably wants Valentine to get lost in a D.C. snowstorm.
CTIA has done an admirable job to date of staying out of the billion-dollar PCS fight between the various technology factions. At the same time, the association has been working with those advocating that handsets be made to accommodate the hearing impaired, hence the mandate. It’s a noble goal and let me say for the record that hearing impaired people should be able to benefit from wireless technology.
But if Valentine is right, CDMA manufacturers stand to lose out on CTIA certification-which you can bet will cause a few buying folks to go with a competitor’s phone-or spend money on a device that they say isn’t needed.
The only smoking gun in Valentine’s thought process is that the CDMA Development Group says it has a technical standard that lets hearing aid wearers turn off the vocoder part of the phone that could be a source of interference. (Thus, the CDMA Development Group seems to be acknowledging there could be a source of interference.) Also, if the component can be turned off, that would seem to meet the CTIA requirement for certification because it wouldn’t interfere with hearing aids.
I’m not for blanket rules that don’t always make sense. But because there are no commercial CDMA systems operating in the United States yet, there is still time to discover any interference to hearing aids from CDMA phones-and find solutions.
It’s a time for cooler heads to prevail. And Mr. Valentine doesn’t seem to have one.
