WASHINGTON-Maritime Telecommunications Network Inc. last week blasted a public safety-private wireless coalition for making theoretical arguments about potential interference in urging federal regulators not to renew its experimental license.
MTN, whose experimental license renewal application has been pending at the Federal Communications Commission for more than a year, offers satellite-based broadband communications on ships.
But a high-powered group of organizations, comprised of the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition, the Association of American Railroads, the American Petroleum Institute, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officers International and the United Telecom Council, recommended the government not renew the experimental permit.
Among other things, the public safety-private wireless entities claim 6 GHz satellite earth stations aboard vessels (ESVs) would create harmful interference to land mobile systems and that regulatory oversight would be difficult.
MTN, which operates 45 ESVs originally licensed to Crescom Transmission Services in 1996, replied there is no evidence that such disruptions would occur and that arguments to that effect are baseless.
“MTN has been operating under the experimental license for many years and there has not been even one case of suspected interference, not to mention demonstrated interference,” said MTN.
The issue of shared use of the 6 GHz band by ESVs and private wireless users is being addressed by the World Radiocommunication Conference in Turkey. The meeting concludes Friday.
“In reality,” MTN said, “joint petitioners are using this proceeding as a stalking horse to reargue the interference protection criteria for all earth stations in the fixed satellite service and all fixed microwave services.”
Public-safety and private wireless representatives, according to MTN, “are taking on the logic of Alice in Wonderland-they claim on a theoretical level that the interference is so severe that it will cause serious shutdowns, but they go on to say that such interference is only detectable if the microwave systems are themselves shut down. However, if the only way for the interference to be `seen’ is to achieve the degree of quiet caused by a microwave system shutdown, and the interference cannot be `seen’ if the microwave systems are operating, then MTN’s ESVs could not possibly be causing any harmful interference.”
At the FCC, the International Bureau, the Wireless Bureau and the Office of Engineering and Technology are studying the matter.
