WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission has turned back an attempt from the aviation industry to overturn three waivers that allow limited use of ultra-wideband technology, but not until after some political wrangling between it and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
“Repeated NTIA editing of our orders after adoption undermines our independence and the integrity of our processes,” said FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. “No other entity has repeated opportunities to review drafts of our decisions. No other entity was able to `sign off’ on edits from commissioner offices.”
Ultra-wideband radio-frequency technologies have long been recognized as the technology of choice for ground penetrating radars, but the technology has the potential to address a far wider range of radar, communications and positioning applications, according to the Ultra Wideband Working Group.
The U.S. GPS Industry Council, American Airlines and United Airlines asked the FCC last year to reconsider its decision to grant waivers to U.S. Radar Inc., Time Domain Corp. and Zircon Corp. to allow them to produce products using UWB technology. The petitioners expressed concern that UWB could interfere with the low-powered signals emitted by the global positioning system.
The commission voted to deny the petition for reconsideration Feb. 22, but the item was not released until July 14, after NTIA made several objections and edits of the item voted on by the commission.
The almost-five-months delay meant that proposed rules allowing broader use of UWB were released before the FCC denied the reconsideration petition.
The notice of proposed rule making requires that testing and analysis of UWB operations below 2 GHz be conducted and submitted for the record before November. NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management here and its Institute of Telecommunications Sciences in Boulder, Colo., began such tests earlier this month.
