WASHINGTON—A leading public-safety organization today told the Federal Communications Commission it has serious concerns about potential interference from ultra-wideband transmissions to radio systems used by police, firefighters and emergency medical workers and to GPS-based technologies used to locate emergency callers.
The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International asked the FCC “to proceed with great caution” in its consideration of the matter.
The FCC, which postponed a vote on UWB in December in response to various government and industry concerns, plans to consider the item at its Feb. 14 public meeting.
A divided Bush administration is caught in the middle of the UWB controversy. The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunication and Information Administration and the FCC strongly favor authorizing UWB. The Department of Transportation and NASA oppose unlicensed UWB operations below 6 GHz, while the Department of Defense says it is not opposed to pulsed radio applications above 4.2 GHz. High-level meetings are expected to continue into next week.
The mobile-phone industry said it opposes unlicensed UWB as well.
Earlier this week, IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Sharp Corp., Siemens Corp., Sony Corp. and Texas Instruments urged the FCC not to allow the UWB decision to be delayed further.
