M2Z squares up against T-Mobile USA over AWS-3 interference tests

M2Z Networks Inc. said new test results demonstrate the Federal Communications Commission’s wireless broadband plan will not lead to interference as mobile-phone carriers claim. The company accused T-Mobile USA Inc. and others of distorting data in order to persuade policymakers to enact safeguards so strict that use of microwave ovens would be barred.
“In the end, the tests showed Time Division Duplex and Frequency Division Duplex technologies can coexist in the 2.1 GHz band using the technical rules similar to those that M2Z has been advocating for over two years,” said Paul Kolodzy, chief technical consultant to M2Z and a former FCC senior spectrum policy official who attended testing in Seattle earlier this month.
Kolodzy added: “We believe that the FCC’s unbiased analysis of the test data, combined with sound engineering and policy considerations, and the FCC’s own precedent, should lead it to reach the same conclusions as U.K.’s Ofcom [the United Kingdom’s independent telecommunications regulator] and the ITU [International Telecommunication Union] and find that TDD and FDD operations can co-exist in the AWS bands without having to impose onerous technical limits or spectrally inefficient guard bands. The results come as no surprise to us. M2Z repeatedly has demonstrated that the claims of incumbents that there would be harmful interference from AWS-3 are based on unrealistic assumptions. What we learned from the recent tests is that some of the claims also were based on inappropriate testing parameters.”
FCC Chairman Martin is championing a proposal to auction the 2155-2180 MHz band – advanced wireless services-3 – in hopes of seeing a national wireless player emerge to compete against telephone and cable giants that dominate the broadband market. The initiative has sparked intense controversy at the FCC and on Capitol Hill. Some lawmakers have grumbled about a provision that would require the winning AWS-3 bidder to offer the option of free wireless broadband.
T-Mobile, which spent $4.2 billion on 120 AWS-1 licenses at an auction two years ago, recently told the FCC that testing in Seattle further underscored its interference concerns with Martin’s wireless broadband plan. The stakes are huge for T-Mobile; the No. 4 cellular operator is working feverishly to roll out 3G service – via AWS-3 airwaves – in up to 25 markets by year’s end.
M2Z, a startup backed by Silicon Valley investors, failed last year to win FCC approval of its national wireless broadband application that would have bypassed the auction process. But M2Z, which has appealed the commission’s decision, nonetheless appears anxious to compete for a national AWS-3 license at an FCC auction. The company said the interference protection level sought by T-Mobile would mean that Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, home and small business wireless cell sites, and even microwave ovens would cause interference, adding that results from Seattle testing call into question previous testing by T-Mobile. M2Z said Seattle testing sought by T-Mobile and others in the mobile industry represents an unnecessary diversion designed to derail a wireless broadband proposal that Martin – routinely criticized by Democrats for the United States’ lackluster broadband penetration ranking on the world stage – wants to get through the FCC before the end of 2008.
“Before the FCC issued its report, AT&T [Mobility], T-Mobile and others attempted to distract attention from the actual results by making the unsupported conclusions in the press that the tests proved that the commission’s lifeline broadband rules would not work. Nothing could be further from the truth as discussed in our filing today,” said John Muleta, CEO of M2Z Networks. “More importantly, these parties’ selective use of the test data significantly qualifies their conclusions. Notably, not one of these parties has bothered to explain why T-Mobile’s September tests, which were observed by the commission, found that even Wi-Fi signals nearly 250 megahertz away cause interference to T-Mobile’s AWS-1 handsets.”
“Under the conditions tested, out-band-emission interference from AWS-3 interfering sources appears to be the most dominant interference mechanism,” T-Mobile told the FCC earlier this month. The carrier has not yet responded to M2Z’s latest filing.
In its Sept. 12 report, the FCC chief engineer Julius Knapp said the Seattle test results “will be considered along with all of the other information that is submitted into the record in this proceeding as the commission considers appropriate action in the . rulemaking proceeding.”
M2Z previously said T-Mobile has only itself to blame as a result of purchasing faulty filters for AWS-1 handsets.
In addition to hoping the FCC will put the brakes on Martin’s wireless broadband plan, T-Mobile is counting on the commission to win a lawsuit over small-business bidding rules. The legal challenge by Council Tree Communications Inc. and others has the potential to overturn the results of an AWS-1 auction that is critical to T-Mobile’s 3G strategy.
In a Sept. 15 filing, the FCC told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that even if it concluded revised “designated entity” rules were flawed, such a finding would not warrant the nullification of the AWS-1 and 700 MHz auctions.