WCS Changes Wouldn’t Pass Legal Scrutiny, Says Sirius XM

The FCC’s proposed rule changes for the wireless communications band probably would fail legal challenge, and the commission should reject the proposal, Sirius XM told the commission in comments. The rules wouldn’t survive under the Administrative Procedure Act, and adopting them would violate Section 316 of the Communications Act because they improperly change Sirius XM’s licenses without individual hearing procedures, the company said. WCS spectrum should be reauctioned to avoid denying “the U.S. taxpayer the fair proceeds reflecting the true value of the spectrum,” since the changes would dramatically increase the spectrum’s worth, it said.

The commission’s rush to identify and make available wireless spectrum has overshadowed its traditional role of preventing interference, the company said. The proposed rules lack “any effective program” to mitigate interference with satellite radio, and although the public notice says WCS licensees would be obliged to correct interference, the commission gives no details on how interference is defined or no chance for “pre-deployment mitigation,” said Sirius. When the FCC first made the spectrum available, it made rules specifically to protect satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS) and satellite radio providers spent more than $180 million at auction to acquire its spectrum. The companies invested billions more on infrastructure, satellites, and programming to build the service since then, it said. The physics of spectrum interference haven’t changed since the commission adopted those rules, said the company.

Several of the commission’s proposed rules are based on faulty data that don’t reflect “real world usage,” Sirius said. The proposed duty cycle limits are ambiguous since they don’t specify a timetable, making them largely ineffective, and proposed power levels are also don’t give detailed benchmarks, it said. The guard band meant to protect satellite radio from interference isn’t large enough and wouldn’t apply to all WCS devices, the company said. The commission could protect SDARS better by requiring ground-based emission limits, a coordinated interference mitigation process, and a maximum occupied bandwidth of 5 MHz, which is consistent with the technical submissions from the WCS licensees, it said. Nissan North America also filed comments saying proposed rule changes could compromise the service to Sirius SM users.

The Satellite Industry Association also asked that the FCC adequately protect SDARS because such interference “presents an inherent danger to any satellite services operating in spectrum bands adjacent to terrestrial services.” The commission should consider requiring a coordination agreement from SDARS and WCS licensees to establish technical operating parameters.

WCS licensees’ deployment plans could be “unduly” constrained by the rule changes if the agency allows “overstated interference claims” from satellite radio providers and flight test users to influence the commission’s decision, the WCS coalition said in its comments. The proposed power limits and out-of-band emissions restrictions would still allow for effective deployment, but any stricter limits would delay equipment availability, it said. The proposed coordination requirement for WCS base station that come within 55 km from aeronautical mobile telemetry (AMT) receivers, which are used for flight testing, could delay the service, it said. A 10 km zone provides adequate protection, it said.

The agency must protect AMT, for safety, said the Aerospace and Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council. If the agency adopts the proposed rules despite the council’s objections, a prior coordination requirement for immediate shut down of WCS base stations within line-of-sight of an AMT receiver in response to complaint of interference is imperative, it said.