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TLPS Interferes With Bluetooth Devices, SIG Says

March 25, 2015 |Agencies

Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) again said demonstrations show terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) interferes significantly with Bluetooth devices, in an FCC filing posted Monday in docket 13-213. Globalstar said broadband TLPS “is a good neighbor” to Wi-Fi opera­tions on IEEE 802.11 channel 11 and other channels (see 1503230030). Bluetooth SIG said it's suspicious of the conclusion from Globalstar's Bluetooth speaker test, which was reported to show clear audio quality, considering the SIG's finding in a Bluetooth speaker test without TLPS that the audio quality was poor, the filing said. Bluetooth SIG said it became clear during recent demos (see 1503190025) that all the access points had a very low level of traffic when compared with the maximum possible for those points. It said specific media files were used by those operating the TLPS setup for the Bluetooth demos, which may have produced a lower level of traffic. "These limited demonstrations prove that there should be significant concern about the interference caused by TLPS on Bluetooth communications," said a Bluetooth SIG spokeswoman. "There were other demonstrations that we had prepared but were unable to conduct due to the facilities provided and we believe that these other demonstrations would also have shown the effect of TLPS interference." Bluetooth had two days to set up and test its products before the demonstration and only decided to demo two devices, even though the company brought others, said Barbee Ponder, vice president-regulatory affairs for Globalstar. "Bluetooth's claim that they didn't have enough time or space is absurd," he said. "They could have returned Monday and Tuesday of the following week for the continuation of the demonstration but decided not to do so." Ponder said Globalstar demonstrated that four different mainstream BlueTooth-enabled devices worked flawlessly and simultaneously with all three public Wi-Fi channels and TLPS operating in the FCC's Technology Experience Center.