Microsoft Warning of Game Console Woes From TLPS Seen Dragging Out Proceeding

Microsoft is claiming "a profound negative impact" on video game consoles like its Xbox 360S from Globalstar's proposed broadband terrestrial low-power service (TLPS). Those assertions could mire the proceeding before the FCC for months, satellite industry consultant Tim Farrar told us Wednesday. "Things were coming to a head one way or another -- either to move forward or say nothing will happen this year -- and this likely ensures the latter." Nintendo also raised red flags about possible TLPS interference (see 1607060042). Globalstar rebutted Microsoft's concerns.

Using a Xbox 360S with wireless controllers in the presence of a TLPS access point resulted in intolerably high "button loss" -- a button press on a controller not being communicated from the controller to the console, Microsoft said in a filing Tuesday in docket 13-213. Microsoft said its button loss specification for the 360S is one per 10 minutes of operation. When Wi-Fi is present in the 2.4 GHz band on channels 1, 6 and 11, 360S button loss is negligible, at two events per hour during one button press per second, Microsoft said. But adding a Globalstar TLPS transmitter using IEEE 802.11 protocol resulted in "an impactful button loss" of more than 100 times over 27 minutes, 38 times worse performance than product specification allows, it said. A TLPS transmitter not using 802.11 listen-before-talk functionality resulted in button loss of nearly 950 times over 59 minutes, 160 times worse performance than product specification, it said.

The button loss associated with a TLPS transmitter "would render action games -- which constitute two-thirds of all best-selling console games -- unplayable and would seriously undermine the gaming experience for games of all types," Microsoft said, saying other console manufacturers operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band likely would be similarly hit. The company said it plans to do other button-loss tests and button-latency tests elsewhere on its campus outside a testing chamber, and then in a multi-tenant dwelling with real users. Microsoft urged the FCC not to permit Globalstar TLPS or opportunistic Wi-Fi use of channel 14 in the 2.4 GHz ISM band.

"Microsoft went to extraordinary lengths to manufacture claimed interference to its Xbox operations," Globalstar said in a statement Wednesday. "Indeed, taking Microsoft's ex parte at face value, an Xbox user might experience a perceptible degradation in his or her gaming experience if using an Xbox in close proximity to four wireless access points simultaneously operating on all four non-overlapping 802.11 channels at 100% duty cycles. This is an operating environment that would occur only in Microsoft’s shielded chamber at its Redmond, Washington campus, not any actual real world scenario."

Microsoft also might look at possible TLPS interference with various computer tablets. The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology in May granted the company's special temporary authority application to look at terrestrial operations in the 2473-2483.5 MHz unlicensed band and the adjacent 2483.5-2500 MHz band and how they might affect unlicensed operations in the 2.4 GHz band such as operations of the Nook HD+, Nexus 7 and Nexus 9. The company didn't comment.