While there are competing analyses from Globalstar and...

While there are competing analyses from Globalstar and NCTA, “there is no serious dispute that harmful interference to Globalstar will occur at high usage levels” of outdoor unlicensed national information infrastructure (U-NII) devices, Globalstar said in an ex parte filing in docket 13-49 (http://bit.ly/1ewRfBr). At such high usage levels, “outdoor U-NII-1 operations will cause harmful interference by reducing capacity on Globalstar’s network,” it said. The FCC can’t rush ahead with its proposed rule changes without additional steps determining thresholds for and risks of harmful interference with more certainty, it said. The filing recounts details of a meeting with staff from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology and Jonathan Sallet, acting FCC general counsel. Globalstar also filed a white paper explaining its position that the commission can’t legally permit the unlimited deployment of outdoor unlicensed devices in the U-NII-1 band, it said. The mobile satellite services company said it showed that unrestricted outdoor operations in the U-NII-1 band “would threaten substantial harmful interference to Globalstar’s feeder uplink operations at 5.096-5.25 GHz,” the white paper said (http://bit.ly/1bMuPBo). Although the FCC originally adopted the restriction on outdoor use at a time when unlicensed use was in its infancy, “today it is beyond reasonable dispute that removing that restriction will lead to massive, imminent outdoor use of the U-NII-1 band,” it said. A spectrum licensee has vested property and reliance interests that further ensure protection from harmful interference, it said. “Both the commission and the courts have also recognized that these reliance interests must be given careful consideration before changing rules."