T-Mobile is urging the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology to explain the outcome of tests it recently conducted to determine if AWS-3 services will interfere with services that run operate on AWS-1 spectrum. The tests, which FCC engineers conducted at a Boeing facility near Seattle in early September, could influence the commission's plan to auction AWS-3 spectrum for a nationwide, free wireless broadband network.
In its latest filing to the FCC, submitted on Friday, T-Mobile asked the commission to "put its tentative conclusions regarding the Boeing lab tests on the record."
The FCC published the raw data from the study Sept. 12 but refrained from interpreting the results as it continues with the AWS-3 rulemaking proceeding. T-Mobile, and its rival in this controversy, M2Z Networks, obviously are anxious about the impact the tests might have. T-Mobile opposes the AWS-3 auction because of interference concerns; it, AT&T, CTIA, MetroPCS and Nokia Siemens Networks all claimed in a Sept. 10 filing that the tests proved that interference will be a problem. M2Z, a leading proponent of the AWS-3 initiative, claimed otherwise--that the tests proved AWS-3 services would not interfere--in a Sept. 23 filing to the commission.
"We appreciate the OET's willingness to engage in testing and the fact that OET staff publicly released its data from the tests, but a full record should include the engineers' views on whether they think the tests show that the proposed rules will create harmful interference and why or why not," Thomas Sugrue, T-Mobile's vice president for government affairs, wrote to the FCC. "A reasonable comment period would give the public a chance to review those conclusions before the Commission acts in reliance on them."
T-Mobile made the request, which it shared with FierceBroadbandWireless, in its response to comments that M2Z had filed with the commission earlier last week. In the T-Mobile filing, Sugrue also said his company is willing to conduct additional FCC tests, either at the Boeing lab or a certified lab of M2Z's choosing, to confirm the validity of the original Boeing lab tests.
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