GE Backs Medical Cure for Its White-Spaces Problem

GE Healthcare Claims Channel-Protection Technology Would Protect Signals

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/12/2008 2:23:00 PM

As a member of the National Association of Broadcasters, NBC is in a pitched battle with computer companies over the use of unlicensed portable mobile devices in so-called white spaces between digital-TV channels, but parent General Electric said it found a way to allow them, if somewhat grudgingly, in concert with its medical devices that use the TV spectrum.

According to a letter to the Federal Communications Commission from corporate parent GE, its GE Healthcare division told the FCC it is satisfied that channel-protection technology it proposed for healthcare devices "was sufficient … to protect licensed wireless medical telemetry service" on channel 37 from "proposed portable white-spaces devices" that would seek out adjacent channels to use.

GE is not saying it necessarily supports the unlicensed devices. It made clear in an earlier filing that it thinks the FCC should not allow the devices to operate in channels 36 and 38. But GE also said in that earlier filing that if the FCC does allow them, it should limit their power output along the lines of a “masking” regime it was proposing.

The most recent filing suggested that GE is satisfied with that fix.

The NAB is not convinced that there is any technology out there yet that can assure broadcasters that the devices won't potentially interfere with DTV signals and impede the transition to digital.