Have not responded to this as of yet; as wanted to listen to all the back and forth between all the parties providing input. One word…”interesting”!
As one, I have been in the medical telemetry space for over thirty years and I have designed many large antenna systems for both UHF and VHF for large healthcare systems. Thus you could say… have the field experience of not only design; but lugging around a spectrum analyzer and making this all work.
Working for a company that developed VHF receivers and transmitters; I vividly remember how WMTS came onto the horizon in the late 90’s. Also was I was in the throws of when Wi-Fi came out in 1999 and I transitioned to a company that helped develop the Wi-Fi Alliance. Wi-Fi can onto the scene in 1999, simply because 802.11b was approved. As a side, 802.11 was there years before. In addition I worked with many medical device companies to incorporate WLAN into their applications from 1999 till a few years later.
So in some essence know both sides.
When the issue of HDTV interference came into being, healthcare systems spent millions and millions of dollars to shift to WMTS out of UHF and VHF. The whole notion sold to the “end user” and the industry was that this was a “quote protected spectrum”. That was in the late 90’s. However; nothing really changed in terms of the actual design of the diversity antenna system or transmitter/receiver… still decades old..in my opinion. Companies simply shifted frequencies.
Moving forward to 2015, WLAN has been proven to work for patient monitoring, infusion pumps, and pretty much any type of healthcare application today. In fact there are very sophisticated real time spectrum analyzers built into today’s modern WLAN controllers and access points to monitor any potential interference and identify it.
This not present with WMTS. Fifteen years of progress and billions of $$ have been spent in the WLAN space. The little known technology of 802.11 in 1998 and 1999 has become a "household" word of WiFi today.
Question…. how much continued R&D has been spent in the WMTS space in the past fifteen years?
Spectrum is spectrum, it is precious and the FCC does control this. No doubt sooner or later Channel 37 would come under pressure.
See attached articles and white paper.
802.11af, also called Super Wi-Fi or White-Fi, employs unused TV spectrum at frequencies between 54MHz and 790MHz, over very long ranges (possibly several miles).
According to a study, there will be nearly 26 - 30 billion devices on the Internet of Things by 2020. ABI Research estimates that more than 30 billion devices will be wirelessly connected to the Internet of Things (Internet of Everything) by 2020.
Download Wp_medical-grade_life-critical_wireless_networks_stevebaker-3
Download 150728-statement-oversight-fedcom
Download FCC to allow unlicensed devices on same band as patient monitors - Modern Healthcare