Who Says FCC Web Site is Dull?

While FCC seems to have lost most interest in spectrum policy, it still has time for other parts of its "product line".

Here are some titillating quotes from a decision last week. (Trust me, I couldn't make this up.)

"9. The complaints refer to a scene at the beginning of the program, during which a woman and a boy, who appears to be about seven or eight years old, are involved in an incident that includes adult female nudity. As confirmed by a tape of the program provided by ABC, during the scene in question, a woman wearing a robe is shown entering a bathroom, closing the door, and then briefly looking at herself in a mirror hanging above a sink. The camera then shows her crossing the room, turning on the shower, and returning to the mirror. With her back to the camera, she removes her robe, thereby revealing the side of one of her breasts and a full view of her back. The camera shot includes a full view of her buttocks and her upper legs as she leans across the sink to hang up her robe. The camera then tracks her, in profile, as she walks from the mirror back toward the shower. Only a small portion of the side of one of her breasts is visible. Her pubic area is not visible, but her buttocks are visible from the side.

10. The scene shifts to a shot of a young boy lying in bed, kicking back his bed covers, getting up, and then walking toward the bathroom. The camera cuts back to the woman, who is now shown standing naked in front of the shower, her back to the camera. The frame consists initially of a full shot of her naked from the back, from the top of her head to her waist; the camera then pans down to a shot of her buttocks, lingers for a moment, and then pans up her back. The camera then shifts back to a shot of the boy opening the bathroom door. As he opens the door, the woman, who is now standing in front of the mirror with her back to the door, gasps, quickly turns to face the boy, and freezes momentarily. The camera initially focuses on the woman's face but then cuts to a shot taken from behind and through her legs, which serve to frame the boy's face as he looks at her with a somewhat startled expression. The camera then jumps to a front view of the woman's upper torso; a full view of her breasts is obscured, however, by a silhouette of the boy's head and ears. After the boy backs out of the bathroom and shuts the door, the camera shows the woman facing the door, with one arm and hand covering her breasts and the other hand covering her pubic area. The scene ends with the boy's voice, heard through the closed door, saying "sorry," and the woman while looking embarrassed, responds, "It's okay. No problem." The complainants contend that such material is indecent and request that the Commission impose sanctions against the licensees responsible for broadcasting this material.

11. Indecency Analysis. As an initial matter, we find that the programming at issue is within the scope of our indecency definition because it depicts sexual organs and excretory organs - specifically an adult woman's buttocks. Although ABC argues, without citing any authority, that the buttocks are not a sexual organ, we reject this argument, which runs counter to both case law and common sense.

12. We also find that the material is, in the context presented here, patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium. Turning to the first principal factor in our contextual analysis, the scene contains explicit and graphic depictions of sexual organs. The scene depicts multiple, close-range views of an adult woman's naked buttocks. In this respect, this case is similar to other cases in which we have held depictions of nudity to be graphic and explicit."

If you want to see stills from the scene in question, surf over to
http://www.celebrityvideo.ru/screenshot/r/Ross_Charlotte_NYPD_Blue_640_480.jpg
courtesy, oddly, of a Russian website. (Make sure your virus checker is up to date before you surf over to such a website.)

Now I don't mind the 8th Floor spending time on the broadcast indecency "product line", that is part of the FCC's job. But it would be nice if they would remember that spectrum policy is also part of its jobs and spend some time on it also, rather than the minimum required by law.

Now a positive comment about the above quote: Note that they got the video from ABC. Until a few years ago there were indecency rules but the Commission played a "shell game" with respect to complaints. All complaints were dismissed on some technicality or other and the burden was on the filer to produce a video of the episode in question. This has now changed and the Commission is looking at indecency complaints on their merits.

However, the old "shell game" is now used in the ex parte complaint enforcement process where the OGC staff searches for technicalities to dismiss complaints -- without examining their merits. I note that OGC has never examined the issue of the 16 ex parte filings by a certain party that seem to violate the rules that was posted in my 10/13/06 OGC letter in this blog. 8th Floor readers might wish to ask OGC about their continued disinterest in the matter and why a certain trade organization is able to violate the ex parte rules multiple times with impunity.
========
UPDATE

If you can't get enough of this from FCC, here is the 2/19/08 Forfeiture Order for the NYPD Blue episode in question. Frankly, I don't understand the procedural issue of why there are two separate documents a few weeks apart. But I guess it shows 8th Floor interest in the matter. I just wish they were as interested in other parts of their jurisdiction also.

2nd UPDATE
From FCC website:

2/22/08
FCC Releases Forfeiture Order for 'Married by America' Episode.
Order: Word | Acrobat

In this case, FCC just squeezed under the 5 year deadline for deciding on a fine. The Washington Post commented,

"The FCC has a five-year statute of limitations on indecency enforcement; had the agency waited until after April 8 to rule, it could not have collected any fines.

...

It took nearly five years from broadcast to FCC decision, but less than a month for the FCC to turn down ABC's response and order a reduced payment of $1.24 million against 45 stations, again omitting markets that had not complained about the program".

TV White Space Device Testing Off and Running

Yesterday at 10 AM a crowd of about 30 gathered at the FCC Lab in Columbia Maryland to watch the beginning of Phase 2 of the Docket 04-186 White Space Device testing. Four devices are being testing: Adaptrum, Microsoft, Motorola, and Philips. Some are detectors only, some are both detectors and transmitters.

It was announced that a fifth unit from Singapore Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R - pronounced "i-squared-r") was on the way from Singapore for testing but had a shipping hangup with DHL that had trouble posting a bond for reexport with US Customs and shipped the unit back to Singapore. I²R is now using a different shipper and arrival is expected shortly.

The Google prototype is missing in action without any explanation and FCC staff was vague about whether additional units would be accepted - implying that this was subject to the Chairman's usual micromanagement.

It was announced that testing schedule updates would be posted on the testing web site.
[But no information has actually been posted to date. I was amused to hear that in the current FCC micromanagement environment, the Chairman's Office approval was needed for OET to post information to this site and had been obtained.]

As I speculated in the previous post, different developers got different guidance from the FCC staff on what interfaces from the devices were requested to speed testing. Philips was told to indicate the results of 30 trials to detect a given frequency and interpreted to give a percentage of the tries that indicated the frequency was in use. Adaptrum was asked more specifically to deliver a text string of zeroes and ones indicating the outcome of each trial. I suspect this inconsistency comes from the inability of FCC staff members to issue written guidance on even such microscopic matters without multiple layers of oversight - so they just issue inconsistent verbal guidance.



When the testing started the 30 observers gathers in a lab room and watch initial testing of the Philips units with undistorted DTV signals from a Rhode and Schwarz signal generator fed directly into their device. Testing started at -110 dBm and reach -120 dBm when we broke for lunch. At that point the Philips device still had a perfect detection record.



MSTV observers repeated questioned whether devices might just always declare a signal was present to get a perfect record. Apparently MSTV has no faith in market forces since such a device would fail in the market as it would never transmit a signal and also never cause interference. MSTV also quibbled whether smaller antennas might make detectors less sensitive. While this is true in a technical sense, it is irrelevant for policy consideration since the FCC proposal, the position of most parties, and the 5 GHz U-NII precedent deals with system performance not just the detector electronics: if the total system doesn't meet the performance standard in the final rule, if can't be sold.



The initial testing also revealed the ambiguities in the published test plan. The first test, I.A, was testing detection at various DTV signal levels. The procedure actually used was to use a Rhode & Schwarz SFU signal generator to directly produce signals at levels in the -110 dBm range (much more sensitive than DTV receivers) and below and to send them by cable to the equipment under test (EUT) a few feet away. There are lingering doubts whether the signal reaching the nearby EUT in such a setup are actually the power indicated on the SFU since at such very low signal levels unintended paths might create comparable signals. Oddly, a nearby screen room was not used for this test and would have decreased uncertainty about unintended coupling. The test plan did not address this level of detail.



Indeed, it is puzzling why all this testing is necessary: In the 5 GHz case, NTIA and FCC determined 2 pairs of detection levels and maximum transmit power that would protect the cochannel radar systems and left it to industry to develop systems that met the standard. Truly a pass/fail system. The existence of such a rule would stimulate capital formation to finance the development of such systems while reliably protecting the few homes that receiver over-the-air TV reception. The current lingering uncertainty about what the standard is and the confusion of that issue with prototype testing is a big disincentive to capital formation - something I would have thought a Republican administration would understand.



At the birth of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in Docket 81-413 many parties of vested interests quibbled over whether affordable electronic could be built to meet the rules. Wisely the Commission chose a fail/safe approach of adopting a standard that protected other systems and just waited to see if anyone could build equipment. Within 2 years the first commercial product reached the market from a startup firm and several years later 802.11 standardization began. Now that Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are household names, few remember the uncertainties of the 1980s.

White Space Device Testing
to Start at FCC Lab

A January 17th FCC public notice announced the beginning of the next round of testing of prototype white space devices (WSDs) on January 24 at 10 AM and will continue "4 to 6 weeks". the testing will be "conducted openly and transparently" although few details were given about procedures in the published test plan.

The notice indicated that devices from Adaptrum, Microsoft, Motorola and Philips would be tested but was ambiguous about whether late entries would be allowed. Google is thought to have a device also so we will see if they show up and will be allowed to participate with others.

Other unanswered questions about the testing include: What is the last date, if any, that developers can change the software in their prototypes? When can the developers show FCC staff how to operate the devices? FCC staff has informally told developers what type of data they want from the devices during test, e.g. a comma separated variable (CSV) list of yes/no detections for 30 consecutive trials at a given power level. Have all developers been told the same set of requirements?

So the restaurant business near the FCC Lab should pick up for the next few weeks. Hope they plow the parking lot for the expected guests. See you there!

WAPECS – Europe Moves Towards Technical Flexibility for Wireless Systems

European spectrum management has a reputation for being much more conservative than the policies of the Federal Communications Commission in the US and its counterparts in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Part of this comes from the demands of geography: Europe is full of tightly packed international boundaries and population centers close to international borders making multinational cooperation essential in spectrum management. But, as we describe below, there are changes under deliberation in Europe that could open the door for technical innovation and flexibility just as spectrum uses are converging.

In Europe there are national spectrum management agencies, “administrations” in ITU jargon, as well as two different layers of regional deliberations. The CEPT, European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations, is a 48 nation group that includes all of Western and Eastern Europe, the Russian Republic, and some of the former Soviet republics. While it was originally composed of national PTTs, governmental bodies that operated postal and telecommunications systems, it now is composed of national postal and telecommunications regulators. Its European Radiocommunications Office, located in Copenhagen, is the staff organization that supports the CEPT’s European Communications Committee (ECC). But there is also the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG), a European Commission organization, representing 27 European Union (EU) member states. Thus the CEPT and the EU represent an overlapping but distinct sets of countries. Another difference is that the European Commission has broad social, economic and industrial policy goals for its member states and the legal authority to make EU-wide regulations. By contrast, CEPT is limited to a telecommunications and postal matters only and has less legal authority.

In May 2004, the European Commission asked its RSPG to develop an “opinion” on a new approach to wireless policy to be tried in a limited number of bands: Wireless Access Platforms for Electronic Communications Services or WAPECS. (Pronounced "wah-pecks".) It is defined as follows:

WAPECS is a framework for the provision of electronic communications services within a set of frequency bands to be identified and agreed between European Union Member States in which a range of electronic communications networks and electronic communications services may be offered on a technology and service neutral basis, provided that certain technical requirements to avoid interference are met, to ensure the effective and efficient use of the spectrum, and the authorisation conditions do not distort competition.

Thus while the “command and control” style of spectrum management has been the hallmark of policy in Europe, the interaction between the European Commission and CEPT is leading to deliberations on a more open style in which regulators are not perceived as the barriers between new technology and their access to the market. Indeed, RSPG found that the long term policy goal

“should be to develop approaches ensuring that spectrum issues related to the growing and evolving variety of radio systems comply with the overall policy goal to develop the European Union internal market and European competitiveness, by ensuring an innovation-friendly and coherent regulatory environment which facilitates rapid access to spectrum for new technologies and leads to the provision of a wide variety of wireless electronic communications services and networks.”

Since the European Commission looks at the European economy as a whole, they are more concerned about both the “internal market”, i.e. the trade among EU member states, and the overall competitiveness of the European states in world trade than the CEPT which consists of communications (and postal) regulators from the overlapping set of member countries. The RSPG advocated that “(w)herever possible and appropriate, constraints attached to the usage of specific radio spectrum bands should be removed and spectrum management made more responsive to the rapid development of new markets and services.” This should be good news to wireless researchers innovating new technology for it should increase their speed to market.

The UK’s innovative spectrum regulator, Ofcom, echoed these thoughts saying that it

“believes that the principles (WAPECS) sets out will help to create a more flexible spectrum framework across the EU which will facilitate more rapid access to spectrum and encourage innovation and competition. This will benefit UK businesses by allowing them to act swiftly to take advantage of market opportunities; consumers will benefit too with the rapid introduction of valuable new services.”

In December 2007, CEPT’s ECC released a draft report to the European Commission on WAPECS and requested public comment with a deadline of February 19, 2008. The bands identified for WAPECS are now:

• 470-862 MHz;
• 880-915 MHz / 925-960 MHz (900 MHz bands);
• 1710-1785 MHz / 1805-1880 MHz (1800 MHz bands);
• 1900-1980 MHz / 2010-2025 MHz / 2110-2170 MHz (2 GHz bands);
• 2500-2690 MHz;
• 3.4-3.8 GHz

These span almost a decade of frequencies and offer a variety of propagation characteristics. Of course, they are all high enough that intermittent ionospheric propagation effects can be ignored, greatly simplifying transborder issues.

The CEPT draft recommends that service neutrality in WAPECS be defined so that

“Any electronic communications service (ECS) may be provided in any WAPECS
band over any type of electronic communications network. No frequency band
should be reserved for the exclusive use of a particular ECS.

While this might not seem so innovative to North Americans, a still applicable European Commission directive requires that only GSM can be used in Europe in the 900 and 1800 MHz bands. However, it is anticipated that this directive will be repealed soon by the European Parliament.

The CEPT report discusses three possible models for describing the “least restrictive technical conditions” for limiting usage of a band:

1. Traditional compatibility and sharing analysis method
2. The Block Edge Mask (BEM) approach to define spectrum usage rights (SURs) – A UK approach [This is actually wrong - see 1st comment below]
   
3. PFD MASKS - Aggregate PFD approach
4. Aggregate PSD Transmitter Masks
5. The Hybrid Approach
6. Space-Centric Management – An Australian approach

The report is a good summary of the technical policy options available to enable technical flexibility in a band while also controlling interference to other systems that are located nearby in both frequency and physical location. The issue of how to specify the “metes and bounds” of a radio license is key to speeding market access for new technologies and allowing existing technologies to evolve in a timely way to meet user demands. The CEPT’s serious deliberations on this topic show that the issue is received widespread attention.

The ERO has requested comments on the new WAPECS draft. The due date is February 19. Comments should be sent to kermoal@ero.dk. I hope FCC will send comments on this key issue, but given the present disinterest in almost all spectrum matters I doubt if they will.