U.S. wireless carriers T-Mobile and Sprint are throwing their support behind a petition that aims to give businesses, schools, and public safety entities access to consumer signal boosters.
According to filings with the Commission, both T-Mobile and Sprint support elimination of a personal use restriction currently levied on consumer signal boosters. Sprint argued removing the personal use restriction would help “facilitate the deployment of well-designed signal boosters” and “not increase the risk of harmful interference to its network.”
“This small change in the rules would further expand the opportunities for businesses, public safety entities, public institutions, and other enterprises to deploy signal boosters that support their needs while also accommodating and protecting carriers’ networks from devices that do not have the safeguards and Network Protection Standards found in consumer signal boosters,” Sprint wrote.
Similarly, T-Mobile indicated the FCC’s elimination of the personal use restriction would “increase the benefits associated with signal boosters without jeopardizing network performance.”
The comments come in response to a call for input on a petition from Wilson Electronics that asks the FCC to eliminate the personal use restriction currently in place for operation of all consumer signal boosters. That restriction states “subscriber in good standing of a commercial mobile radio service system may operate a Consumer Signal Booster for personal use under the authorization held by the licensee providing service to the subscriber.” Wilson is seeking to strike that restriction to allow businesses, public safety entities, public institutions, and other enterprises to use consumer signal boosters.
In addition to garnering T-Mobile and Sprint’s support, the change was also backed by industry groups like the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and the Enterprise Wireless Alliance. Verizon and AT&T did not appear to have filed their positions on the matter.
Comments on the petition were due Thursday, and the deadline for replies to those is April 3.
Filed Under: Infrastructure
