Dish responds to reported limitations on LTE-Advanced plans
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Dish responds to reported limitations on LTE-Advanced plans

US operator Dish Network has expressed its disappointment in response to reports that regulator, the FCC, may limit its plans to use AWS-4 spectrum for LTE-Advanced mobile broadband services.

Stanton Dodge, EVP, general counsel and secretary at Dish, said that the FCC’s reported proposed order did address some of the opportunities with the spectrum it was “significantly flawed by introducing serious limitations that impair its utility.”

He also argued that the FCC’s proposal to lower power and emissions levels could cripple Dish’s ability to enter the business.

The company urged the FCC to recognise that Dish’s plans were in the public interest and would involve the most investment, use the most spectrum and create the most jobs.

Dish believes that interest from Sprint has affected the FCC’s proposal, which would call on Dish to disable 25% of its uplink spectrum and impair another 25% to accommodate possible future use of H-block spectrum by the carrier.

Concern was also raised over Sprint’s reported H-block plans as it would likely cause a reopening of the standards setting process led by the Third Generation Partnership Programme (3GPP), according to Dish.

This would force the company to put on hold its activities for radio design and network build-out while it waits for the H-block rulemaking to be completed.

"Dish’s position is consistent with more than 20 years of FCC precedent. The AWS-4 rulemaking should be completed with the power and emissions levels that were recommended by the FCC in its April Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) and supported by most commenters (with the notable exception of Sprint), and which would not require Dish to effectively surrender 25% of its uplink capacity,” said Dodge.

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