On Thursday, April 21 the FCC unanimously started a proceeding that will explore ways to promote, in its words, the efficient use of spectrum through improved receiver interference immunity performance.
In a news release, the Commission noted that while its “spectrum management efforts often have focused on transmitter regulations, the Notice of Inquiry adopted today will take a fresh look at the role of receivers and how improved receiver performance can promote more efficient spectrum use and enable valuable new services to be introduced that will benefit the American public.”
The Notice of Inquiry reflects the pioneering work that JP (Pierre) de Vries and especially Dale Hatfield have been doing on this topic for many years. The NOI cites several Silicon Flatirons reports and describes five FCC Technological Advisory Council (TAC) white papers that included Hatfield and/or De Vries as authors (De Vries was the lead author on three of them). Receiver issues were addressed in several Silicon Flatirons events, including a summit in 2009 and a conference in 2010.