In the Matter of                                )
                                                )
Petition for Rule Making of SAVI                )   RM-10051
Technology, Inc.; Amendment of                  )
Part 15 to Permit Broader Data                  )
Transmission Capabilities                       )

To: The Commission

	COMMENTS OF ARRL, THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR AMATEUR RADIO
	IN RESPONSE TO PETITION FOR RULE MAKING

	ARRL, The National Association For Amateur Radio ("ARRL", 
also known as the American Radio Relay League, Incorporated), by 
counsel and pursuant to Section 1.405(a) of the Commission's Rules 
[47 C.F.R. §1.405(a)] hereby respectfully submits its comments in 
response to the Petition for Rule Making (the Petition) filed on 
or about November 22, 2000 by SAVI Technology, Inc. (SAVI). The 
Petition was placed on Public Notice January 30, 2001 by the 
Commission (Report No. 2462). These comments are therefore timely 
filed. The Petition seeks changes in the Commission's Part 15 
rules governing unlicensed, periodic, intentional radiators so as 
to permit increased duty cycles and permitted field strengths for 
radio frequency identification (RFID) systems. In response to the 
requested changes, ARRL states as follows:
	1. This petition is another in a long series of rulemaking 
petitions in which the Commission is asked by manufacturers of 
unlicensed Radio Frequency (RF) devices to liberalize the rules 
regarding permitted field strengths for such devices, in bands 
allocated to the Amateur Service. The instant Petition follows the 
classic format whereby the petitioner: (1) touts the alleged 
utility to consumers of the technology used on an unlicensed 
basis; (2) asserts that the Commission's Part 15 regulations are 
insufficiently liberal to accommodate the universe of possible 
features of the technology; (3) makes no reference to the 
interference potential to licensed radio services in the band of 
choice (which band was typically selected by the manufacturer ab 
initio without reference to interference potential to licensed 
services, or the performance of the device in the presence of 
licensed radio services); and then (4) requests the rule change 
without technical justification therefor. ARRL suggests that this 
petition, like its progenitors, is unsupported by interference 
studies, and therefore contains insufficient reasons in support of 
the action requested to justify the institution of a rulemaking 
proceeding. Accordingly, it should be dismissed pursuant to 
Section 1.407 of the Commission's Rules.
	2. As ARRL has noted numerous times in the past, the 
Commission has jurisdictional limitations on its ability to 
liberalize Part 15 regulations. Unlicensed Part 15 devices have no 
allocation status, internationally or domestically. These devices 
are permitted on an "at-sufferance" basis: they must not cause 
interference to licensed radio services, and they must tolerate 
interference received from licensed radio services in the same 
bands. The Communications Act of 1934 is devoid of any authority 
to allow unlicensed devices with substantial interference 
potential; such devices must be licensed. The only authority 
granted to the Commission to permit unlicensed transmitting 
devices under the Act is with respect to radio control and 
citizen's radio service facilities, 47 U.S.C. §307(e)1. The Act 
also permits the Commission to regulate the interference potential 
of RF devices by "reasonable regulation", 47 U.S.C. §302.  This 
the Commission has done by permitting operation of such devices in 
bands allocated, on a primary basis, to one or more licensed radio 
services, but only where the operation of the unlicensed devices 
has been determined to be unlikely to cause interference to the 
licensed radio services. In this case, SAVI has made no showing 
that unlicensed RFID devices at the requested higher field 
strength levels and radically increased duty cycles proposed could 
be operated on an itinerant basis without undue risk of harmful 
interference to the Amateur Service. Neither has the Petitioner 
shown any reason why the extremely high field strengths of 110,000 
microvolts per meter measured at 3 meters is required to 
communicate over paths of 100 meters.
	3. In order to invoke Communications Act jurisdiction to 
amend the Part 15 rules as requested by SAVI, the Commission must 
make a specific finding that the SAVI devices under the proposed 
new rules would not cause interference to licensed radio services. 
SAVI has configured the operation of its RFID tag transmitters in 
the 420-450 MHz band (specifically centered at 433.9 MHz)2 and 
proposes to operate them at field strengths of 110,000 uV/m, with 
duty cycles up to two minutes at a time, and only a ten-second 
silent period between transmissions. The current Section 15.231(e) 
provisions for periodic radiators, however, permit field strengths 
of less than 5,000 uV/m at that frequency (measured at 3 meters), 
with duty cycles of less than one second, assuming a silent period 
between transmissions of at least 30 times the duration of the 
transmission.
	4. Thus, in order to justify the requested rule change, SAVI 
would have to affirmatively demonstrate to the Commission, and the 
Commission would have to affirmatively determine, that the 
proposed change in the rules for RFID tags, allowing a 30 dB 
increase in field strength, accompanied by a radical increase in 
duty cycle of these periodic radiators, would not result in 
interference to existing services. Furthermore, with respect to 
control transmissions, SAVI states at page 5 of its Petition that 
periodic transmissions for control purposes (which under present 
Section 15.231(a)(3) are limited to not more than one second per 
hour), should be restricted only by a ten percent duty cycle 
requirement with no periodic transmission restriction. SAVI 
asserts that the modified rules "would allow for full 128 kilobyte 
data transmission without increasing the possibility of additional 
interference since the range of 100 meters would be maintained as 
would the overall power and field strength limitations."
	5. In any case, the premises of the Petition are flawed. 
First of all, ARRL strongly disagrees with SAVI's suggestion that 
field strengths of 110,000 uV/m for these devices would limit the 
range of SAVI's transmissions to 100 meters. Signals of that 
magnitude would provide reasonable communications at ranges well 
in excess of 1 kM, even with insensitive receivers and low-gain 
antennas. The potential for interference to sensitive amateur 
radio receivers, which in the 433 MHz band utilize very high gain 
antennas, is extreme. The entire method by which SAVI determined 
that a signal level of 110,000 uV/m is permitted is a serious 
misinterpretation of the language of Section 15.35(c). That 
section stipulates that the maximum amount of time over which a 
pulse train can be averaged is 0.1 seconds. If this averaging is 
applied to a 120-second transmission, or a 0.1 second pulse within 
any transmission, the resultant averaging is a factor of 100 
percent, meaning that no averaging is applied at all under those 
circumstances. Because these devices transmit data, SAVI also 
incorrectly starts with the table in Section 15.231(e); but that 
error is moot anyway because averaging cannot be applied to a 
pulse train whose length is greater than or e	qual to 0.1 seconds 
in any case.
	6. At page 5 of the Petition, SAVI contends that its control 
polling is limited to one second per hour. This is true only to 
the extent that SAVI wishes to utilize the field strengths 
permitted in the Section 15.231(b) table. However, Section 15.231 
stipulates that:
	(e) Intentional radiators may operate at a periodic rate 
exceeding that specified in paragraph (a) and may be employed for 
any type of operation, including operation prohibited in paragraph 
(a), provided that the intentional radiator complies with the 
provisions of paragraphs (b) through (d) of this Section, except 
that the field strength table in paragraph (a) is replaced by 
...[a replacement table]

The replacement table would permit a field strength of 4,398.7 
uV/m at 433.92 MHz. This should be adequate for communication out 
to approximately 300 meters if a reasonably sensitive receiver is 
employed. The limitation claimed by SAVI, therefore, is reasonably 
addressed by present Section 15.231 rules.
	7. SAVI's premise that the current rules would require 30 
minutes of clock time to download 128 kilobytes of data is 
incorrect. The provisions of Section 15.231(c) stipulate that the 
bandwidth shall not exceed 0.25% of the operating frequency. At 
433.92 MHz, the permitted bandwidth would be greater than 1 MHz.
	8. The proposed rules attached to the Petition do not track 
the contentions in the Petition. The rules would completely 
eliminate the averaging issues discussed relative to Section 
15.35, and would simply permit commercial and industrial devices 
to transmit up to 120 seconds continuously, and to emit RF energy 
during that entire period at levels up to 110,000 uV/m. This is 
many orders of magnitude greater than what is currently permitted. 
Signal levels of that order could be heard for kilometers, or 
more, with even low-gain antennas. Existing periodic emitters 
function reasonably well within the existing provisions of Section 
15.231(a) and 15.231(e); there is no demonstration in the Petition 
that 120 seconds of transmission, with but a 10-second off-time,3 
at 110,000 uV/m measured at 3 meters is necessary or appropriate. 
The existing provisions of Section 15.231 serve adequately for a 
communications range of 100 meters. If SAVI cannot use modulation 
and encoding techniques that would allow them to get data 
throughput they need to communicate 128 kilobytes of data in a 
reasonable time, they should manufacture equipment under the 
several other sections of Part 15 that do not have the limits the 
Commission intended for periodic radiators, which were configured 
to limit interference.
	9. In a broader sense, the Commission is presently without 
empirical data concerning ambient noise levels in bands used by 
Part 15 devices. It therefore is unable to determine, much less 
predict, whether the permitted field strengths for Part 15 devices 
are adequate, overly limited, or overly liberal. Limited anecdotal 
study by ARRL technical staff of noise levels from unlicensed 
devices in certain metropolitan areas indicate that man-made RF 
noise is substantially increasing. ARRL has offered to contribute 
by participation of volunteers in a planned study of noise levels 
proposed by the Commission's Technological Advisory Council (TAC). 
The TAC formed a Noise Subcommittee, which has reported to the 
Commission that:
	Based on the trends in new wireless devices and systems, the 
subcommittee concluded that the noise environment may degrade 
significantly in the near future and therefore it warrants 
significant additional focus at this time.4

The TAC stated that "we could potentially be entering a period of 
rapid degradation of the noise environment" and that this 
degradation "could impact the reliability of current systems and 
the viability of future communications systems."5 Premised on 
these forecasts, the Commission must be extremely careful in 
evaluating rulemaking petitions proposing substantial departures 
from present Part 15 rules. It must make evaluations of those 
proposals based on technical compatibility studies. Absent such in 
the instant petition, it can only be concluded that the Petition 
is incomplete and fails to justify the relief requested, and it 
must therefore be denied.  	10. The Amateur Service makes 
extensive use of the 420-450 MHz band. There are approximately 
6,300 FM voice repeaters in the United States in the band, and at 
least that number of fixed control and auxiliary point-to-point 
links there as well. The locations and frequencies are not 
published by the licensees or the volunteer coordinators. The 420-
450 MHz band has experienced significant growth in recent years. 
Amateur radio operation in the 420-450 MHz band is not based on 
fixed transmitter operation. Amateur transmitter locations and 
signal paths are unpredictable in that band. It is extremely 
popular among radio Amateurs, and there are many thousands of 
Amateur stations which utilize extremely sensitive receivers for 
weak-signal transmissions at 432-433 MHz. Because RFID tags are 
itinerant and mobile, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever 
that interference between Amateur stations and RFID tags could be 
mitigated once the devices are deployed. The interference 
potential of these devices is thus completely unpredictable, and 
cannot be remedied easily. While there is some flexibility in 
amateur operation such that interfering signals compliant with the 
periodic rates permitted by the current Section 15.231 rules can 
be tolerated without harmful interference, the field strengths and 
duty cycles proposed by SAVI are completely unreasonable and would 
undoubtedly seriously disrupt Amateur communications in one of the 
most popular of the Amateur Service allocations.
	Therefore, the foregoing considered, ARRL, the National 
Association for Amateur Radio, respectfully requests that this 
Petition be immediately denied or dismissed, pursuant to Section 
1.407 of the Commission's Rules.

						Respectfully submitted,

						ARRL, THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
						FOR AMATEUR RADIO
225 Main Street
Newington, CT  06111


					By:	____________________________
						Christopher D. Imlay
						Its General Counsel

BOOTH, FRERET, IMLAY & TEPPER, P.C.
5101 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, Suite 307
Washington, DC  20016-4120
(202) 686-9600