Groups say use of wireless 'white spaces' could disrupt care

With telecommunications industry pressure mounting to put them to use, technology vendors and engineering groups are fighting what they say is a critical battle to protect so-called "white spaces" in the wireless spectrum. White spaces are empty, TV airwaves that some carriers would like to use to provide high speed Internet services to unlicensed portable devices over a nearby spectrum. Not only could such uses potentially squelch TV audio and douse the sound from wireless microphones, they could conceivably interfere with hospital telemetry equipment monitoring critical data such as heart rates, blood oxygen levels and blood pressure, as well as support technology like respiration devices, hospital engineers say.

For those who follow such things, it's worth noting that the FCC allocated channel 37 to hospital groups for telemetry use about 10 years ago, which might otherwise have helped. Unfortunately, systems built before then use some white space spectrum. Given how long some equipment may be in use in a facility, this could be a serious issue, healthcare technology pros note.

Rather than try to ban the use of white spaces entirely, hospital technology groups like the American Society of Healthcare Engineering are hoping to work out a compromise. Among other things, they'd like to see the agency keep a few white-space channels off limits, limit the signal strength of devices operating in certain frequencies on channels 36 to 38, and make sure hospitals are informed when white space devices become operational nearby their facility.

To learn more about this issue:
- read this Associated Press article

Related Article:
CTIA weighs in on white-space spectrum debate