May 15,
2002
Office of the Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th St., S.W., Room TW-A325
Washington, D.C. 20554
RE: WT Docket No. 01-309, NPRM Related to Reexamination of Exemption
Granted Personal Communications Services devices from the Hearing Aid
Compatibility Act of 1988
Dear Commissioner:
We represent Myers Johnson, Inc. (MJI), a company involved in the design
and production of wireless communication accessories. MJI is devoting
significant attention to communications equipment access issues for
persons with hearing disabilities and is interested in the proceedings
of the Federal Communications Commission (the Commission) as they relate
to hearing aids and cochlear implants. MJI has been following the Commission’s
reexamination of the exemption granted Personal Communications Services
(PCS) devices from certain provisions of the Hearing Aid Compatibility
Act of 1988 (the HAC Act), as announced in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
(the NPRM), WT Docket 01-309. We believe that the technology MJI has
developed makes compliance with the HAC Act technologically feasible
and readily achievable, and hereby urge the Commission to repeal the
exemption. MJI currently has a patent pending on a unique, natural
and absolute means for controlling energy around a desired location
such as a user’s head or body.
I recently spoke with Ms. Mandy Little regarding
our desire to submit information responsive to the NPRM. At the time
that NPRM responses were
being sought, MJI had not yet secured intellectual property protection
for the antenna technology which we believe to be pertinent to the PCS
exemption. Mr. Jim Johnson, President & CEO of MJI, corresponded
via emails to Commissioner Abernathy on February 11 and again on February
13, 2002, identifying himself and noting that MJI had developed technology
relevant to the reexamination. Having secured the intellectual property
protection, we are now more at liberty to discuss the technological details.
We have read a number of the industry comments
submitted by wireless communications equipment providers and the CTIA
which the revocation
of the exemption is premature, and find them unpersuasive. MJI’s
Interferometric Antenna Array (IAA) technology provides a simple and
inexpensive means for controlling radio frequency (RF) energy around
a user’s head and consequently the electromagnetic interference
(EMI) caused in the user’s hearing aid as a result of the RF energy
radiated from a wireless device’s transmission antenna. The IAA
creates RF energy nulls simply and effectively in the region near to
the wireless communications device’s antenna array, where a user’s
head is expected to be positioned when using the communications device.
The principle behind the operation of MJI’s IAA technology lies
in the cancellation of selected RF energy waves as they propagate from
the communications device antenna array and before they introduce electromagnetic
interference in hearing aid circuitry. Through the judicious selection
of the number of radiating antenna elements, phase-shifting, and power
division, significant reduction of the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR)
can be achieved. Internal lab experiments MJI has undertaken has demonstrated
that SAR’s on the order of as much as 1000 times below the allowable
1.6 W/kg of tissue are achievable. These levels are achievable without
complex and expensive adaptive cancellation circuitry, shielding, or
telecoil modifications. Typical antennas used in PCS devices consist
of either a monopole or single pair of dipole radiating elements. The
IAA concept uses more than one radiating element (a plurality from 2
to N) separated by a distance which is determined in part by the free
space wavelength of the signal which the PCS device is intended to transmit.
Signals generated by the PCS device for transmission are appropriately
split, and the split signals phase-shifted with respect to one another,
prior to feeding the plurality of radiating elements. Judiciously selected
element positioning, signal-splitting and phase-shifting results in a
region proximate to the IAA in which the radiated electromagnetic energy
combines and cancels so as create a spatial null.
Adoption of MJI’s IAA technology by common carriers as after-market
accessories, or manufacturers as alternative antenna designs for mainstream
cellular phone models, will allow both common carriers and handset manufacturers
to comply with the HAC Act of 1988. MJI, which is based in San Francisco,
CA, is actively moving towards manufacturing the IAA and a market launch
of May 15, 2002, which notably coincides with the middle of “Better
Hearing and Speech Month”. MJI is still in the process of gathering
data from a series of compatibility tests being conducted under the general
guidelines of the newly-adopted ANSI C63.19 “Hearing Aid Compatibility” standard,
and would be happy to share performance results when they become available.
MJI believes these results will empirically demonstrate the feasibility
of achieving compatibility.
The Commission was also seeking input on the
interpretation of “internal
means” by which the wireless industry must make telephones compatible
with hearing aids. Neither retrofitting a PCS device or introducing an
IAA to the original PCS device design will be expensive or inconvenient
to a user. Because there are no circuit changes and only minor housing
changes to accommodate the IAA, only a small percentage of the overall
cost of a phone will be attributable to component changes and engineering
re-design efforts. MJI expects a successful marketing campaign and rapid
growth of market share in the cellular phone market for users who are
concerned with the health questions. While an after-market retrofit of
an existing wireless telephone with an IAA may not fit the Commission’s
interpretation of “internal means”, a similarly inexpensive “design
in” will. Additionally, an after-market add-on version of the IAA
will prove less cumbersome than existing external approaches to compatibility
(e.g., neck loops or other inductive system sets for telecoils).
MJI agrees with the Commission's tentative conclusions
that a revocation of the exemption is in the public interest and that
not revoking or limiting
the exemption will have an adverse effect on hearing-impaired individuals.
It is MJI’s belief that its proprietary IAA technology makes feasible
compatibility between wireless telecommunications equipment and hearing
aids.
We would appreciate the Commission’s consideration
of the foregoing as it finalizes its decision regarding the exemption
which is the subject
of the NPRM. Please feel free to contact me if we may provide any further
information or assistance in this process.
Sincerely,
John A. Hamilton
JAH:jh2
cc: Qualex International, Portals II
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street
FCC 01-320 17 SW, Rm CY-B402
Washington, D.C. 20554
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Policy Division
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20554.
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