Pai, Wi-Fi Proponents Say Rejection of Stay Important to Keep 6 GHz Moving Forward

Communications Daily quotes OTI's Michael Calabrese on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denial of a stay of the FCC’s April order allowing Wi-Fi and other unlicensed users to share the 6 GHz band.

The stay is good news for everyone depending on Wi-Fi because it will mean better throughput, especially if the FCC adopts the somewhat higher power levels being considered for indoor-only use, said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America.

“A stay was always very unlikely because it requires a court to find a likelihood that the party opposing the FCC will prevail on the merits,” Calabrese said: “The commission should have little concern about the ultimate outcome of the litigation. Federal courts have rarely, if ever, second-guessed the FCC’s technical expertise ... [here] the FCC examined a dozen dueling engineering studies and explained at great length why it concluded that low-power indoor use poses no undue risk of harmful interference.”