Our Comments to the FCC Regarding the 2018 Signal Booster NPRM

As we've written previously, the FCC announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) this year that would make meaningful changes to the regulations that apply to cell phone signal boosters.

The FCC sought comment on three main topics:

1. How the booster rules can be streamlined to make embedding boosters in vehicles easier
2. Whether the "personal use" restriction should be removed on wideband boosters
3. Whether to authorize non-subscribers to operate consumer-grade signal boosters
4. Whether the booster rules should be expanded to allow amplifications of three additional frequency bands in addition to the current five (700 MHz, 850 MHz, 1900 MHz, and AWS bands)

This week, we submitted our comments to the FCC. We made three major suggestions:

• We encouraged the FCC to quickly remove the "personal use" restriction on wideband boosters. There has been almost no criticism of this move from the comments received thus far, and we expect it will be implemented in short order.
• We encouraged streamlining the process by which new bands are added to devices. Upcoming 5G bands will barely penetrate buildings, making boosters critical.
• Finally, we offered to create and host a centralized database that would simplify the process of registering boosters. This would also make it simpler for carriers to look up the locations of boosters. We offered to do this at no cost to either carriers, the FCC, or device manufacturers.

You can read our comments in full below or on the FCC website.