Independent regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission

2.23 CE and FCC Markings

For electronic circuits and systems to be available for commercial sale, they must meet the requirements of specific legislation. If electronic products meet the requirements, they will have a verifying marking on the outside, usually either CE or FCC. Figure 2.47 shows part of an electronic product (in this case a power supply) with both CE and FCC markings.

The CE marking is a declaration by a product manufacturer that the product meets all of the appropriate provisions of the relevant legislation required to implement specific European Directives [32, 33]. CE is not an abbreviation for any specific words, nor is it meant to be a mark of product quality.

The FCC marking is for commercial electronic devices for sale in the United States that are unintentional radio-frequency radiators intended for operation without an individual broadcast license [34]. It covers devices that use clocks or oscillators, operate above a frequency of 9 kHz, and use digital techniques. The specific requirements are set down in the FCC Rules and Regulations, Title 47 CFR Part 15 Subpart B. Most processor-based systems, for example, fall into this category. This is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and categorizes the parts into one of two classes:

Class A: A device intended for an industrial or business environment and not intended for use in a home or a residential area

Class B: A device intended for use in a home or a residential area

FM Translators

The FCC permits the use of very low power (1 watt east of the Mississippi river and 10 watts west) translators to rebroadcast the signals of FM stations in areas where no reception is possible. The translator station receives the main FM signal “off the air” and rebroadcasts it on a different channel; other methods of program delivery are permissible. Coverage range can be from one to five miles depending on power, antenna height, antenna gain, and terrain. Channels are assigned on a secondary basis (noninterference with operating stations). (See Subpart L, Part 74 of the FCC Rules and Regulations.)

1986—Computer III: Reversed Definitional and Structural Approach

The FCC completed Computer II believing that (1) the regulatory distinctions between basic and enhanced services in Computer II were straightforward and definitive, and (2) the structural separation approach of requiring that certain activities of telephone companies be conducted through separate subsidiaries were fair, especially since both aspects of the Final Order had been affirmed by the court.

In the first few years following Computer II, however, AT&T requested a series of waivers from the requirements of the structural separation approach in Computer II, which revealed flaws with that approach.171 For example, in 1981, AT&T requested a waiver permitting the Bell Operating Companies to provide certain custom calling services, such as call answering, advance calling, and remote access, directly to their customers instead of through a subsidiary.172 The FCC refused the waiver because it believed the services could be provided through a subsidiary.173 The delay in making this decision, however, withheld the introduction of these popular services from consumers for nearly a decade, negatively impacting the quantity and quality of services offered to the public.174

Another challenge to Computer II came with code and protocol conversion. By 1985, the FCC had eight protocol conversion petitions from the Bell Operating Companies to consider.175 The FCC found that it could not keep up with the ad hoc nature of the waiver-making process and recognized that the “process is insufficient to provide the stability needed by users, carriers, value-added networks, and other enhanced service providers, whose business planning and decision-making are affected by our decisions.”176 Thus, the FCC announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, called the Third Computer Inquiry or Computer III,177 “to formulate general rules of future applicability to govern the treatment of protocol conversion and similar enhanced services.”178

In Computer III, issued on June 16, 1986, the FCC acknowledged that the definitions and rules from Computer I and II were out of date and that the structural separation that each mandated decreased innovation and efficiency, resulting in higher costs to the public. As a result, the FCC reversed itself in Computer III, permitting telephone companies to provide enhanced services without separate subsidiaries.179 However, the FCC also recognized that the telephone companies could behave in an anticompetitive manner, so it replaced the structural separation requirement with two nonstructural safeguards.180 First, the FCC announced that it would develop cost allocation methods to minimize the Bell Operating Companies' ability to shift costs from their unregulated to regulated activities. Second, the FCC adopted regulations specifically designed to prevent the Bell Operating Companies from using their “substantial market power in providing network access” to discriminate against competing providers of enhanced services.

These antidiscrimination regulations contained three prongs. First, the FCC endorsed an open-network policy requiring the Bell Operating Companies to make the telephone networks as accessible to competitors as they are to the Bell Operating Companies themselves. Second, the FCC required each Bell Operating Company to notify its competitors in the enhanced services industry of changes in the network that may affect the provision of enhanced services so as to permit competitors to take advantage of the changes. Third, the FCC required each Bell Operating Company to provide its competitors with information about customer use of the telephone network so that the competitors may design their services to suit customer needs.181

The open-network policy in the first prong also contained two subcomponents: (1) Comparably Efficient Interconnection (CEI), requiring each Bell Operating Company to provide competitors with connections to the local exchange network that are equal to the connections available to the Bell Operating Company's own enhanced services; and (2) open network architecture, requiring each Bell Operating Company to incorporate CEI concepts into the overall design of its basic service network. It also imposed a customer proprietary network information requirement that if AT&T and the Bell Operating Companies had information about customer use of the basic network services, they must establish procedures to honor requests from customers that their information be withheld from enhanced services personnel and be released to other enhanced services vendors.

The Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent regulatory agency established under the authority of the Communications Act of 1934. The first federal regulation of interstate electrical communication began with the Post Roads Act of 1866, authorizing the postmaster general to fix rates annually for government telegrams. The Radio Act of 1912 was the first law for the domestic regulation of radio communications in general. The 1934 Act set up the FCC as an agency to regulate all interstate and foreign communication by wire, radio, telephone, telegraph, and broadcasting.

The FCC regulates the offering for sale and use of devices that radiate RF energy (non-ionizing radiation). In the hospital, these may include X-ray sources, diathermy units, ultrasound systems, biomedical telemetry, and various forms of radio voice communication. For obvious reasons, there is a need for control over the frequencies of both signals and any spurious radiation (noise) generated by these devices, in terms of both preventing interference with other forms of communication and by establishing safe distances from signal sources.

V.A.2 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Regulations

The FCC administers the use of the radiofrequency spectrum in the United States. Title 47 of the code of Federal Regulations covers telecommunications and contains in five volumes the intentional and incidental use of the spectrum. The parts relevant to EMC are contained in Chapter 1: Part 15 Radio Frequency Devices and Part 18 Industrial Scientific and Medical Equipment.

Part 15 governs emissions from intentional and unintentional radiators and sets out the regulations, technical specifications, and administrative requirements to enable equipment to be marketed without an individual license. Subpart A is concerned with digital devices, subpart B with unintentional radiators, and subpart C with intentional radiators. The FCC classifies equipment into Class A and Class B. Essentially Class A equipment is intended for use in an industrial or commercial environment, while Class B is intended for the residential environment. Accordingly, verification tests for Class A devices are performed by the manufacturer and retained on file; certification by the FCC is not required. For Class B devices FCC certification must be obtained; this is achieved by examining a manufacturer's test results.

The technical requirements for the emission limits are laid down for both conducted emissions and radiated emissions. The methods of measurement are defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard C63.4 Methods of Measurement of Radio-Noise Emissions from Low Voltage Electrical and Electronic Equipment in the Range 9 kHz to 40 GHz. The emission limits and the ANSI test methods are derived from CISPR 22 (see Section V.B). Where the device's highest internally generated frequency is greater than 1 GHz, the highest emission frequency to be measured is determined as five times this frequency.

Part 18 covers equipment designed to generate and locally use radiofrequency (RF) energy at frequencies greater than 9 kHz for industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) purposes. It also includes microwave ovens. ISM frequencies are defined at the international level by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). These frequencies are then allocated at a national level by the national authorities; in the United States the frequencies are allocated by the FCC and are listed in Part 18. Limits and measurements broadly follow CISPR 11 (see Section V.B). Most ISM equipment is subject to FCC certification.

The FCC regulations exclude most industrial electronics equipment.

4.3.2 Initial Challenge to the FCC's Exemption of ISPs—ACTA's Internet Phone Petition To Designate ISPs as Long-Distance Providers

The FCC's 1983 definition of ISPs as ESPs, and thus their exemption from the access charges, remained unchallenged in the telecommunications industry for 12 years, until technological developments made Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) possible. The first challenge to the FCC's classification of ISPs came in 1995 from the long-distance carriers or interexchange carriers. On March 4, 1995, the America's Carriers Telecommunications Association (ACTA), an organization of approximately 130 long-distance service and equipment providers, filed a petition with the FCC for a Declaratory Ruling, Special Relief, and for Institution of Rulemaking Proceedings.34 This filing, also known as the Internet Phone Petition, initiated the FCC's rulemaking proceedings identified as Rulemaking No. 8775 (RM No. 8775).

In its petition, ACTA made two arguments, among others. First, ACTA argued that providers of Internet telephony software are telecommunications carriers, not ESPs, and therefore should be regulated and taxed as common carriers. Second, if VoIP were not regulated and taxed, the nation's telecommunications infrastructure would not have sufficient funds to support itself and universal service.

Opponents to ACTA's petition argued that it is specifically because voice calls on the Internet are transmitted as digitized packets over high-speed networks that it is not feasible to distinguish the voice calls from the data transmissions. This inability to distinguish between the two makes it difficult, costly, and not in the public's interest to regulate or tax voice calls on the Internet.

2.2.1 Television Briefly

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted standards for commercial television broadcasting in the United States in 1941.1 It is an analog system, in which the picture is transmitted via vestigial-sideband modulation of the visual carrier and the sound is frequency modulated on a separate carrier. In 1954, the NTSC “compatibly” extended the system to include color information by increasing the utilization of the 6-MHz spectrum occupied by the television channel while allowing continued use of essentially all older receivers with little performance degradation. In 1976, the FCC reserved line 21 for the closed captioning system, and in 1983 a teletext service was authorized. In 1984, the NTSC system was again compatibly extended to include stereo sound. Most recently, in June 1996, the FCC authorized additional ancillary data services in analog television. These technologies will be considered in this chapter.

The NTSC television system is termed analog because the signals representing the picture and sound information can take on any value between the minimum and maximum limits. In particular, the strength of the visual signal is inversely related to the picture brightness, with black portions of the picture having the most transmitted power. This negative modulation of the video information was found to reduce the impact of Gaussian white noise on the displayed image. Periodic pulses are included at powers greater than those used to represent black areas in the picture. These pulses provide the timing information required to synchronize the transmitter and the receiver, allowing the picture to be painted correctly on the screen.

Understanding television technology is aided by some appreciation of its history.

National Telecommunications and Information Administration

Although the FCC is the official US regulatory body for RF spectrum, there are cases in which it does not have jurisdiction. By law, national security use of the spectrum is under the jurisdiction of the US president. The use of spectrum for national security has been applied broadly to include federal agencies such as the DoD, FAA, and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The jurisdiction of the federal use of the spectrum has been delegated to the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, who is also the director of NTIA. NTIA performs numerous studies to investigate the impact of new technology and the needs of the RF spectrum users within federal agencies.

What are independent regulatory agencies and commissions?

What is an independent regulatory agency?

What is the primary purpose of the Federal Communications Commission?

What are some examples of independent agencies?