Wireless patient devices at risk from proposed Internet use

But its potential effect on everything from baseball calls to banjo picking has attracted increasingly loud and powerful opponents. Television broadcasters, telecom carriers and wireless microphone makers and users, including Major League Baseball and the Grand Ole Opry, have rejected several proposals from the tech coalition.

"The white spaces proposals being considered by the FCC could turn 'Music City' into a silent city unless they get it right," Steve Gibson, music director and producer of broadcast audio for the Grand Ole Opry, said in a statement Tuesday. The country music venue is operated by Nashville, Tenn.-based Gaylord Entertainment Co.

Unlike the broadcasters and wireless mic users, GE Healthcare and ASHE say they're not against the technology coalition's proposal, but want tougher technical standards implemented to lessen any potential risks. They've have had several discussions with the FCC and technology companies to find a compromise.

Attorney Scott Blake Harris, who represents several technology companies, said Tuesday the coalition has agreed to the substance of GE Healthcare's proposal.

"There are no insurmountable technical hurdles here," he added.

Since the 1980s, hospitals across the country have been using channels 33 to 36 to operate unlicensed wireless patient-monitoring devices. In 2000, the FCC allocated channel 37 for exclusive use of medical-monitoring equipment after a 1998 incident in which a TV broadcaster interfered with a nearby hospital's low-powered heart monitors. No patients were harmed, but hospital officials have said it could have serious injury or death.

While most hospitals have migrated to the protected channel, some still operate outside it.

GE Healthcare, one of the top manufacturers of such devices, previously proposed that if white spaces are approved for Internet use, the FCC should prohibit such operation within channels 33 to 36 for at least one year -until February 2010. This would give dozens more hospitals monitoring thousands of patients more time to migrate to the protected channel 37, said Tim Kottak, engineering general manager of systems and wireless for GE Healthcare.

"Some are very aware of this pending (initiative), but others have no idea and that's a risk," he said. However, hospitals aren't required to move to the protected channel.

Those measures may not be enough. Unlicensed, portable Internet devices operating in the adjacent empty channels next to the exclusive medical-device one may be too powerful, bleed into it and "overload" hospitals systems, which normally emit weaker wireless signals, said Kottak.