Progeny LMS, which owns Location & Monitoring Service (LMS) licen...

FCC auction, asked agency to relax restrictions on type and content of messages and spectrum aggregation. Carrier said it wanted Commission to apply “to the LMS band its market-oriented policy of allowing licensees flexibility to offer whatever services the market can support and demand, so long a those operations do not hinder or interfere with the operations of primary users in the band.” Restrictions represent “outmoded approach” to spectrum management, Progeny said. It said service dated to early 1970s, when Commission adopted order allowing introduction of automatic vehicle monitoring service, later renamed LMS. Service was seen as providing tracking and monitoring of large vehicle fleets and providing information to allow vehicles to be better used through dispatch and routing information. In 1999, of 528 LMS licenses that were auctioned, nearly 250 were unsold, Progeny said. “Attempts at implementing this service demonstrate that some modifications are necessary in order for LMS to succeed,” it said. If LMS operators were given additional flexibility by FCC, they could compete with commercial wireless operators, which “are rolling out enhanced 911 location technologies that will provide similar economic and public safety benefits,” Progeny said. Eliminating certain restrictions would allow LMS licensees to offer voice and data messaging services in addition to advanced location technologies, petition said. Progeny urged FCC to consider eliminating or modifying: (1) LMS spectrum cap so single licensee could hold all of LMS licenses in given economic area. (2) Restriction on real-time interconnection with public switched telephone network. (3) Restriction on types of communications services. (4) Safe harbor provision that creates presumption of non-interference for secondary users. Progeny cited additional regulatory flexibility that commercial wireless operators had been granted, including ability to offer range of services. In period of substantial growth for commercial wireless sector, “the 902-928 MHz LMS industry, unfortunately, languished,” Progeny said. “As a result, LMS remains subject to a regulatory scheme born out of political compromises that more appropriately characterize the stratified wireless industry of 1993 than today’s competitively robust wireless industry,” petition said.