CRITICS HIT FUNDING, RELOCATION CHOICES OF NEXTEL PROPOSAL

Nextel, public safety groups and private wireless groups last month submitted revised spectrum swap plan to FCC, revamping original Nextel proposal to alleviate interference for public safety at 800 MHz. Compromise provided replacement spectrum for private wireless operators, not just public safety licensees. Original Nextel plan would have provided carrier with 10 MHz in mobile satellite service (MSS) band at 2.1 GHz in exchange for spectrum it was shedding elsewhere at 700, 800 and 900 MHz but new plan instead would take that replacement spectrum from 5 MHz of unlicensed PCS spectrum at 1.9 GHz and another 5 MHz of reserve MSS spectrum. Latest plan would divide 800 MHz band into 2 contiguous spectrum blocks, with public safety, business/industrial land transportation (B/ILT) and traditional specialized mobile radio (SMR) licensees remaining in 20 MHz noncellular block. Nextel would relocate to 16 MHz cellular block in that band. Compromise would create guard band in noncellular block at 814-816 and 859-861 MHz for low-power systems and other B/ILT licensees. Blueprint would allow public safety licensees to acquire remaining channels vacated by Nextel in noncellular block at 800 MHz to create more capacity for those operators. Besides Nextel, plan’s supporters include Assn. of Public Safety Communications Officials, American Mobile Telecom Assn., Industrial Telecommunications Assn., International Assn. of Fire Chiefs, PCIA. Coalition said its backers represented licensees operating in 80% of 800 MHz land mobile radio band.

Numerous commenters underscored disagreement in wireless, satellite and utility sectors and elsewhere about factors such as relocation spectrum. “CTIA objects to labeling this proposal a ‘consensus plan’ because many of the parties that have a significant interest in this proceeding do not agree with the plan, were not involved in its development and believe that an alternative solution to address the problem of interference into public safety operations in the 800 MHz band is warranted,” group said. CTIA said shortcomings of joint plan included: (1) Lack of “long-term” fix to public safety interference. (2) Unfair advantage for some licensees at 800 MHz. (3) Lack of full funding for relocation of incumbents. (4) Failure to provide public safety with “upgraded communications capability.” CTIA said its alternative would relocate public safety from 800 MHz to 700 MHz, do interim rebanding within 800 MHz and improve public safety equipment and interference mitigation. It balked at giving Nextel 10 MHz of contiguous spectrum outside of 800 MHz band, where it now has licenses that are interleaved with other users. Other carriers paid close to $1.3 billion for 10 MHz of comparable spectrum in A and B blocks, CTIA said. Group said any spectrum made available for mobile commercial service should be subject to auction if mutually exclusive applicants were interested in bidding. CTIA also said plan didn’t earmark funding beyond $500 million that Nextel would pay. It has proposed that beyond that $500 million, other funding should come from “public funds” or other measures that didn’t impose “involuntary” costs on wireless carriers.

Nextel called cellular industry criticism “anticompetitive obfuscation at the expense of public safety first responders.” It said public safety community had expressed “near-unanimous” opposition to relocation plans involving encumbered 700 MHz spectrum as replacement band. That would entail “ground-breaking legislation,” accelerated relocation of Chs. 60-69 TV broadcasters by date certain and “resolution of a host of other regulatory obstacles,” Nextel said. Even if those challenges were met, it said 700 MHz solution would entail high costs to relocate public safety operators to new band with new equipment. “Continuing cellular opposition to the consensus plan is at best disingenuous given the increasing frequency in which cellular transmissions are being identified as contributors to CMRS- public safety interference,” Nextel said. Coalition plan would eliminate cellular causes of interference without asking those carriers to relocate, it argued. “Moreover, only Nextel has pledged to contribute $500 million to public safety relocation, and only Nextel has agreed to bear its own considerable costs of relocating its nationwide network without reimbursement, while maintaining service to more than 10 million customers,” it said.

Coalition’s rebanding plan was floated to FCC before recent disclosure that Reps. Tauzin (R-La.) and Dingell (D- Mich.) were circulating draft bill that would require broadcasters to cease analog TV service and operate in digital only by Dec. 31, 2006 (CD Sept 20 p1). Nextel told FCC it was “highly unlikely” such legislation would pass House and Senate by end of this Congress. Even if that occurred, “it would set a 2007 deadline for the DTV transition, making possible actual public safety use of the 700 MHz spectrum years after that -- too late to address the existing and growing CMRS-public safety interference problem,” Nextel said.

Backers of coalition plan defended funding component, saying their proposal, unlike Nextel’s original plan and competing versions, would minimize amount of relocations needed. Many private wireless and SMR incumbents at upper end of 800 MHz won’t “have to retune a single channel,” filing said. “Some will have to retune only a few channels while the majority of their systems require no action.” They stressed plan wouldn’t call on incumbents to bear costs of relocation. Coalition said it continued to work on funding solution to reimburse licensees that would relocate and would finalize plan for FCC by Oct. 23. Coalition also took issue with competing Motorola plan, saying it would do away with guard band between cellular and noncellular spectrum, instead creating transition band with high-site and low-site operations. That would subject certain licensees to more interference on noncellular channels adjacent to cellular low-site block than under coalition plan, filing said. Motorola plan would cost more and wouldn’t provide additional spectrum at 800 MHz for public safety, filing said.

Verizon Wireless, echoing concerns of other CMRS carriers, urged FCC to reject coalition’s plan as “a radical, enormously costly and disruptive approach.” It said that although Nextel was “primary cause” of interference problems at 800 MHz, it would pay small part of costs of realignment while receiving “substantial and unjustified spectrum windfall.” Verizon stressed that coalition plan didn’t have unilateral backing from public safety community, citing concerns raised by Portland, Ore., Fairfax County, Va., Dept. of Information Technology and city of Baltimore. Only agreement on coalition plan is that “Nextel is the predominant cause of interference to public safety systems, and is the sole cause of interference in many cases,” Verizon said. “This is about where the consensus ends.” Carrier cited comments by Baltimore that interference problem “may have been overstated by commercial parties who see an opportunity to gain valuable blocks of spectrum.” Verizon said Fairfax County had told FCC it generally opposed restructuring of 800 MHz band because it didn’t guarantee interference would be solved. Verizon said City of Portland had said more strongly that “band realignment approach would not resolve the interference problems currently being experienced by the Portland mobile data system.” Lack of full funding component is “fatal” flaw “because the Commission cannot hope to implement the consensus plan without a clear path to funding the relocations it requires, Verizon said.

Boeing said rather than representing industry consensus, plan constituted “minority position when compared to the total number of participants” in proceeding. It accused Nextel of being “driving force” behind plan, saying company had lobbied FCC on proceeding 10 times since reply comments were due on its original White Paper: “This is consistent with the view that the solution contained in the ‘consensus plan’ is driven primarily by Nextel’s interests and is neither a broad consensus nor in the best interests of public safety licensees.” Boeing particularly objected to part of proposal that would give Nextel 5 MHz of MSS spectrum in exchange for spectrum it was giving up elsewhere. If FCC ultimately opted to give Nextel non-800 MHz replacement spectrum, Boeing said, it should come from 2110-2165 MHz earmarked for 3G instead of MSS band.

N.Y.C. said its public safety frequencies continued to experience interleaving and interference problems caused by commercial carriers. “While a channel reshuffling may well mitigate interference, reshuffling alone is unlikely to eliminate interference,” city said. Filing proposed that FCC consider doing its own engineering analysis of 800 MHz to assess “more definitively the sources of interference and help inform the range of possible solutions.” City said it was concerned about potential interference in 809-812/854-859 MHz band identified in Nextel coalition plan for public safety relocation. It said it needed much higher “level of comfort” on how public safety systems now using 814-816/859- 861 MHz band would be treated. About 40% of city’s 800 MHz channels fall in that band and support N.Y. Fire Dept. and Office of Emergency Management.