NEXTEL, BROADCASTERS STRIKE SPECTRUM DEAL
Nextel agreed late Mon. to pay broadcasters $512 million under a broader plan to reallocate spectrum and ensure wireless calls don’t interfere with public safety communications. The agreement with the NAB and Maximum Service TV addresses an issue of significant concern for broadcasters -- their ability to clear the spectrum but still make live broadcast remotes.
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In return, Nextel gets political cover from important allies with clout on Capitol Hill and at the FCC, sources said. Nextel had initially expected to spend $150 million as the cost of clearing spectrum in the 1990-2025 MHz band, but agreed to pay for broadcasters’ full relocation costs.
NAB and MSTV have criticized the FCC’s current Broadcast Auxiliary Services relocation plan as impairing local stations’ ability to provide live, local news coverage, typically known as electronic news gathering (ENG). But the agreement to include BAS relocation in the Consensus Plan solves the problem, the companies said.
Nextel will fund transition of all TV broadcasters out of band. The FCC had stated that broadcasters should be compensated for returning part of the spectrum used for ENG, but never specified how. “The beauty of this plan is that it is done so voluntarily,” a broadcast industry source said. The NAB and MSTV had been in negotiations with Nextel about proper compensation for nearly a decade.
But wireless carriers who have proposed an alternate plan criticized the filing Tues. “This is essentially Nextel saying it will do what it has to do no matter what,” a spokesman for Verizon Wireless said. “At a time when we should be focused on public safety Nextel is back on business as usual.” CTIA said: “Nextel’s idea is a good one, but perhaps it is better applied to the wireless industry’s compromise proposal, which would deliver $3 billion to public safety to help them relocate their spectrum assignments, too.”
“It addresses several different issues in different areas,” a Nextel spokeswoman said. “There has been a planned relocation for broadcasters for a number of years. They have been upset because they felt it would disturb their news gathering. They didn’t feel it would be a seamless transition.”
The Nextel spokeswoman said that under the agreement: “We said we are going to provide some certainty. They were going to expedite the process.”