FCC PLANS STAR-SPANGLED ANNOUNCEMENT SUPPORTING NEXTEL PLAN
The FCC is signaling to opposing carriers that Chmn. Powell has decided to side with Nextel and support its version of an 800 MHz rebanding plan, resulting in majority support for the plan. Powell hopes to release an order next week, before the 4th of July holiday. The decision would be a major victory for Nextel, which has been locked in a sometimes bitter fight with other carriers over the plan.
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“It looks like it’s pretty much a done deal,” one source said. “This has been our concern all along.” Another carrier source noted that the FCC has appeared close to a decision in the past only to have the FCC back down at the last minute.
A few groups are throwing up late red flags about aspects of the plan. The most potentially troubling for Nextel is the newly formed “First Response Coalition,” which includes officials involved in responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on N.Y. Speakers at a press conference today (Thurs.) are to include William Fox, commissioner of the Metropolitan Fire Assn. and Robert Stephens, the retired chief of dispatch of the N.Y. Fire Dept.
“The experts will warn that the Nextel plan will stymie post-9/11 progress toward ‘interoperability’ of communication between police, firefighters and other first responders,” the group said in a press release. “The Coalition’s white paper report also objects to the fact that the Nextel plan will require public service agencies to put up the front-end money to upgrade their communications facilities and then apply after the fact for reimbursement.”
A Nextel spokesman had no comment pending release of the white paper. Nextel has said in the past there’s an independent fund administrator and there is no reimbursement mechanism and that the costs associated with retuning will be paid directly to the retuning entity.
Two major electric utilities, meanwhile, are expressing concerns over replacement spectrum they would receive under the rebanding proposal. Consumers Energy and Entergy opposed Nextel’s latest proposal, saying they too serve an important public safety function. “It appears that Nextel is now offering to ‘contribute’ the 816-817/861-862 MHz band with the intention that this additional bandwidth will be accessed by ‘compatible, consenting licensees’ seeking to operate high- or low-site systems,” the utilities told the FCC in a filing in the 800 MHz docket. “An examination of terms under which Nextel is offering this spectrum, however, reveals that it would have severe limitations such that it could not be viewed as comparable to the spectrum currently licensed by the Utilities and other private wireless licensees.”
The utilities argued “because of the public safety nature of their communications at 800 MHz, they shouldn’t be compelled to relocate into bands that would be subject to either higher levels of interference from Nextel or subject to a greater probability of interference.”