Nextel Noncommittal in First Meeting on Rebanding Order
Nextel has begun to reach out to public safety to shed some light on its concerns about the 800 MHz rebanding order, released by the FCC Aug. 6. Nextel held a conference call last week with public safety officials, at which it made clear it has real reservations about the order as released. Sources told us Fri. that Nextel indicated some of the issues could be deal breakers, though public safety sources said they remain hopeful all can be addressed.
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Nextel expressed concerns that went beyond those raised in Montreal by Senior Vp Robert Foosaner (CD Aug 12 p2). Nextel has made no public comment beyond those of Foosaner at the APCO forum. He said Nextel would meet with public safety last week after its initial review.
“We've been sorting through it with Nextel and with the Commission,” said one public safety official Fri.: “There are a lot of loose ends… There are clearly some things that need to be fixed. When you do things of that magnitude it’s bound to have some problems. [The FCC] is trying to identify as much as possible things that can be revised.”
Nextel didn’t indicate when it would have a formal response, the source said: “They haven’t indicated to us they would wait to the last minute. They just haven’t indicated when they would respond or how they would respond.” The source said public safety agreed with Nextel on some the points made at the meeting, while on others public safety had no interests at stake. “Our concern is that at the end of the day any major obstacle that they're concerned about the Commission will respond to.”
One development that could help Nextel decide to agree to the plan is that the FCC appears poised to agree to an auction of H-block spectrum at its Sept. agenda meeting. Chmn. Powell started circulating the H-block order Thurs., giving other commissioners 3 weeks to consider the order before to the meeting. Nextel would get G-block spectrum as one part of the plan and may be uniquely suited to take advantage of the spectrum offered for sale.
Other carriers are expected to mount a challenge over the next 3 weeks. Carriers led by CTIA met with Edmond Thomas, chief of the Office of Engineering & Technology, and other top OET staff on Tues. “CTIA reiterated its position that failure to adopt industry out-of-band emissions standards for handsets operating in an H-block would result in harmful interference to existing PCS operations,” the carriers said in an ex parte filing.
“They're going to grumble but that’s what you'd expect,” a rival carrier source said. “The FCC is sweetening the pot enough with H-block that it will guarantee Nextel goes along.”