Martin Says FCC Investigating Whether 800 MHz Rebanding Remains On Track
Chmn. Martin said he’s not certain if 800 MHz rebanding -- the outgrowth of the landmark 2004 order by the FCC, remains on track. Martin also warned Mon. that the FCC likely will take a tough stance as it evaluates requests for waiver from the tier-one wireless carriers who failed to meet a Jan. 31 deadline that 95% of their subscribers use “location-capable” handsets as part of the move to E-911.
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Public safety groups warned the FCC in a Jan. 12 letter that the difficulties public safety agencies are encountering as they seek reimbursement for the cost of the planning they need to do to reband “threatens to stall the entire rebanding process.” Nextel, which has since merged with Sprint, committed to give up spectrum at 800 MHz and pay the cost of public safety rebanding, in return for 10 MHz of spectrum nationwide in the valuable 1.9 GHz band.
“People just saying that it’s difficult or complicated or that they're having trouble resolving some of these issues, I think that that was to be expected,” Martin told reporters as he left a meeting at the FCC: “What we need to do is make sure that despite working through those difficulties they're still going to be on track.” Asked if the rebanding is moving forward as expected, he replied: “I think we're not sure. We're trying to figure out where they kind of are in that process.”
Martin said the FCC is evaluating arguments made by each of the large national carriers “and the specific facts that they bring forward” in filings that ask for more time to meet the mandate: “A lot of the individual carriers are in very different positions.”
The FCC has taken a tough stance as it grants extensions to smaller carriers. Industry sources said that may bode for a tough stance on time extensions for the national carriers. Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, Alltel and U.S. Cellular have handset-based E-911 solutions and are the major carriers affected. Cingular and T-Mobile are providing a network- based E-911 solution. “The Commission has shown that they are pretty dedicated to making sure that 911 is being deployed across all technologies,” Martin said. “We've been strict on issues like that in the past and I think we're going to generally continue to be so.”