Sprint, FCC Head to Court on 800 MHz Order
Sprint Nextel and the FCC head to court March 18 over the carrier’s challenge of a September order that the carrier claims violates the administrative procedures and is an abuse of FCC authority. The agency order fundamentally and illegally rewrites the landmark 2004 800 MHz rebanding agreement among Nextel, the FCC, public safety and others, Sprint Nextel said. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is to hear oral argument March 18.
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Sprint is challenging the FCC’s third decision on 800 MHz, which found that the carrier had failed to clear channel 1 to 120 incumbents from the 800 MHz band as required under the rebanding order (CD Sept 11 special bulletin). The order required Sprint to vacate a channel no later than 60 days after being asked to do so an NPSPAC licensee after Jan. 1. It also gave Sprint until June 26 to clear out of channels 1 to 120 “regardless of whether all NPSPAC licensees in a given region are prepared to relocate within that time frame.”
Sprint said the FCC in its order “turned its back on its agreement with Nextel,” ignoring limits the deal set on agency authority. “The order rejected the central terms of the Initial Order and the Supplemental Order to which Nextel agreed and replaced them with a new ‘bargain’ to which Nextel did not and could not responsibly agree,” Sprint said. The effect of the FCC deadlines, which are months or years before replacement channels are available, will be “a waste of scarce spectrum and a disruption to the communications of nearly 20 million Nextel customers… with no benefit to the public interest,” it said.
The FCC told the court that the recent order immediately frees 800 MHz spectrum for use by public safety. The agency said Sprint already has use of 10 MHz of 1.9 GHz spectrum that it was to receive under the 2004 order. “Because interference problems worsen every day, time is of the essence in restructuring the 800 MHz band,” the agency said. “The Commission properly decided to enforce the 36-month deadline for Sprint to leave its General Category and Interleaved spectrum even if public safety systems have not vacated their NPSPAC block spectrum by the deadline.”
Without a push, Sprint would be slow to leave the spectrum, the FCC said. “Sprint has an obvious incentive to remain on its spectrum, and that incentive has helped create delays in the rebanding process,” the agency said.
Among phase I licensees, 95 percent have retuned without disruption, with nearly half of phase II licensees signing frequency retune agreements, A Sprint spokesman said Wednesday. “Sprint is committed to public safety and will not compromise on eliminating the risk of interference for public safety communications,” the spokesman said.
During a telecom subcommittee hearing Wednesday on the DTV transition, several members of the panel, including Chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass., ranking member Cliff Stearns, R- Fla., and Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., expressed concerns about the future of the D-block. Markey said that when the auction is finished, if no one has met the reserve price for the D block, the panel will hold a hearing and do a “top to bottom evaluation of what we should do going forward.” Harman said the D block is “still our best hope” for a national public safety broadband network and the absence of bidders doesn’t “signal the failure of the public-private partnership model.” Talking with reporters after his testimony, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin largely repeated comments that if no bidder meets the reserve price, the commission will have to take a hard look at the future of the band and how to handle public-safety concerns.