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Wavelengths
FCC should do the smart thing
By Glenn Bischoff
March 21, 2008
Sprint Nextel pleaded its case this week before a federal appeals court
regarding an FCC order issued last fall that requires the carrier to
vacate its 800 MHZ channels by June 26, regardless of whether
reconfiguration is completed. Sprint believes doing so is unfair and
places an undue burden on the carrier to find a temporary home for tens
of thousands of its iDEN customers until channels currently occupied by
public safety licensees are freed.
As I’ve written before in this space, I couldn’t agree more with
Sprint on this matter. The dispute never should have reached the
courts.
The FCC failed to quickly recognize that the “minimum cost”
provision of its original rebanding order was the single biggest factor
in the glacier-like pace of negotiations between Sprint and the public
safety licensees. Once the FCC clarified what it meant—two years
after
the reconfiguration began—the pace of negotiations picked up
considerably. But the rebanding project is woefully behind schedule
precisely because so many negotiations took so long.
Consequently, the FCC should give Sprint a break on this issue. The
carrier says it will be ready to vacate its 800 MHz channels, wherever
reconfiguration has occurred, within 60 days of a public safety
licensee’s request, as required by the order. That should be enough.
There could be another reason beyond fairness for the FCC to cut Sprint
some slack, as pointed out to me this week by MRT Senior Writer
Donny Jackson. The 700 MHz auction ended this week, with just one
bidder
for the 10 MHz D Block. The $472 million bid was well below the FCC’s
$1.3 billion reserve price for the airwaves, which are supposed to be
paired with 10 MHz of adjacent public safety spectrum to form the
backbone of a nationwide broadband wireless network for first
responders.
Speculation for the lack of bidding has centered on the reserve price
and the penalty established by the FCC that would require the D Block
winner to forfeit 10% of the reserve price should it be determined that
it failed to negotiate in good faith with the Public Safety Spectrum
Trust, the FCC-designated licensee for public safety’s spectrum.
Indeed, those conditions by themselves would have been enough to give
potential bidders pause. But also hanging overhead, like the Sword of
Damocles, is the unprecedented public/private partnership that is
supposed to build out the network. The fact that such a partnership
never has been attempted on a project of this scale would be enough to
make any commercial entity wary. But they also had to be wondering
about
the performance requirements for the network—99.3% coverage of the
nation’s population and 99.9% reliability—and whether the FCC would
treat them fairly in terms of meeting those requirements.
Cutting Sprint some slack in the 800 MHz dispute would be the right
thing for the FCC to do. It also would be the intelligent thing.
Unfairly holding Sprint’s feet to the coals by forcing it to
prematurely vacate its channels would send a terrible message to any
commercial entity still contemplating taking a shot at the D Block
spectrum, should the FCC decide to re-auction it.
E-mail me at gbischoff@mrtmag.com.
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In the News
Verizon,
AT&T emerge as big winners of 700 MHz auction
By Donny Jackson
March 21, 2008
U.S. wireless giants Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility
bought the most spectrum and spent the most money on airwaves in the
recently completed 700 MHz auction, the FCC reported yesterday as part
of the first disclosures regarding the bidding process.
Sprint
Nextel makes its rebanding case in appeals court
By Donny Jackson
March 19, 2008
Sprint Nextel argued yesterday before a federal appeals
court that an FCC rebanding order approved last fall that requires the
carrier to vacate its 800 MHz interleaved spectrum this June
unilaterally changed the terms of the commission’s rebanding
“contract” with the carrier.
700 MHz
auction concludes with just one D Block bid
By Donny Jackson
March 18, 2008
Bidding in the FCC’s 700 MHz auction concluded today
after 260 rounds, with high bids for 1091 licenses totaling $19.592
billion but only one below-reserve price bid for the D Block tied to a
shared-network proposal for a nationwide wireless broadband network for
public safety.
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More News
Meru Networks
deploys wireless network at Utah State University
March 20, 2008
UCLA deploys
AtHoc's emergency alerts
March 18, 2008
InterAct,
Embarq deploy public safety software in South Carolina
March 18, 2008
Transit
system installs Trapeze Software�s real-time tracking system
March 18, 2008
Hivelocity
Networks adds solar-powered wireless cameras to product line
March 18, 2008
Navman
adds features to real-time tracking software
March 18, 2008
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