Sprint Nextel Rejects AT&T Claims Over Spectrum Program

[scannerfreak]

More rebanding news:

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Sprint Nextel, Thursday strongly rejected a series of accusations made against it by AT&T over substantial delays in a complicated radio spectrum reallocation program it is engaged in.

Last month, AT&T filed a letter to the Federal Communications Commission pointing out its concerns over the program.

It alleged that Sprint Nextel is willfully dragging its feet and suggested the regulator should consider taking enforcement activity, including the possibility of levying fines, against its rival.

The program sees Sprint Nextel footing the bill in a costly transition in which the cellular company and emergency services are exchanging the spectrum they currently use to underpin their cellular networks to different frequencies.

It is hoped that in doing so, the increasing instances of interference between the legacy Nextel cellular signals and the radio frequencies used by virtually all public safety entities would be greatly reduced or stop altogether.

While on the surface an arcane issue, increasing interference between Sprint Nextel's cellular-phone signals and emergency services' radio signals has the potential to cause mayhem if it causes dropped calls or interference on the emergency network in times of crisis.

As part of a deal reached between Sprint Nextel, the public safety community and the FCC in 2004, the cellular company would pay for the transition and in exchange would receive an additional chunk of national spectrum to support future growth.

But the program is widely seen to be falling significantly behind schedule, with frustrations growing on all sides over the negotiating tactics employed by Sprint Nextel when determining the costs of repositioning individual public safety licensees.

AT&T argued in its filing to the FCC in April that Sprint Nextel's access to the additional spectrum should be restricted until further progress in the rebanding was accomplished and that the FCC should consider further sanctions against the company.

In its own filing to the regulator Thursday, Sprint Nextel said that AT&T's remarks would do nothing to move along the bogged down process.

Sprint Nextel acknowledged that the program has "proven to be more time consuming than anticipated" and that "the process can be frustrating to all stakeholders."

"The Commission should similarly reject AT&T's unjustified attack on Sprint Nextel... and the Commission - and by implication, hundreds of public safety licensees," the statement from Sprint Nextel said.

The FCC estimated the value of the spectrum Sprint Nextel would receive in exchange for funding the transition at $4.86 billion. According to the terms of the original deal, if the transition ultimately cost less, the company would still be on the hook for the full amount with the difference going to the U.S. Treasury.

If, however, the program cost more, Sprint Nextel would have to pay whatever it cost.

So far, Sprint Nextel estimates it will have spent $1.5 billion by the end of the year, but has not publicly disclosed how much it expects the final price tag will be.

Nor can it, nor anyone in the public safety community, estimate how long the transition will take.

Last week, the FCC waded into the matter, clarifying its interpretation of the original rules and admonishing Sprint Nextel for the hardline position it has taken in the negotiations.

It said the company should not have as its primary focus spending as little as possible to maximize the savings to the U.S. Treasury, but completing the program as expeditiously as possible.

Sprint Nextel has been arguing that it has been obliged to adopt its tough negotiating position due to the wording of the original 2004 FCC order.

Also Thursday, the Transition Administrator, the body set up to oversee the process and to deal with the many individual negotiations between Sprint Nextel and various public safety licensees, issued its latest quarterly progress report.

It concludes that "progress continues to be made but has proven to be much more challenging and time-consuming than the reconfiguration of commercial 800 megahertz users."

It urged all the parties involved to "sustain their efforts" and to "continue to work in good faith" if the program is eventually to be successful.

[stateboy]

It is hoped that in doing so, the increasing instances of interference between the legacy Nextel cellular signals and the radio frequencies used by virtually all public safety entities would be greatly reduced or stop altogether.

Virtually all? This crappile just keeps getting deeper and deeper

[bezking]

Yeah, really. Enough counterproductive name calling already.

As for 'VIRTUALLY all', whoever wrote that can't add. Last time I checked, 480mHz is nowhere CLOSE to the 860s.

[KG4LJF]

Man it's something everyday with this mess!

[unitcharlie]

At this rate my grandchildren might be the ones who will need rebanded scanners!

[com501]

Interesting that the position of the writer is that Nextel is dragging their feet to save money to give to the US Treasury. How altruistic. I rather believe that Nextel thinks that if it can come in significantly under the budget set forth by the FCC that they can somehow convince the 'powers' to not force them to contribute the remainder to the Treasury.

So all the dragging their collective arses, obfuscating the issues, claiming to be 'moving along' , is doing, is saving Nextel money?

Someone needs to set some realistic guidelines and enforce them.

[ohiodesperado]

It;s interesting that Sprint, who hates Motorola, is doing all this for Nextel and yet Motorola opted to not renew the IDEN system patents they held. Now either IDEN is going away, and taking Nextel with it . Or there is a mutany afoot and someone else id going to be building IDEN phones for Nextel.
Either way, this thing has gotten so big and so out of proportion that I am suprized its' not been scrapped. The only other reasonable option is the 902 to 928 MHz ham band and the issue with that is the last time the FCC took band from the ham's it never got reused. (220 Mhz band) which left a bad taste in everyone's mouth especially the hams. But this is band without a radio. At this point, there are no off the self ham radio's for this band.

[SkipSanders]

902-928 is not a 'Ham Band'. Amateurs are secondary, there. It's an ISM band, standing for 'Industrial, Scientific, and Medical'. It's used for RF heaters (using kilowatt power levels), and many other things. It's also used by quite a few part 15 low power devices, such as wireless phones, a series of Motorola handy-talkies, the new eXRS Handy talkies from TriSquare, and, oh yes, by nextel phones for their 'Direct Talk' function. These HT's are all digital, 1 watt (actually .95 watt, usually, the rule is less than 1 watt).

[gcgrotz]

I have to wonder about Motorola, being "in the biz" and using their product every day. They have stopped all switch R&D in favor of a new, untried, "Universal Base Station" and recently announced they will discontinue the 4812 line of BTS. We have over 700 of them and I know Sprint must have thousands. If they are not going to support switch development vis-a-vis their base stations, why should anybody but them.

Not to mention their dismal performance so far this year in the world handset market (see RCR). I'm glad I didn't buy Moto stock years ago when it was way up there.