Court Tells Sprint to Clear Some Airwaves by June 26

[h8tdigitalradio]

May 2 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. court rejected Sprint Nextel Corp.'s challenge of a Federal Communications Commission decision that it must give up some wireless airwaves by June 26 to reduce interference with public-safety networks.

See article from Bloomberg

 

[iMONITOR]

Isn't that the opposite of what was originally planned with re-banding? I thought that public service was reprogramming their radios to move away from Nextel's frequencies.

 

[DaveNF2G]

Many rebanded users are being relocated to frequencies that have been occupied by Nextel. Rebanding goes both ways.

Looks like S/N is trying to renege on another part of its agreement. Whattasurprize.

 

[iMONITOR]

Looks like S/N is trying to renege on another part of its agreement. Whattasurprize.

Well to be fair, remember is was the FCC, not Nextel, that created this mess.

 

[Russell]

Well to be fair, remember is was the FCC, not Nextel, that created this mess.

To be accurate, it was the two-way radio industry giving "advice" to the FCC that laid the ground work for the mess. Check your "requests for comments". Then it was Nextel installing high power, noisy transmitters that really finally screwed up 800 mhz. Everybody knows it, they admitted it, and now their trying to back out. The Nextel dog took a big dump and Sprint doesn't want to claen up their mess. Like Dave said "whattasurprise".

 

[iMONITOR]

To be accurate, it was the two-way radio industry giving "advice" to the FCC that laid the ground work for the mess. Check your "requests for comments". Then it was Nextel installing high power, noisy transmitters that really finally screwed up 800 mhz. Everybody knows it, they admitted it, and now their trying to back out. The Nextel dog took a big dump and Sprint doesn't want to claen up their mess. Like Dave said "whattasurprise".

I guess it's all in how you look at it. Why does the FCC need to take advice from the two-way radio industry? Doesn't the FCC know how to do their job? The two-way radio industry obviously has their own agenda.

Regarding Nextel installing high power, noisy transmitters...were these transmitters not built to meet FCC requirements? Didn't the FCC check the equipment, and/or installations to confirm they complied with guidelines and regulations?

I'm not saying Nextel is totally innocent, but didn't Nextel only do what the FCC allowed them to do?

 

[Russell]

I'm not saying Nextel is totally innocent, but didn't Nextel only do what the FCC allowed them to do?

I agree that the FCC also owns their part of the SNAFU. However, meeting the minimum standards is another way of being lazy. I know I'm getting into the philosophical realm here, now, but aren't we supposed to do the best we possibly can and don't we want the products we buy to exceed the minimum standards?

Big pharma is using the "we met the federal standards" cop-out in order to get out of law suits. They're saying, "Yes, our drug killed people, but we met the federal standards. So we're not liable and we don't have to pay." That never was acceptable and it still isn't. When you buy a car or a house don't you want it to be the best and not just meet the minimum standards?

Nextel did the minimum required to get by and now they don't want clean up their mess.

Russell

 

[DaveNF2G]

The FCC is required by law to take "advice" from the industry and from anyone else who wishes to comment before they undertake any major actions.

Also, check out the job histories of the FCC commissioners. They almost all come from careers in telecommunications. When commissioners leave the FCC, some of them go into consulting or lobbying on behalf of the industry they formerly regulated.

 

[WayneH]

Looks like S/N is trying to renege on another part of its agreement. Whattasurprize.

In some situations S/N can't do anything when the PS system is not capable of moving yet. Besides Nextel supposedly dragging heals there are public safety agencies who are just as at fault for not keeping up in pace.

 

[WayneH]

Then it was Nextel installing high power, noisy transmitters that really finally screwed up 800 mhz.

They admitted to this? Cite?

iDEN runs equipment made by the same people making it for the public safety agencies (i.e., Motorola). If the equipment was at fault I wonder why it's still being used? Probably because it worked correctly all the time.

Since the Nextel network was setup to serve a large amount of capacity you have to go to a topology where there are more sites at lower elevations with shorter propagation areas. This is versus a Public Safety trunked system that is on top of a mountain far away. With the FCC allowing Nextel to be mixed with PS they ignored the fact that a Nextel site, operating as it should, would desense a PS radio attempting to receive a signal coming from 50+ miles away. No voodoo magic here.

You know how much power comes out of a shelter at the surge suppressor? About 5-8W for a single channel radio and around 15-20W for a "Quad" channel radio. Then there's the loss in the coax. Antennas with around 10-20 dB gain you would on average have 50-70W ERP and possibly 150-160W for a Quad. Not 300, not 500, not even 1000W.

Nextel should have never been allowed to intermix with public safety frequencies. The FCC should have known better.

 

[Russell]

Nextel should have never been allowed to intermix with public safety frequencies. The FCC should have known better.

I agree. The FCC should never have moved forward with interlaced channels. Absolutely.

There is a Nextel site on the way to my house (Allen/Plano). Why does my radio get blown off the air when that thing keys up? The thing is so noisy that the PD can't even use their radios within ~quarter of mile of that tower. They've tried to run tag team radar around it a few times but can not communicate with each other. It is a prime example of the interlaced freq & Nextel transmitter problem. Sprint should just get out of court and clean up their dog's mess.

Russell

 

[Josh]

Nextel should have never been allowed to intermix with public safety frequencies. The FCC should have known better.

They should have, but perhaps didn't know how big the NexTel network was going to become when they were allowed to purchase all the Motorola-owned SMR systems, then converted them to iDEN, then started buying everything else across the country to build capacity and coverage, again from analog SMRs in a conversion to iDEN.

Things were fine as they were, then NexTel built out a cellular-style network.

These arguments sounds much like the ones from 2004 when this "rebanding" and "consensus plan"/ scam plan, were all introduced.

-Josh