FCC & Nextel

[oklameatman]

Channel 5 television news (OKC) reported this evening (7/8/04; 10:00 pm) that the FCC is requiring Nextel to "pull its frequencies" due to excessive interference with public safety comms. The report went on to say that OHP and Nextel use the exact same freqs in some cases, but the HP has not reported any interference problems. I've not followed the Nextel saga lately -- is this new or am I way behind?

 

[N_Jay]

Channel 5 television news (OKC) reported this evening (7/8/04; 10:00 pm) that the FCC is requiring Nextel to "pull its frequencies" due to excessive interference with public safety comms. The report went on to say that OHP and Nextel use the exact same freqs in some cases, but the HP has not reported any interference problems. I've not followed the Nextel saga lately -- is this new or am I way behind?

Your a bit behind.

The FCC decided in favor of Nextel's Concensus plan.

 

[n5bew1]

Verizon wireless may challenge that FCC decision in court.

 

[peterjmag]

I'm behind as well? I thought Public Safety was going to 700 and Nextel and Cell was going to dominate the 800 band? So it will be the other way around? Nextel will have to go to another band?

 

[NINN27]

why would verizon wireless want to challenge that decision? the only interference comes from nextels... not verizon or cingular.

 

[K5MAR]

why would verizon wireless want to challenge that decision? the only interference comes from nextels... not verizon or cingular.

Nextel is being given a nice, valuable chunk of spectrum (2.9 GHZ?) to replace what it is giving up. The other cellular carriers feel (rightly so) that Nextel is getting entirely too much for free, and should have to bid in a spectrum auction like the others.

Instead of getting spectrum for free, Nextel should have been required to mitigate it's interference in the 800 MHz band (whatever the cost), and pay for any new allocations it received, just like the other commercial service providers.

Mark S.

 

[NINN27]

ohhh...

damn them nextel bastards... lol

 

[greenthumb]

Actually, the plan is to reband 800 MHz by putting public safety & SMRs on one end of the band, and put NEXTEL on another part of the band so that interference is mitigated/resolved. Under the plan, public safety gets a bigger chunk of 800 MHz and 700 MHz than they were going to get before as NEXTEL vacates some licenses on 800 and 700 MHz (worth $1.9 billion) in favor of getting their chunk of 1.9 GHz (worth $5 billion). NEXTEL will have to pay all costs for public safety & SMRs to reband to the appropriate portion of the 800 MHz band and will have to legally guarantee $2.5 billion will be available for the move. Whatever the difference between the spectrum given up, money paid for moves, and a few other expenses will have to be paid by NEXTEL to the FCC to make up the difference for the value of the 1.9 GHz spectrum they are getting in exchange. That is where Verizon, et. al. comes in.... :roll:

 

[N_Jay]

Channel 5 television news (OKC) reported this evening (7/8/04; 10:00 pm) that the FCC is requiring Nextel to "pull its frequencies" due to excessive interference with public safety comms. The report went on to say that OHP and Nextel use the exact same freqs in some cases, . .

If this is what was realy said, then it has to be just about the worse case of the media butchering the facts of a story.

 

[UPMan]

[OT] I can think of one worse butchering in the local media.

What the reporter said: The pilot reported that his Cessna's engine fell off shortly after takeoff. He was able to safely land the plane ...

What really happened: The engine died shortly after takeoff (and I'm sure what the pilot really said was "I lost the engine shortly after takeoff.").

The funny thing is what the reporter didn't report, considering his interpretation of the pilot's remark. If the engine was lost, have they found it yet? Where did the engine land? Did it fall on anybody?

 

[GlacierClipper]

Nextel will still have a place in the 800 Mhz band! :evil:

 

[NINN27]

just .02... how does NEXTEL plan to pay for the (guessing #) 6 billion radio systems in use in the US to move to the lower end? thats ALOT of money and ALOT of time, since most of these systems will HAVE to upgrade to radios capable of 700/lower 800 mhz radios. why is the FCC letting NEXTEL "run" the commision (yes... i know money and sex affairs go a long way). this is stupid. someone down there needs to grow some balls and say "get out or else".

 

[K5MAR]

That was one of the original complaints voiced about the Nextel plan. It was pointed out that the amount of money Nextel was committing to the conversion, while it sounded like a lot, was actually a drop in the bucket compared to the actual cost estimates.

It will be interesting to see what happens to this settlement after the Courts and Congress get through with it.

Mark S.

 

[greenthumb]

Nextel will still have a place in the 800 Mhz band! :evil:

There is a planned 1 MHz guard band that will be set up that may/should keep interference problems minimized. Additionally, NEXTEL may not end up with any 800 MHz authorizations since they will be getting 1.9 GHz. Existing incumbents such as AT&T that use some 800 MHz may be the ones that keep themselves on 800 MHz - but I can't confirm this.

 

[greenthumb]

just .02... how does NEXTEL plan to pay for the (guessing #) 6 billion radio systems in use in the US to move to the lower end? thats ALOT of money and ALOT of time, since most of these systems will HAVE to upgrade to radios capable of 700/lower 800 mhz radios. why is the FCC letting NEXTEL "run" the commision (yes... i know money and sex affairs go a long way). this is stupid. someone down there needs to grow some balls and say "get out or else".

The plan actually gives public safety & SMRs more channels in the 800 MHz band. Instead of having a large interleaved SMR & ESMR band across 800 MHz, they will be dividing the 800 MHz band into two portions - one for public safety & SMRs and another for ESMRs (e.g. NEXTEL). They will place a 1 MHz guard band in between the two portions of the band to help alleviate interference issues for authorizations close to where the two bands meet.

This will not involve purchasing all new radio equipment - it will only involve reprogramming equipment for new frequencies. It won't cost much in hardware - it will pretty much just labor & time for personnel to do the reprogramming of all subscribers and infrastructure.

700 MHz won't be a huge revelation when it comes along (which won't happen for about 90% of the US anyway since only two FCC regions have submitted their 700 MHz plan to the FCC for approval - no final approvals have been given anywhere yet) since they are putting the repeater inputs at the high end of 700 MHz and the repeater outputs lower so that subscriber equipment can do both 700 & 800 without much trouble. It will be just as easy & seamless as when systems added the 821 (NPSPAC) channels to their existing 806 channels.

The 800 MHz frequencies proposed to give public safety & SMRs are not in a region of 800 MHz that existing radios can't already do.