WASHINGTON-The Personal Communications Industry Association said it has urged the Federal Communications Commission to adopt a microwave relocation cost-sharing plan to ease the deployment of personal communications services networks.
PCIA’s proposal calls for all PCS licensees that benefit from a specific microwave system’s relocation to distribute equally the cost of relocating that system. Microwave systems often cross frequency or major trading area and basic trading area boundaries and therefore interfere with more than one PCS system.
“Therefore, more than one company benefits from the relocation of a microwave system,” PCIA said. “Under PCIA’s cost-sharing plan, relocation costs would be shared equally by each PCS licensee whose system would have interfered with the relocated link.
“For example, if a microwave system that crosses MTA or BTA boundaries is relocated by a PCS operator, that operator would receive a pro rata reimbursement from the other PCS licensees whose operations would have caused interference with at least one microwave link in the system and therefore would benefit from the move,” PCIA said.
The 2 GHz band is occupied by companies like utilities and railroads, which use point-to-point microwave systems to communicate. The commission allocated some of that spectrum for PCS, but said PCS licensees must pay to relocate microwave users to similar systems.