The main goal for the American Mobile Telecommunications Association is regulatory flexibility or more accurately-one-size-does-not-fit-all. AMTA President Alan Shark has been fighting the good fight with the Federal Communications Commission to convince it traditional specialized mobile radio is not the same thing as commercial mobile radio services.
As AMTA and its sister organization, the International Mobile Telecommunications Association, get ready to meet this week in Miami, Shark sat down with RCR to talk over some of the issues facing commercial trunked radio.
RCR: What is the theme of this year’s show?
Shark: The theme of this year’s show is reinventing dispatch, and if I had a secondary theme, it would be marketing forward instead of marching forward. When I talk about marketing forward, one of the things that I will be saying is that we are not your typical consumer wireless industry.
There is nothing wrong with the typical consumer wireless industry. I walk around with a SkyPager. I walk around with a cellular phone. That serves a particular purpose.
But SMRs are number one when it comes to business communications in terms of the specialization. A typical customer is a business customer who doesn’t buy one radio or one handset from us or one of our operators. Instead, he is going to buy 10 or 20 for his group of people. Then he is going to work with our operator to figure out how he is going to customize that system to fit his needs. You can zero in on the kinds of work groups, either by geography or by the types of geography or by the ways the phones are programmed.
When you and I buy a cellular phone or a pager, one-size-fits-all. Yet SMR systems are customized. If our customer is big enough, the SMR carrier will go get an extra tower out there and try to figure out how to give him the coverage he needs. It is a different kind of service that is much more aimed at business. It can also be customized much more easily by the nature of our service.
RCR: I was reading the last issue of Open Channel, the AMTA magazine, and you were talking about the one-size-fits-all approach. How successful have you been at combating this regulatory approach?
Shark: I think for the first time I can be more optimistic. I heard Commissioner [Susan] Ness speak at the PCIA conference and she made a comment, not related to our issues, about how one-size-does-not-fit-all. I think there is a lot of rethinking on that and I am very pleased. I think we are seeing a breakthrough in our relationships with the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and the chairman’s office. I feel very encouraged.
I think the timing has been frustrating. This goes back to 1993. We do believe, and we want to go on the record as saying, that legally similar services should be regulated similarly.
In 1993, Congress made its first major attempt to reform telecom policy. All of the attention has been on the Telecommunications Act of 1996, but in 1993, Congress made some significant changes to telecommunications regulation. It was then that Congress came up with regulatory parity. This was a new concept. They did this to account for the regulations of personal communications services so this wasn’t targeted at anybody, but they realized that PCS needed to come under some regulation. They wanted a robust competitive environment, which we applaud.
We never disagreed with the philosophy, but what killed us was the definition that came out of Congress. It basically said that if you offer interconnection and sell things to the public that you would be covered under CMRS … We believe we were never intended to be included in those rules. Congress never meant that a traditional SMR system would be regulated just like a cellular system or a PCS service.
Congress’ intention was to capture an enhanced SMR system like Nextel Communications Inc. But the FCC needs to remember that Nextel still has a lot of analog systems. As long as one is traditional SMR offering traditional dispatch, one should be regulated like a dispatch system.
What is significant of the 1993 rules and the telecom act was that it set up a procedure that I support, which is a more fluid regulatory structure. What I mean by fluid is that in the old days, if you were set up to be this X service, you would be that forever. The thing now is that if you happen to be something today, which is a basic analog service, and somehow technology changes and you buy and acquire other systems and change into something different and you meet this other criteria, then you move into Y. We are fine with that. Nextel is [probably] fine with that. Part of their system would be regulated as clear CMRS. I don’t think they object. They understand that. They knew that from day one, but their analog holdings should be regulated differently. It is not cellular. It is an old kind of system.
RCR: Have you had any disappointments in the one-size-fits-all that you are still trying to fight?
Shark: There are still some reporting requirements that we find somewhat troublesome. We find the regulatory fees somewhat discriminatory. They are much higher for our services than for other services. One could argue that the other services have higher volume. It doesn’t matter, they are still very, very high for the amount we charge. Some people get almost unlimited dispatch in some areas of the country for $8 per month per unit.
RCR: What type of spectrum management philosophy would AMTA prefer that the FCC employ?
Shark: We believe in regulatory flexibility. That is the most important thing. There are many different mitigating circumstances. A pager is a pager wherever you are, there will be somebody to hook you up. The same thing is true with cellular and PCS. That is not true with our industry. We have many different protocols. We don’t have a particular standard. It depends on what manufacturer operates what system.
I think the part that frustrates us, perhaps the most, is the refarming docket. That has been going on and on and on with so little movement. A lot of our people are feeling the pressures of not being able to grow as much as they would like because they are almost reaching capacity.
There are only two ways to solve that.
Number one is to find more spectrum and in the right place. One of the answers given by the FCC has been, “Why don’t you go to some PCS provider and get some of their spectrum?” In general, that principle sounds good on paper, but in reality, there are a couple of problems with that. First, the person who is going to sell some of this un-needed spectrum is not going to sell his best. It is going to be in the hinterlands. The second thing, and this is problem the most important, all of these services operate at different megahertz, different frequencies. If a SMR gets spectrum at 1900 [MHz] or 1800 [MHz], where is the equipment? There is no equipment. That becomes a real problem.
RCR: You have a refarming petition to put some more stringent time lines into transitioning into more spectrum-efficient equipment. Have you had any clues from the FCC as to where that is?
Shark: Yes, it is going to be out this year. I have been assured, as late as last week, will be out before the end of December.
RCR: Do you think that commercial specialized mobile radio systems can take the place of private mobile radio systems?
A: If it was a simple yes or no question, I would have to say no, but that is not a good answer. The real answer should be, in many cases, yes. In some cases, no. There are a lot of initiatives that we support ITA (the Telecommunications Industry Association) on. We support ITA on the need for more private spectrum. A number of our dealers are selling to private interests. We are not anti-private at all. We have a significant number of our members that would like to have more spectrum because they see themselves selling more equipment.
At the same time, we have more operators than ITA.
I think there are a lot of opportuniti
es for commercial wireless services to take up what a lot of these private people have been doing. I think when it comes to small operations, SMR can do quite well. I don’t think the SMR will be as useful to big corporations.
RCR: What are your thoughts on the recently closed 220 MHz auction?
Shark: We applaud the FCC on that because I think there is evidence now that small business did quite well. Part of it was that for the most part, the geographic areas were relatively small. The channel block was small. When you have those factors, small businesses have a chance. When you have these big MTAs (metropolitan trading areas,) and big channel blocks-30 megahertz-that is not designed for small business. I think in some cases there has been some confusion among Congress and the FCC [about] what the difference is between what is a small business and what is a new business. They are not the same.
RCR: Do you think the 220 MHz service is jinxed?
Shark: I can see where some people would say that it appeared to be jinxed. I would say that I have never seen a radio service subjected to so many hurdles. What makes it particularly sad is that in so many cases, [these hurdles] were unnecessary.
Two years ago we did a survey to show that this is a viable industry. They are building out. They are putting on customers. Still, regulations move at a snail’s pace since there were appeals and all of this regulatory maneuvering.
