WASHINGTON-While most believe the specialized mobile radio industry seems to be disappearing along with its companion regulatory issues, one SMR operator believes that if this is true, it is the fault of the Federal Communications Commission.
“Why is there less spectrum allocated for SMR? There is not as much to go around and the rules don’t allow for competition,” said Michael D. Rosenthal, regulatory affairs director for Southern Linc.
Southern Linc, a subsidiary of Southern Co., is building an iDEN network in the southeast but has found it difficult to get roaming agreements with SMR powerhouse Nextel Communications Inc.
This is not the way it should be, Rosenthal believes, but it happens because Nextel has been allowed to gobble up a majority of the spectrum at 800 MHz.
“The FCC did not encourage competition,” said Rosenthal.
It wasn’t an accident that Nextel got it all, Rosenthal said. The rules-such as a spectrum cap that allows for only 10 megahertz of SMR spectrum to be counted toward the commercial mobile radio services cap, which limits the amount of spectrum a carrier can control to 45 megahertz in urban areas and 55 megahertz in rural areas-make it easier for one carrier to dominate.
Add to that the fact that dominant Nextel seems to be ignoring roaming requirements and Southern Linc is not getting help from the FCC on the issue even when it complains.
Admittedly, competition, roaming and the spectrum cap are not really SMR-specific issues, and indeed Southern Linc’s focus on these issues plays into the hands of those parties-including Nextel-who believe that the SMR industry no longer really exists.
“I don’t think there is `an SMR’ industry anymore,” said Lawrence Krevor, Nextel senior director of government affairs.
Southern doesn’t necessarily disagree, but it says that since the SMR market developed differently (because SMR was a pre-existing service) that different rules are necessary to ensure competition not only in the CMRS marketplace but also in the much smaller SMR marketplace.
Not surprisingly, Nextel has a different view, believing the FCC has hit the right regulatory mix for SMR.
“I think the FCC has tried to balance the needs of all competitors,” said Krevor.
If there is no longer an SMR industry, it follows that there would be few remaining SMR regulatory issues. This was confirmed by Nextel, the FCC and two industry associations that represent SMR operators.
“Overall I think we are at the end phase of SMR industry issues. … I am not sure that means there won’t be anymore, but the issues of the last four or five years are coming to an end,” said David Furth, senior legal adviser to Thomas Sugrue, chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
“The items on the regulatory agenda for the smaller players have really decreased. … The real talk is technology. … What you can’t get from the FCC, maybe you can get from technology,” said Alan Shark, president of the American Mobile Telecommunications Association.
“It has been somewhat quiet [on the SMR regulatory front]. … For good or bad, depending upon your view, the SMR issues are virtually gone now. There is no turning back,” said Don Vasek, director of regulatory affairs for the Personal Communications Industry Association.
The one issue mentioned by Nextel, the FCC and PCIA is the continuing relocation at the upper channels of the 800 MHz band.
The end of the mandatory relocation negotiation period is slated for Dec. 4, but Nextel-the entity doing most of the relocating-has asked the FCC to extend this deadline to account for the negotiation time lost when the general category licenses were auctioned off earlier this year and now as the lower 80 channels are being auctioned. Due to anti-collusion rules, auction participants are barred from communicating with one another during the proceedings of an auction. Nextel does not believe the extension should last more than 90 days.
In addition, Nextel hopes that as the FCC extends the relocation deadline it will also explain to some incumbents that they must give information to Nextel to make it possible for Nextel to relocate them.
“There are some incumbents that have refused to provide the information you need for retuning. … We have asked the commission to make clear that incumbents have a responsibility to provide that basic information,” said Krevor.
