WASHINGTON-Nearly a year after the Federal Communications Commission adopted rules to solve the public-safety interference problem in the 800 MHz band, the reconfiguration will begin June 27, said the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau late Friday.
As of June 27, licensees will begin a three-month voluntary negotiation period with Nextel Communications Inc., followed by a three-month mandatory negotiation period. The voluntary period will end Sept. 26, and the mandatory period will end Dec. 26.
Licensees in Northern California, Colorado, the New York City area, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, New England, Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Nevada, Eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, Southern New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, and Wisconsin are involved in the first phase of rebanding.
As part of the rebanding plan, the FCC has frozen applications in these areas or license applications within 70 miles of any of the above until Feb. 8, 2006.
The FCC approved the reconfiguration process submitted by the Transition Administrator March 11.
As part of its plan to solve public-safety interference in the 800 MHz band, the FCC selected a Transition Administrator to act as an independent third party. Consulting firm BearingPoint, law firm Squire-Sanders-Dempsey L.L.P. and Baseline Telecom Inc. comprise the team.
The FCC in July adopted a plan to solve the interference problem by swapping some spectrum with Nextel and having Nextel pay to move other companies off the spectrum band Nextel would receive. The FCC released the text of the plan in early August and made modifications to it in December. Nextel is now obligated to fix an interference problem public safety was experiencing because Nextel’s systems were interleaved with public safety. In return for $4.8 billion in retuning costs and a payment to the U.S. Treasury, Nextel will get 10 megahertz of spectrum in the 1.9 GHz band, also known as the G block. In December, Nextel agreed to merge with Sprint Corp. While Sprint was not a signatory to an acceptance of the plan Nextel gave the FCC in February, Robert Foosaner, Nextel chief regulatory officer and senior vice president, said at that time, “The new company will meet all of the obligations.”
The FCC expects the reconfiguration process to be completed by June 26, 2008.
