After almost three years, the FCC is now near a decision on the Consensus Plan, reports Infoworld, but the opposition is crying foul.
The Consensus Plan would eliminate interference caused by the FCC’s own rules when it allowed Nextel to operate cell phones on channels ajoining public service frequencies. Nextel wants to swap out the interfering bands with new 800 Mhz and 1900MHz bands for cell phone use and give its old frequencies to public service users.
Verizon says it amounts to an FCC giveaway to Nextel and has pledged a $5 Billion bid if the spectrum were put up for auction. “We’re not convinced that a formal decision about Nextel’s interference has been made” yet at the commission, says Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson. “Given a minimum bid of $5 billion on the spectrum, we’re hoping the FCC would take a look.”
The CTIA backs the large cellular carriers opining that interference problems should be fixed at the local level using standard engineering techniques at the expense of the interfering carrier [although it has sometimes proved ineffective].
“The Balanced Approach” plan (Fix800MHzNow.com) has CTIA’s pitch while “The Consensus Plan” (consensusplan.org) has Nextel’s pitch. The FCC has the authority to assign spectrum if it is in the public interest.
Nextel’s authorized cellular channels, ajoining public service frequencies, wasn’t a problem at first. Then Nextel cell towers began to proliferate. When a Nextel tower is very close, it can swamp police and fire radios because most public service radio towers are miles away on a distant hill. Cellular companies generally use frequencies that are further separated so don’t cause interference. Nextel was grandfathered in and started as a taxi dispatch radio service using ajoining frequencies.
Interference problems are just getting worse. In Portland, officers chasing a suspected carjacker fanned out to surround him — until their radios went dead. Several had to borrow telephones from nearby homeowners to call dispatch. In Anne Arundel County, Md., a deputy sheriff was forced to drive blocks away from a burning home to tell headquarters about the fire because his radio suddenly stopped transmitting. And police in Denver have identified 24 “dead spots” where radios fall silent or get tangled in unintelligible static.
The Nextel proposal would exchange 16 megahertz of spectrum spread around the 700 MHz, 800 MHz and 900 MHz bands for 6 megahertz in the upper 800 MHz band and 10 megahertz in the 1.9 GHz band. If approved, this would leave Nextel with 16 megahertz of contiguous spectrum in the upper 800 MHz band, on which the carrier could continue to offer its voice service, and 10 megahertz in the 1.9 GHz band to offer “4G” services in the future.
Nextel has offered to pay $850 million for relocation of their interfering operators in the public safety spectrum, which were installed in good faith under FCC approval.
Other than Verizon Wireless, Nextel has had little opposition to the plan. But critics and industry observers say it would be a great windfall for the No. 5 player, giving it a heaping supply of network capacity at a relatively low cost.
According to Technews, a majority of commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission have voted to support a plan that supports Nextel, although Nextel would have to pay $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion more than it has proposed, according to FCC sources.
The public safety interference problem first surfaced in 1999 in Portland, Ore., and Phoenix. It occurred largely because Nextel, the nation’s sixth-largest wireless provider, carries its phone calls on frequencies that interweave with those used by fire and public safety communications systems — the result of its purchases of old radio frequencies at the time it formed its cellular network. Some public safety groups say an unofficial tally indicated between 750 and 1,000 emergency communications nationally have been blocked or subjected to interference.
The situation in Oregon came to a head during the 2001 Oregon Legislature when a bill drafted by Sen. Rick Metsger, D-Mount Hood, brought together metro-area public safety officials and representatives of the wireless communications industry in an effort to find a solution. Their plan to resolve the problem, is now the basis for a national proposal known as the “Consensus Plan.”
In 2002, Nextel and public safety groups filed the “Consensus Plan” with the FCC in which Nextel proposed to pay $550 million — which it later increased to $850 million — to untangle its airwaves from public safety and other private users of the 800-megahertz frequency where those groups operate.
Even though three of the five commissioners — Chairman Michael K. Powell, Kevin J. Martin, and Michael J. Copps — have voted in favor of the plan, many aspects of the proposal remain fluid, including the method and exactly how much Nextel would pay, according to staff sources who work with commissioners, who spoke on condition they not be named because the commissioners’ votes have not been made public.
The FCC is scheduled to hold a monthly meeting next Thursday, during which it may consider this issue. At least one commissioner, Kathleen Q. Abernathy, is still mulling an alternative plan to give Nextel credit toward an auction of the desired spectrum, according to a staff source.
Related DailyWireless articles include; Consensus Plan Near?, Freq Consensus?, Localizing Consensus Plans, Happy Town, Nextel’s Flarion Goes Live, Nextel’s Consensus Move, Nextel Gets 2.1 & 2.5 GHz, 4G Clouds in the United States, 800 MHz Spectrum Swap Near?, and Nextel + Flarion?.
