By Rhonda Wickham
Monday, November 19, 2007
The FCC is pressuring Sprint Nextel to complete its public safety rebanding on time. If Sprint can't meet its June 26 deadline, the FCC has suggested the operator would have to turn over the spectrum in markets where rebanding has not been completed.
Many police and fire departments radios share the same swath of spectrum used by Nextel. This has caused problems for more than 2,200 public safety agencies across the country. Nextel assumed the "rebanding" project to try and resolve these issues, agreeing to give up one swath of radio waves and help affected public safety agencies modify their radio systems. When it agreed to the rebanding deal, Nextel was given access to a new swath of spectrum.
In 2005, when Sprint acquired Nextel, it also inherited Nextel's rebanding agreement with less than two years left to fix the issues.
Although the now combined Sprint Nextel has said it has spent more than $1 billion on the effort, it has proved more difficult than anticipated.
With the June deadline looming, the FCC has threatened take back the spectrum which could impact the network serving Nextel and Boost Mobile customers. The carrier estimates those parts of the network serve nearly 20 million subscribers.
In response to the FCC order, Sprint is seeking relief from the U.S. Court of Appeals and asked that the case be expedited. According to Sprint Spokesman Scott Sloat, the recent pressure from the FCC and threat that Sprint would have to turn over the spectrum "is not what the company agreed to" in the rebanding.
Public safety officials have been complaining since early this year that they have seen little to no progress on the interference issues.
Sloat insists that the rebanding effort has made progress. He said the company is 95% finished with Phase 1 and has reached agreement with over 50% of the public safety licensees in Phase 2. It has completed retuning for 50 of those licensees. He said the effort is now gaining momentum.