FCC Chief Backs Nextel Plan for Airwaves

Yes, Nextel has 700MHz allocations which they say they are willing to give up. They are also the nation's largest licensee of 900MHz SMR spectrum in the 935-941MHz band, and early last year, turned off their remaining analog Motorola SMR systems to make way for iDEN at 900MHz. Most of their newer handsets will operate there, and there is some iDEN being rolled out on 900MHz.

But again, the Nextel folks do a great job at digressing the core issue which is their and their alone continued interference to 800MHz public safety systems. This isn't about spectrum auctions, or cellular versus SMR, it is about an FCC licensee being allowed to interfere with many other licensees, which happen to be government agencies. And the fact is, the FCC needs to have some balls and do their job.

Nextel CAN solve this problem by re-engineering their system, but that will cost money and won't fit in with their plans to expand.

 

Yes, Cingular and the rest of the wireless industry is upset about this because it's wrong.

 

I believe Verizon has every right to do what they are doing. The FCC is playing dirty and unfairly. It was the fault of the FCC that they allowed Nextel to move into that spectrum in the first place. That still does not give the FCC the right to bypass their own rules at the expense of other companies and customers. As far as Nextel, they knew about this problem for a very long time. At first they denied it and then they acknowledged it. I also personally believe that anybody that works in that field should know the exactly what is going on, mainly people at Nextel. Nextel I believe knew what they were doing to begin with but tried to ignore it. I say it is Nextel's and FCC's fault for this ungodly mishap. However, since it is Nextel's equipment causing the problems and they knew about it for so dam long, they should pay the FULL cost of relocating everyone involved in this ordeal AND ALSO pay the FULL cost of the spectrum they would like at an AUCTION. That way it is fair business play. Verizon and whoever else, including Nextel would have a fair shot at the spectrum in question. The thing is now is that Nextel is acting like a crybaby saying "well, we have to relocate and help others relocate as well, we should get the spectrum for free." That is just BS in my opinion. I never liked Nextel as a company, their horrible, CS is horrible and their coverage sucks. They know this and are trying to take a shortcut to try and catch up with VZW and others. There are people who are saying that VZW in challenging this decision is "letting people die" that is BS. If Nextel, FCC would follow fair business play in this important situation, the interference problem would be solved and everyone else would get a fair shot at the spectrum in question. Verizon and their allies are not doing anything wrong right now. I am a loyal VZW fan. They have been very good to me. I have seen Verizon go and fight the "little guy" a couple of times which you never see a company do. I will give more credit to Verizon for the way they fight. I have never seen any company fight so ferociously as they do. That is a sign of good strength and strength of character.