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FCC to Reorganize 800mhz Band?
nick0909 writes "Years in the making, the FCC is finally
close to deciding if they will allow Nextel to pay for the reorganization of the 800mhz bandplan. In return the FCC will give Nextel a new band in which to operate their phones, where they won't destroy public safety communications. Other cell companies are angry because they had to pay millions for their GHz frequencies, and argue Nextel is getting off cheap. On top of this, if the 800MHz band gets re-sliced, will the FCC continue to push TV broadcasters out of 700MHz, which was supposed to go all to public safety in the coming years?"
I think the issue is pretty straightforward, and if their service is interfering with emergency bands then it needs to be reallocated. The good question is, what's fair for them afterwards? It doesn't seem like such a move should put them out of business, but some are trying to do so.
The FCC couldn't make up their minds at the last meeting, will things change at the next? I have a feeling this could get pushed around for a while.
Wireless News www.DailyWireless
They should have seen this comming before selling that spectrum to Nextel. It's too bad that it's interfering with emergency services but the FCC sold Nextel a license to use it and revoking that license w/o awarding equal bandwidth elsewhere will put Nextel out of business, which is just not acceptable.
Of course Verizon and Voadfone don't like it! They see this is a way to easily kill of some competiton.
Would resolve a lot of issues !
a. Lower prices ! The telco equipment, because of competition, is reasonnably priced
b. Interoperability ! 1billion GSM users, what should I say more
c. Frequency to choose from ! Available are : 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 Mhz. Adapt to local regulations!
d. Roaming ! When Nextel own service is not available, they could have local roaming agreements with t-mobile or at&t.
End the end the customer would be the winner !
And why is it necessarily Nextel at fault, and not a building blocking the signal, out of range, or sunspots? I'm sorry, but Americas Most Wanted isn't really a news source I really trust. That and the dumb cops of the world and you've got a news source less reliable than slashdot.
AccountKiller
They're doing corporate giveaways with these special "gifts".
Then they hide it by publically going after stupid DJ's and janet jackson's breast. Its like a slight of hand to fool stupid people.
"Think of the children".
Michael Powell is just another corrupt lackey in Bush's cabinet, and believe me, its full of corruption.
Nextel's poor behavior as a spectrum-sharer has worried many public-safety-communications officials whose ability to redesign their systems is subject to politics and shrinking budgets. Their proposal puts the public sector at a real disadvantage, no matter how much money they propose to throw at the problem.
Public safety agencies started to move up to 800 MHz frequencies in the early 1980s. In some cases, these moves were promped by spectrum scarcity, but in many more instances it was equipment manufacturers (especially Motorola and Ericsson) who convinced local agencies to buy complicated and failure-prone trunked radio systems. These systems were often (though not always) solutions in search of problems, and their performance has often been questioned. It's clear that advanced communications technology doesn't necessarily guarantee the safety of personnel; quite the opposite is true, in fact. (Try Googling "trunked radio system problems" for more on this.)
Since 9/11, loud voices have been calling for "interoperability" in public safety communications, in order that different agencies might better be able to speak with one another. New 800 MHz (and now 700 MHz) systems have been touted as a solution. Unfortunately, competing and contentious departments (like the NYPD and NYFD) won't talk with one another regardless of how much money is spent on systems to connect them. New York City had an interagency 800 MHz system working on 9/11 (the DoITT system, for those familar with NYC comms), and it saw very little use. Interoperability is most often a social and cultural issue, not a technical issue.
Nextel plays a problematic role in public safety comms in another way. Many agencies, especially those engaging in undercover ops and including key Federal law enforcement agencies, prefer to let their own expensive radio systems gather dust and use Nextel handsets instead. Nextel offers comparative privacy (citizens can't monitor iDEN transmissions), group call, and cheap equipment. Tto the problem is that no proprietary system is as robust and reliable as many dedicated public safety radio systems. I'd hate to have to rely on a Nextel handset if I was doing risky undercover work -- I'd be competing for bandwidth with SMS spam and teenagers (Nextel markets to youth under the name Boost Mobile).
Anyway, as most of us know, there are other ways to address communications issues than to lock up spectrum in the name of a few large corps.
Indeed, most operators would kill for more lower MHz bands, 1.9GHz has an annoying tendency to bounce off brick walls.
If Nextel was given the 800MHz band and is being forced to move elsewhere, they should at the very least not be out-of-pocket to the FCC. It's going to be expensive enough for them to have to upgrade their entire network to run on the new frequency (existing customers and all), it's absurd to argue they should "pay more" for the new frequencies which clearly offer them no substantial benefits over the older ones.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Actually, for a cell phone provider, the 800-900 MHz band is far more valuable than the 1800-1900 MHz band. "800" allows cellular towers to be spaced much farther apart, significantly reducing costs to provide service to a given area. Much of this is do to the poor building penetration of 1900 MHz signals (I'm talking real world results, not theoretical physics) Case in point: ATT Wireless put 1900 MHz GSM antennas on their existing 800 MHz TDMA towars ... and the 1900 system had FAR worse coverage.
What frequency where the fireman in the twin towers using that failed so horrorably? 800Mhz of course! And the failure was hardly NextTel interference. Unless you have antenna every few miles, it is an irresponsible place to put emergency anything. With the band being line of sight with no way for it to penetrate wall's, the old 150 MHz equipment's performance makes this stuff look like a bugger.
As others have posted, the 800Mhz band is far more valuable to operators than the 1900 band. This is due to building penetration benefits that the 800 spectrum provides...
The reason that Verizon, et al, is so upset, is that they are offering new frequency to Nextel. From Daily Wireless: "Verizon Wireless remains ready to participate in an immediate auction of a nationwide license for the 10 megahertz (specifically the 1910-1915/1990-1995 MHz)."
According to the FCC Website: "Broadband PCS is allocated spectrum ranging from 1850-1910 MHz and 1930-1990 MHz. "
This would be a new subblock of the PCS band, that could be used _nationwide_, which is why Verizon has said it is worth 5 billion. Also, every time the FCC has released new spectrum for phone services, they've auctioned off those new services to the highest bidder.
Doh!
Heh. A nice lucrative new way to profit for Motorola, GE, etc, and I can see the California bond ballot initiatives now...
"Pass this bond, or we might not be able to respond to your 911 call due to interference on our county radio system"
5 years ago is a long time in the cellular industry. Nextel doesn't drop any more calls than anyone else. But like all networks, there are areas in cities with bad reception and more dropped calls than normal.
The nationwide PTT is real and it does work.
I know a LOT of people that use Nextel for work (and personal use) and their only complaint is that it is one of the more expensive services. But they love how well it works and wouldn't get rid of it. I do actually know an IT guy whose department switched away from Nextel because they had some battery problems with one model of phone and went to AT&T. Every IT person hated it and within a year they had convinced management to switch back to Nextel.
In most organizations, they follow a PTT "etiquite" - chirp a person without talking and if they are in a position to talk they will chirp back and say "go ahead." It is considered extremely rude to talk over PTT without confirming that the other person can carry on a conversation.
I really think that Verizon is making a public stand saying that they would pay $5 billion as a starting bid because of the fighting between Nextel and Verizon as of late. Verizon has introduced PTT in their network and has been trying to grab customers from Nextel. Unfortunately for Verizon, their service is hugely inferior. They had started to run TV ads touting the service and inferring that it was better than Nextel. You may have noticed that those commercials stopped suddenly and haven't reappeared. Nextel sued and won an injunction against Verizon, as those ads blatently misrepresented how well the Verizon PTT service worked.
I would imagine that Verizon is attempting to force Nextel into a bidding war, knowing full well that all they need to do to eliminate Nextel as a competitor is to outbid them, which wouldn't be hard since they have more money than Nextel. Upon losing the bidding war, Nextel would have nothing as they would have already given up their existing spectrum in exchange for (apparently) the right to bid on a new chunk of spectrum.
The reason for that is because providers are allowed to transmit 800MHz signal at higher wattages than 1.9GHz. For whatever reason, the FCC allows providers to pump out 800 at higher wattage. We're talking about a difference of maybe 3 watts, but those few watts can make a huge difference.
Coverage with 800MHz may seem great for a mobile telephone provider, but the extra coverage comes at a price, and the providers all know this.
The majors, namely AT&T/Cingular, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Nextel are all competing for high-speed data service... either now or in the future. These services can not be delivered in the lower sub-1.5GHz bands. This being the case, why cling to lower frequencies? Nextel should jump ship, just like every other major provider.
As a side note... I have a 1900 GSM phone. It works deep inside of massive steel buildings. It works in some basements. It may not work absolutely everywhere, but it does work often enough that I can safely assume that the worries about signal penetration are overblown, to say the least. The issue has much more to do about wattages than 800 being inherently better than 1900.