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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.
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I would have grave doubts about the FCC being able to reorganize a sock drawer, much less the 800Mhz band.
900 MHZ, as someone already posted.
But on a related note, I have some pro-audio wireless mic gear that uses 800MHz; I think it's fairly common in UHF pro gear. I'd really hate to have to replace this stuff because I can't get a clean signal for my band gigs, and I'm sure I'm far from alone here. (And that leads me to a digression - I wish more of this pro gear would use programmable oscillators/ frequency synthesizers so they wouldn't lock you into just one or two frequencies. Bleah...)
-- *My* journal is more interesting than *yours*...
When I think 800mhz I think VHF UHF my self. Some people prefer to call it VHF for some reason.
Cable Channels 126-141 805.25-895.25mhz according to my Kworld video card. I've never seen these used.
UHF channel 69 801.25mhz.. 70-83 I believe were the ones realocated to celular 806-890mhz.
http://www.inactivex.net/cellular/800MHz.html
I'm less familar with the 800mhz emergency frequencies.
900mhz I believe is what you're thinking of... I'm a cheep bastard and I own a pair of 900mhz cordless phones.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
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 !
Getting a license from the FCC is like buying a house. It's in your interest to know your neighbors and to make an effort to be a good neighbor. With that in mind, here's a few notes on what this whole fuss over interference is really about.
1. direct interference - someone transmits on someone else's frequency. This happens occassionally by accident and usually gets fixed quick. Nextel was once fined for doing this unintentionally a few years ago near New Orleans, LA.
2. co-channel interference - two entities each have a license to use the same frequency in geographically overlapping areas. The two parties are mutually responsible for making equipment and operating adjustments to eliminate interference.
3. equipment mis-configuration (including co-located equipment) - different companies often share the same tower sites and often the signal from one company's transmitter will "leak" into another causing mixed products and emissions outside licensed frequencies.
4. receiver desensitivity caused by proximity to low elevation, high power transmitter sites (ie. cell towers).
Nextel is causing problems for other 800Mhz licensees mostly as a result of items 3 and 4. Non-Nextel cell towers (like Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T) also cause #4 above but the problem is more severe when near a Nextel tower site because the transmissions are in the same band as the other non-Nextel users' equipment.
-rickNextel'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.
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.