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Sprint Nextel Vs. 41 Schools and Non-Profits
netbuzz writes "A case of corporate bullying, or good network citizenship? Sprint Nextel has let slip the dogs of law on the FCC and 41 non-profits, most of them school systems, in an effort to get the FCC to stop granting these organizations special dispensation when they fail to renew their wireless spectrum licenses. These licenses were granted as part of the Educational Broadband Service. The school systems, many of them rural, argue that they don't have the staff or the resources to keep on top of the paperwork and shouldn't be punished for such bureaucratic lapses. (Some generate revenue by leasing unused portions of the spectrum to carriers such as Sprint Nextel.) The schools' argument may sound a bit like 'the dog ate my homework' to some, and Sprint Nextel makes a fairly compelling case that a greater good would be served if the FCC would stop enabling such tardiness."
Sprint also has a nasty habit of buying up spectrum in rural areas and then doing nothing with it primarily to keep competition out.
The parent seems to have some very harsh words for Sprint-Nextel, but I'm not about to argue with him. I work for a small radio dealer in the Southeast and we operate three 800-Mhz radio tranmsitter sites covering a 10-county fooprint; in fact, we hold the *only* privately-owned 800Mhz spectrum in that part of the state (everyone else there sold out to - you guessed it - Sprint/Nextel). About a couple of years ago we (along with Sprint/Nextel) started our FCC-mandated rebanding; this involved Sprint/Nextel lending us the repeaters to keep our networks on line while we tuned our own repeaters to the new frequencies. Earlier this year the rebanding process was completed and we were due at least a $40,000 payment from Sprint/Nextel for fees and expenses incurred during the rebanding process. This payment was actually due months ago, but Sprint/Nextel has been using various tactics to delay this payment. They seem to know that this company is operating at a razor-thin margin and are hoping for us to go out of business. My guess is that they want to obtain these frequencies and hold them to eliminate any potential competition in the area. As it stands now, our shop is more or less a thorn in Sprint/Nextel's side as far as this particular mid-state market is concerned. I say that because few people I know actually buy Nextel cellphones because of the phone service (their service area sucks outside of interstate and urban areas); they buy these phones because of the radio feature. The problem for Sprint/Nextel is that we can provide similar midstate coverage for nowhere near what they charge customers in the same area - in other words, we are a direct threat to their local business model and they'd love to see us close up shop. The two-way radio industry is a small world and (from what I've heard from other shops) Sprint/Nextel has been sued several times before for using similar tactics against other entities. Apparently we weren't the only victims of Sprint/Nextel's tendency to play fast and loose with the rules, and that fact is the reason we 've had a Washington, D.C. communications attorney on retainer for the past few months (BTW the attorney's fees are also included in that payment due to us, so they've also managed to piss off a couple of D.C. lawyers as well). We'll see if we can avoid having to sue them ourselves, as our attorneys seem to have made some headway in the case. As of this writing we should be receiving payment within the next couple of days (I can hardly wait - Sprint/Nextel owes a few thousand dollars in rebanding fees alone). Otherwise, I guess we'll be seeing them in court.
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