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."

Comments

profits

[Lehk228]

i think sprint means

"the public good would be better served by selling school spectrum to us so we can have better profits. you aren't a COMMUNIST are you!?"

Sprint Nextel shouldn't be talking

[saterdaies]

Sprint Nextel is one of the worst offenders when it comes to spectrum violations. The Nextel network has been illegally causing interference with public-safety radios for years now - and they have missed every deadline that has been set to clean it up. It started off because they were too cheap to filter their signals so that they wouldn't cause interference. Then they convinced the FCC to swap their scattered spectrum for much more valuable contiguous spectrum.

Sprint is the worst when it comes to spectrum violations and those schools should press the FCC to relieve Sprint of all Nextel's spectrum that's causing interference - without any compensation. Sprint would shut up pretty fast if that happened because one's a silly paperwork mix-up and the other's a wanton disregard for responsibility.

Re:Sprint Nextel shouldn't be talking

[grapeape]

Sprint also has a nasty habit of buying up spectrum in rural areas and then doing nothing with it primarily to keep competition out.

Re:Sprint Nextel shouldn't be talking

[sub67]

Do you always post lies, or is this new for you?

No, Sprint hasn't been "illegally causing interference." All of the Sprint/Nextel radios meet FCC specs.

Otherwise, they never could have been put into service. They would not have been FCC Type Accepted.

Were the FCC specs not as good as they should have been? Damn straight. That's the FCC's fault, all the way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextel#Nextel_U.S._op erations_interfere_with_police_and_fire_radios *shrug*..

Re:Sprint Nextel shouldn't be talking

[tech10171968]

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.

Re:Personally...

[TuballoyThunder]

If you want to quote numbers, you should be complete. Below is a summary for 2007

• 586.1 billion (+7.0%) - Social Security
• $466.0 billion (+4.0%) - Defense
• $394.5 billion (+12.4%) - Medicare
• $367.0 billion (+2.0%) - Unemployment and welfare
• $276.4 billion (+2.9%) - Medicaid and other health related
• $243.7 billion (+13.4%) - Interest on debt
• $89.9 billion (+1.3%) - Education and training
• $76.9 billion (+8.1%) - Transportation
• $72.6 billion (+5.8%) - Veterans' benefits
• $43.5 billion (+9.2%) - Administration of justice
• $33.1 billion (+5.7%) - Natural resources and environment
• $32.5 billion (-15.4%) - Foreign affairs
• $27.0 billion (+3.7%) - Agriculture
• $26.8 billion (+28.7%) - Community and regional development
• $25.0 billion (+4.0%) - Science and technology
• $20.1 billion (+11.4%) - General government
• $1.1 billion (-47.6%) - Energy

If you group it by "human services/community/education," "defense/veterans/foreign affairs" you get

• $1740.7 billion - "Human Services"
• $571.1 billion - "Defense"

Thus, for every $1 spent on "defense" $3 is spent on "human services."

I won't even bother getting into a discussion about tax policy--you might as well argue which religon is best. I will point out the following facts:

• The top 5% of earners paid 53% of the income tax
• The top 1% of earners paid 33% of the income tax
• The bottom 50% of earners paid less than 5% of the income tax

Also, do not forget that individual income tax includes unincorporated businesses.