WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission’s proposed microwave relocation cost-sharing plan would free personal communications services operators of their financial obligation to 2 GHz fixed users by 2005, a policy shift that could hit rural microwave licensees hard.
The PCS industry and microwave advocates each found reason to praise the proposal, though it falls short of what the two battling sides ideally preferred.
“The commission’s actions are necessary to assure the growth of this infant industry” and “will speed up the realization of broadband PCS for the American consumer,” said Jay Kitchen, president of the Personal Communications Industry Association.
The FCC, despite urging from wireless carriers, did not propose changes to the two-year voluntary/one-year mandatory negotiating periods governing the PCS-financed relocation of microwave users from the 2 GHz band to higher frequencies at its Oct. 12 meeting.
“Why they would propose
to terminate this relocation and reimbursement process by 2005 is beyond me.”
In fact, FCC officials reaffirmed that policy amid repeated charges of extortion by the wireless telephony lobby against 2 GHz microwave licensees since the two-year voluntary negotiating period began April 5. However, there appears to be acknowledgment that any such abuses are limited, though still representing an impediment to building out PCS systems.
Public-safety agencies on the 2 GHz band are bound by a three-year voluntary/two-year involuntary negotiation timetable, and do not appear as caught up in the controversy as do microwave users such as electric, gas and water utilities, railroads, oil and gas companies and local governments.
House budget reconciliation legislation would reduce the two-year voluntary microwave relocation negotiating period by one year. A companion Senate measure does not include any such revision, but lawmakers have signaled a willingness to revisit the issue when conferees meet to reconcile House and Senate bills to reduce the budget deficit over seven years, in part, by raising $14 billion from expanded spectrum auctions.
Nevertheless, the wireless telephony industry counts as progress a proposed sunset provision that would relieve PCS operators from providing comparable facilities to microwave licensees after 10 years and relegate fixed users to secondary status on the 2 GHz band by then.
“I think the commission has begun to hear the message,” said Thomas Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. He called the FCC action “an important step forward.”
Microwave licensees find the sunset provision troublesome.
“Why they would propose to terminate this relocation and reimbursement process by 2005 is beyond me,” said Jeffrey Sheldon, general counsel for the Utilities Telecommunications Council.
Sheldon said rural microwave licensees will be hurt most because next-generation digital pocket telephone firms will likely concentrate system construction in urban markets first and less populated areas last.
As a result, Sheldon predicts rural microwave licensees not only will be ignored during the two-year voluntary negotiating period that ends in April 1997, but also will be left with little time to bargain for comparable facilities before the 2005 deadline.
The microwave relocation cost-sharing issue arose because some microwave systems have links in multiple markets. About 1,200 microwave licensees control 13,000 fixed radio links on the 2 GHz band.
The 21 PCS carriers that have begun microwave relocation by virtue of being licensed first earlier this year, would be eligible for reimbursement from subsequently licensed PCS operators of up to $250,000 per link and $150,000 per tower if construction is required.
The FCC will auction the remainder of the nearly 2,100 digital pocket telephone permits by the end of next year. The FCC proposal is based in significant part on recommendations by Pacific Bell Mobile Services and PCIA.
