Bob Foosaner, Nextel Communications Inc.’s regulatory vice president, said something funny to me when we bumped into each other at a recent association regulatory conclave.
Apparently, Bob had noticed that the number of reporters covering the sessions had dropped significantly when compared with years past, and he attributed this to the idea that members of the private radio industry, for once, weren’t at each other’s throats. Translation: All is right in a consensus-driven world.
Not so, Bob. Just ask those 220 MHz licensees who continue to ponder their relationship with other private carriers, with manufacturers and with the Federal Communications Commission that, according to many, is trying to tweak the rules yet again, even though there has been no industry clamor to do so.
Regarding the proposed Phase II channelization plan now under commission scrutiny, “I feel like after all these years, I’m the bastard child,” one licensee confessed. “The FCC doesn’t want anything to do with me, and until I put on my 800 MHz or 900 MHz hat, other specialized mobile radio operators won’t play with me.”
With an admitted auction bent, the FCC continues to ruminate on whether to allow spread-spectrum and entrepreneurial applications on the 220 MHz band, which bothers those who have been building networks, buying equipment and amassing subscribers. “The idea of throwing every kind of technology on this little bit of spectrum probably isn’t good,” said Washington, D.C., attorney Eliot Greenwald. “If people want to experiment [with spread spectrum and advanced messaging], there is lots of other spectrum to do this.” Adding fuel to the fire, Greenwald continued, “The message appears to be `How much can we get for the spectrum?’ rather than `How efficient can we be?”‘
In a July 1 letter to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, 220 MHz systems builder/manager Roamer One called the proposed overlay plan “unworkable” and “not in the public interest … the commission should not rechannelize the local 220 MHz SMR channels … or adopt any other channelization plan which does not track the noncontiguous channel assignments of the Phase I local SMR channels.” It submitted a different plan for FCC consideration.
The commission persists in being noncommittal regarding the future of the 220 MHz band; staffers only will admit that “the FCC hasn’t changed anything yet” and “we’re in the process of seeing whether the FCC wants to change.”
Perhaps in the industry’s mind, radically altering the 220 MHz rules is akin to putting lipstick on a pig. It doesn’t improve the pig’s looks, and it just makes the pig angry.
