AirCell Inc. received favorable decisions from the Federal Communications Commission that will enable it to move forward with its air-to-ground communications system, targeted for use by general aviation aircraft and regional airlines.
Louisville, Colo.-based AirCell has been developing and testing its technology, which uses existing terrestrial cellular networks to provide communications to airplanes, for more than seven years. The company in December got the green light to move ahead with commercial deployment of its system when the FCC granted AirCell’s original seven partner carriers a waiver of the airborne cellular rule.
Since then, AirCell and its opponents-primarily AirTouch Communications Inc., AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Bell Atlantic Mobile, BellSouth Cellular Corp., GTE Wireless Inc. and SBC Wireless Inc.-have been battling at the FCC over AirCell’s right to re-use cellular frequencies to provide its service.
In its latest action, the FCC granted a waiver to an additional seven cellular carriers that have partnered with AirCell, bringing to 14 the number of carriers now cleared by the FCC to work with AirCell.
Jim Stinehelfer, president and chief executive officer of the company, said AirCell hopes to secure contracts with about two dozen carriers in total and turn on about 100 ground sites by the end of the year.
“Within the next month, we expect that we will turn into the FCC about eight additional companies for waivers, and that will pretty much cover the United States’ major air routes for us,” said Stinehelfer. “Now that the process has been established with the FCC, we anticipate that the next round of waivers will probably take about two months.”
The FCC’s second order clarified language in the original order, in response to challenges lodged against AirCell related to notification and frequency-coordination issues as well as when AirCell is allowed to use certain channels.
“What happened is that some of the companies that are opposed to us took advantage of some of the language that was in the original waiver and fundamentally declined to work with AirCell and declined to support the frequency coordinate process,” said Stinehelfer. “Even though we could build sites, we couldn’t turn them on because we couldn’t get through this process of notification and frequency coordination.”
To ease the process, the FCC reduced from 168 miles to 94 miles the distance around a base station in which AirCell must perform frequency-coordination activities. Stinehelfer said under the 168-mile rule, the company typically had to coordinate frequency with as many as 25 carriers.
“We would have in those 25 carriers, one or two that were opposed to AirCell,” said Stinehelfer. “Those people, therefore, could stop the process.”
Under the new distance requirement, only about one-third of those companies would have to be notified, he said.
The commission also clarified that carriers must allow AirCell to use channels that are not currently in use.
“Even though we could build sites, we could sign providers and we could do all of the work, we couldn’t complete the requirements of the waiver in the way the FCC intended,” said Stinehelfer, who noted the company has been signing up between 10 and 20 customers per month. “We couldn’t actually turn those sites on and begin to use them, so our network really couldn’t grow.”
