WASHINGTON-Preferred Communications Systems Inc. is not giving up.
Earlier this week the non-Nextel economic area 800 MHz licensee asked the Federal Communications Commission to stop the retuning of the 800 MHz band.
“The FCC’s authority for its rebanding process is premised upon its ability to provide all public safety, private and commercial licenses with comparable facilities-the same (1) number of total channels, (2) sites, and (3) geographical coverage they enjoy today,” said Charles Austin, PCSI President. “The commission admittedly never undertook a comprehensive analysis to assure that it could provide involuntarily relocated licensees with comparable facilities. As a result, the present plan hampers competition and can endanger the safety of first responders and the public. It is not too late to take corrective action.”
PCSI is part of the small slice of licensees in the 800 MHz band-sans the A-block cellular operators-that have consistently fought rebanding because they said they are getting a raw deal by being forced into the non-cellular block. This block would not allow them to build systems that use low-site systems. PCSI’s licenses cover 29.4 million people in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia, and parts of California, Oregon, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio and North Carolina.
The rebanding process began in June and PCSI said it will lose a valuable remedy if it is forced to move before the appeals process is completed.
As part of its request to stop the rebanding, PCSI cited a study by Concepts to Operation that found that public safety could experience a spectrum shortage in some major markets such as Boston, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Miami. PCSI hired Concepts to Operation to conduct the study, which was filed previously with the FCC as part of the commission’s study of public-safety spectrum needs.
In 2005, the FCC adopted a plan to solve the 800 MHz public-safety interference problem: swap some spectrum with Nextel Communications Inc., now owned by Sprint Nextel Corp., and have Nextel pay to move other companies off the spectrum band Nextel would receive.
