WASHINGTON—EF Johnson Inc. objected strongly Thursday to a plan by Motorola Inc. to change the reconfiguration plan for the 800 MHz band and allow radios to be replaced before licensees complete their negotiation process with Sprint Nextel Corp. and the 800 MHz Transition Administrator.
The Motorola Plan is “an ill-conceived and anti-competitive maneuver,” said Robert Donohoo, EF Johnson vice president and general counsel. “The changes suggested by Motorola are not needed to resolve delays and instead would function primarily as anti-competitive by reducing opportunities for public-safety entities to replace Motorola radios with those of other qualified manufacturers. Motorola is asking the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau for a ruling that would unfairly assist Motorola in using the 800 MHz reconfiguration process as an opportunity to capture market share while simultaneously reducing options available for reconfiguring licensees.”
In early July Motorola suggested that since it has reached agreement with Sprint Nextel and the Transition Administrator regarding which radios need to be replaced and/or have their software modified and the cost of those changes, that instead of waiting for each licensee to complete the negotiation process, Motorola could proceed to replace or modify the radios in question while negotiations were taking place. Motorola said it believed the wireless bureau had the authority to agree to the change but acknowledged it would require the buy in of other manufacturers. Obviously, EF Johnson is not biting.
“The current rules allow for the consideration by licensees of all equipment alternatives during the planning and negotiation phases of reconfiguration prior to the entry of an agreement and the subsequent purchase of equipment,” said Donohoo. “Motorola has raised the specter of delay in an effort to turn the reconfiguration process into a means for locking up market share and the FCC should reject that effort.”
Motorola believes that more than 1.2 million public-safety radios must be replaced or modified. “But as of July 6, Motorola has yet to ship a single replacement radio or undertake a single software modification,” said Steve Sharkey, Motorola’s director of spectrum and standards strategy. “The simple fact is that a huge backlog of system modifications is building that cannot be completed in a timely manner if we continue on this present course.”
The FCC in 2004 said it wanted to reconfigure the 800 MHz band, changing it from slices of various types of licenses—public safety, enhanced specialized mobile radio and private wireless—to a band with three distinct sections: public safety, cellular and non-cellular.
Sprint Nextel is paying to retune public-safety and private-wireless licensees in the 800 MHz band. As part of the deal, Sprint Nextel is giving up 700 MHz and some 800 MHz channels in return for 10 megahertz of spectrum in the 1.9 GHz band. The FCC has valued the spectrum Sprint Nextel is returning at just over $2 billion. The spectrum Sprint Nextel is receiving in the 1.9 GHz band is valued at $4.89 billion, according to the commission. Sprint Nextel must make a payment to the U.S. Treasury if the retuning costs and the Sprint Nextel spectrum credit do not equal $4.86 billion.
The FCC reiterated its belief that all of the parties must do their best to complete the rebanding by June 27, 2008.
The Transition Administrator is an outside team selected by the FCC to manage the 800 MHz rebanding. The TA declined comment on either the Motorola proposal or EF Johnson’s response.
Sprint Nextel did not responded to a request for comment regarding either Motorola’s plan or EF Johnson’s objection.
