The Federal Communications Commission is trying diligently to come up with its own plan for solving the interference problem at 800 MHz in a way to satisfy public-safety users, private-wireless companies, Nextel Communications Inc. and other mobile-phone carriers and be fair to the American taxpayer. It’s a nearly impossible task. One version of the FCC plan is to give Nextel some of the spectrum it wants, but not all of it.
As the agency comes closer to its own solution, the cry from detractors of the Consensus Plan gets louder. Cingular said that even a watered-down version of the Consensus Plan is somewhat like “The Gong Show.” Ouch. Verizon Wireless said its research shows the Consensus Plan spectrum swap basically gives Nextel $6.5 billion. “Just as two 10-room houses may be the same size but have very different values depending on how the houses are built and where they are located, the 16 megahertz of spectrum that Nextel would receive is far more valuable than the 16 megahertz it would turn in,” said John Scott of Verizon Wireless.
However, the carrier community hasn’t offered a better solution. CTIA and UTC put forth a balanced-approach plan that calls for industry to use best practices and a promise to try to resolve current interference problems in a timely manner, as well as a pledge that the company causing the interference pay to fix the problem.
A version of the best-practices approach has been in place almost as long as the interference. It obviously doesn’t work.
But the real reason CTIA and UTC haven’t offered a better solution is because it’s been nearly impossible to get all of the involved parties together on the same page.
Initially, it seemed the Consensus Plan was held together by a thread. But when the FCC begged for a technical solution, few companies screamed they had a solution, and the few that did obviously didn’t impress the commission enough to pursue them because the solution on the FCC’s table today calls for re-banding.
I’ll bet the Consensus Plan followers have forged a stronger alliance since the first days simply because no one’s come up with a better plan. Believe me, no carrier in this industry is thrilled about Nextel swapping out spectrum. But sometimes the solution is simply choosing the lesser of two evils.
Now the question is whether Nextel is willing to accept the commission’s compromise plan.
