Sprint Nextel accused other 800 MHz licensees of trying to gain advantage through band plan changes ostensibly fixing 800 MHz rebanding issues at the U.S.-Canada border. Sprint told the FCC that licensees moved must receive comparable, not better, spectrum. Public safety groups, meanwhile, warned of delays and questioned Sprint’s earlier claim that more agreements must be negotiated between the U.S. and Canada to complete the rebanding.
Howard Buskirk
Howard Buskirk, Executive Senior Editor, joined Warren Communications News in 2004, after covering Capitol Hill for Telecommunications Reports. He has covered Washington since 1993 and was formerly executive editor at Energy Business Watch, editor at Gas Daily and managing editor at Natural Gas Week. Previous to that, he was a staff reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Greenville News. Follow Buskirk on Twitter: @hbuskirk
CTIA President Steve Largent wrote members of the Senate to dispute the need for the Wireless 411 Privacy Act (S- 2454), which would protect wireless subscribers against listing of their cellular phone numbers in a national directory without their consent. “While it is true that the wireless industry once created a joint venture to explore an opt-in wireless directory, that effort was conceived of as a directory assistance service and not as a published directory or publicly available database,” Largent wrote. He added that after a joint venture was launched to create a directory in 2004, CTIA quit the effort. “Recently, the carriers decided to abandon their joint venture, so it is fair to state that neither CTIA nor its members are compiling a wireless directory.” Largent said carriers and CTIA “take very seriously the obligation to guard consumers’ privacy” and wireless subscribers don’t seem to want a national directory. Last week, Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, introduced the bill. “This bill is good news for consumers because people should have the right to decide who has access to their wireless phone number,” Boxer said. “Without the protections provided in this bill, the cell phone numbers of countless Americans could be at risk.”
The FCC put off a vote on the previously delayed CMRS competition report. The FCC also approved a rulemaking notice aimed at resolving a dispute between broadband wireless companies and XM and Sirius over the 2.3 GHz band. The notice, not yet released, mostly seeks comment and offers a single, noncontroversial “tentative conclusion.” The two items were deleted from the FCC agenda for a meeting Tuesday that focused on relaxation of media-ownership rules.
The FCC will consider whether to require that carriers refusing to give customers emergency alert system warnings post warnings to that effect in their stores and on their sites, said a notice of proposed rulemaking released late Friday. The FCC may set tougher rules than the Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee recommended in other areas as well, the document indicated.
Wireless carriers are at odds on rules for the 2155 to 2175 MHz band, the spectrum sought by M2Z and other potential competitors and expected to be offered for sale in a proposed AWS 3 auction. Sprint Nextel urged the FCC to auction the spectrum without attaching major strings. But T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless said it’s paramount to protect from harmful interference carriers occupying advanced wireless service (AWS) spectrum auctioned last year.
Sprint Nextel has entered a new phase in its fight with AT&T over whether the Bell is living up to a promise to extend interconnection agreements made in last year’s AT&T- BellSouth merger agreement. After battling AT&T in the old BellSouth states, Sprint is making filings in legacy SBC states. Sprint may file a complaint to the FCC, we're told.
The Wireless Communications Association wants the FCC to tighten power limits Globalstar operates under in the 2496- 2500 MHz band. The new limits would mirror those imposed by the recently-concluded World Radiocommunication Conference on mobile satellite services in the adjacent 2500 MHz band.
Philips Electronics North America and Microsoft have given the FCC revised versions of prototype devices designed to operate in the broadcast white spaces. Philips submitted two devices, according to a filing at the FCC. The devices are essentially the same as those tested earlier at the commission lab in Columbia, Md., with software tweaks to improve their operation. Testing is expected to start anew in January. It’s unclear when an order will appear. High tech companies planning to make the devices, if approved, can’t sell them until after the 2009 DTV transition.
Spectrum sensing, of the kind that is required to allow wireless devices to use TV white spaces to access the Internet without causing harmful interference, is a “proven and well-understood technology,” the New America Foundation said in a white paper released Monday. The group said the goal of the paper is to counter “the torrent of misinformation” in arguments made by broadcasters and others opposed to opening the spectrum for unlicensed use by portable devices. Sources said Monday the paper comes with the white spaces item -- once slated for an October vote -- still stalled at the FCC pending a second round of device tests.
Sprint Nextel last week was the only wireless carrier to seek a waiver of new FCC regulations to protect customer proprietary network information (CPNI). The rules took effect Saturday. Other carriers said Friday that they are complying with the rule, though at least one acknowledged the high cost of making the network changes needed.