Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Proposal to Revamp Public Safety Radio Frequencies Is Greeted by Growing Chorus of Opponents

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 20:10:19 -0500

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 11, 2004

For More Information, Contact
Mark Gedris
Marketing Communications Manager
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[email-masked]

Proposal to Revamp Public Safety Radio Frequencies Is Greeted by Growing
Chorus of Opponents
Taxpayer Groups and Key Members of Congress Join Local Public Safety
Leaders And Others In
Criticizing Nextel-Backed "Private Sale"

WASHINGTON – Federal regulators appear to be leaning toward approval of
an overly complex, disruptive plan to eliminate interference between
public safety radio and wireless phones, a prospect that has galvanized
a growing chorus of opponents.
According to news reports, staff at the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) has endorsed a concept proposed by Nextel
Communications that would hand the company a huge financial windfall
from a complete reorganization of radio spectrum in the 800 MHz band,
and a non-competitive award of an additional 10 MHz of spectrum in the
1.9 GHz band. Independent experts using widely accepted appraisal
practices have estimated a net windfall to Nextel in excess of $6
billion.
"While there appear to be differences between the Nextel-backed plan and
what the FCC staff has recommended, the underlying approach is too
time-consuming, too costly, and too disruptive to users," said Jill
Lyon, vice president of the United Telecom Council and spokesperson for
the 800 MHz Users Coalition (www.fix800mhznow.org). "Interference to
emergency responder communications is a serious and potentially
life-threatening problem that deserves a serious and prompt solution,
not one driven by corporate welfare."

Rising Chorus of Skeptics

In recent days, two of Washington's most influential taxpayer groups and
more than 20 key members of Congress have spoken out against Nextel's
drive to revamp radio frequency assignments in the 800 MHz band.

Citizens Against Government Waste (www.cagw.org) and the National
Taxpayers Union (www.ntu.org) sent letters to Federal Communications
Commission Chairman Michael Powell and Senate Commerce Committee
Chairman John McCain, urging them to reject the Nextel-inspired plan and
instead adopt a more locally oriented solution.

Thomas Schatz, president of CAGW, called the Nextel Plan "an attempt to
gain contiguous blocks of valuable spectrum at no cost while subverting
the auction process" that the FCC normally uses to allocate spectrum.
"It is ironic that this plan could give Nextel nearly a $5 billion
windfall to 'correct' an interference problem it caused in the first
place."

John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union, wrote: "After
examining the outlines of [the Nextel] proposal, NTU believes that it
carries substantial risk of taxpayer losses as well as the potential to
disrupt telecommunications markets for the benefit of just one firm."

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, the chairman of the House Budget Committee
and a bipartisan group of key Members of Congress voiced their concerns
in separate letters to Chairman Powell.

Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle expressed to Powell his "serious
reservations about any solution [to the interference problem] that does
not involve the established auction process." And 23 Members of Congress
led by Reps. Vito Fossella (R-NY) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) urged Powell
to fix the problem "as quickly as possible" but to "keep all existing
800 MHz licensees within the band rather than give one or more entities
spectrum outside of the 800 MHz band without conducting an auction."

Nearly 100 Organizations Opposed to Nextel-Inspired Plan

Across the country, nearly 100 organizations representing public safety,
critical infrastructure, business and taxpayer interests have cast doubt
on the misnamed "Consensus Plan," which was developed by Nextel in
association with public safety groups and some private land mobile
associations.

Reshuffling airwave assignments in the 800 MHz band would eliminate
some, but not all, likelihood of interference between cell phones and
land mobile radios. This approach would require costly, disruptive
changes for thousands of radio systems in the 800 MHz band, even in
locations where there is no interference at all. The plan would take at
least three and a half years to complete -- with no firm deadlines --
and Nextel concedes that additional steps would still be needed to
eliminate interference.

Nextel has pledged $700 million to public safety agencies and $150
million to all other land mobile licensees in the 800 MHz band to cover
the costs of retuning and replacing radios. But experts say this amount
is likely to fall at least $1 billion short of actual costs. If
licensees balked at the top-down mandates, they could be forced to
relocate or have their licenses revoked.
As part of the package backed by Nextel and apparently favored by some
FCC staff, Nextel would receive contiguous blocks of much more valuable
spectrum than it is swapping away, without going through the usual FCC
auction process. Indeed, this approach is more akin to a "private sale"
open only to a favored carrier than it is to the free, fair and open
auction process established by Congress.

There is a much better approach on the table. Under the Balanced
Approach supported by "on the ground" 800 MHz users, interference would
be resolved within months, not years. The plan would eliminate all
interference at the cost of the interferor, prevent new interference,
and maintain flexibility for licensees to migrate to advanced
technology.

The 800 MHz Users Coalition is comprised of local public safety
agencies, electric,
gas and water utilities, mobile wireless, business and other users of
the 800 MHz
band, and other organizations. The group is broader and more local in
character than
the so-called Consensus Group supporting the Nextel Plan, and it is
representative
of the licensees that would suffer harm from the Nextel Plan. A detailed
description
of the Balanced Approach and further background on the Nextel Plan are
available
at www.fix800mhznow.org

Founded in 1948, UTC represents the telecommunications interests of
electric and gas utilities, water companies, gas pipelines and other
critical infrastructure entities, along with their technology partners.
UTC is a global federation of direct business members and affiliated
trade associations representing over 10,000 organizations serving all
corners of the world and virtually every community in North America.
More information is available at www.utc.org.

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