Media Access Project (MAP) backed a recent request by an alliance of 6 groups licensed to operate EBS systems that the FCC impose conditions on the proposed Sprint- Nextel merger to ensure diversity in control over 2.5 GHz spectrum. “Sprint and Nextel have already used their superior size and market power to impose terms on small EBS licensees that compromise the educational nature of the EBS band,” MAP said, referring to the evidence submitted by the ITFS/2.5 GHz Mobile Wireless Engineering & Development Alliance (IMWED) in a July 11 filing. “Because Sprint/Nextel would be one of only 3 remaining significant national leasers of EBS band service, it is rational to expect that they will exert considerable influence over EBS licensees who are, generally, smaller and less sophisticated,” it said. MAP stressed the importance of addressing the 2.5-GHz issue in the context of the merger, rather than in a separate proceeding, to “insure the independence of the EBS operators” in markets where Sprint and Nextel control significant EBS spectrum. As part of the merger approval, MAP urged the FCC to bar Sprint and Nextel from: (1) Having lease terms longer than the license term. (2) Including automatic renewal provisions or other terms curbing EBS licensees’ negotiating power at expiration of the license. (3) Including “purchase option” provisions if the FCC lets EBS licensees sell or permanently lease licenses. (4) Requiring EBS licensees to lease the maximum spectrum permitted under Commission rules, and (5) Preventing EBS licensees from reclaiming spectrum for educational use in compliance with Commission rules. MAP said the FCC should require Sprint and Nextel to conform existing and future lease contracts with EBS licensees to the proposed conditions. Sprint and Nextel also should be required to file copies of leases with EBS licensees with the FCC, which should make them publicly available, it said. The FCC should have an expedited process for resolving EBS licensee complaints, MAP said. Separately, SouthernLINC Wireless again urged the FCC to require the merged Sprint/Nextel to “provide voice, data and digital dispatch roaming on reasonable, non-discriminatory terms and conditions and to make such roaming available for all services at reasonable and non-discriminatory rates.”

The U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., upheld an FCC decision to auction terrestrial multichannel video distribution and data service (MVDDS) licenses in the primarily satellite 12 GHz band. In Northpoint vs. the FCC, the Court denied challenges to new FCC regulations, which: (1) Allow terrestrial MVDDS to share the 12.2-12.7 GHz bandwidth spectrum with direct broadcast satellite (DBS) TV services. (2) Allow the FCC to auction MVDDS use of that spectrum. DirecTV, Satellite Bcstg. & Communications Assn., EchoStar and SES Americom said use of terrestrial service use of the DBS frequency would cause too much interference. Northpoint, which claimed credit for inventing MVDDS technology, said it should get the frequencies rather than the FCC allocating them by auction.

TMI said Nextel needs to share more data and firm up proposed relocation dates so 2 GHz licensees don’t enter blindly into a Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS) mess when they launch Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) in the band in 2006 and 2007. The BAS band (1990-2025 MHz) overlaps the 2 GHz Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) band (2000-2020 MHz) in which TMI/TerreStar and ICO Satellite Services are authorized to operate. The firms say they will launch S- band MSS systems offering voice and data communications in N. America. The MSS ventures, potentially aided by ATC ground repeaters, are the latest incarnation -- some might say “resurrection” -- of mobile satellite communications, which generally have failed. TMI/TerreStar is one of at least 4 companies that have announced intentions to launch ATC-enabled MSS systems in the 2 GHz swath of the S-band or the L-Band following the FCC’s Feb. loosening of the ATC rules (CD Feb 28 p24).

The FCC asked Sprint, Nextel and other commercial wireless carriers against which the firms compete for more information. As part of its review of the proposed Sprint-Nextel merger, the FCC sent identical letters to the applicants, plus Alltel, Western Wireless, Nextel Partners, Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA and Southern LINC. The FCC requested a description and subscriber count for each mobile wireless price plan offered by the companies in each county of the U.S. for each month from Jan. 1, 2004, to Jan. 31, 2005.

In what some observers described as a “very straightforward” oral argument, a panel of federal appeals court judges considered Mon. whether the FCC should reinstate the NorthPoint MVDDS license application in the 12 GHz spectrum. The judges focused on 2 issues highlighted in the NorthPoint Technologies v. FCC case: (1) Whether MVDDS providers would cause interference to incumbent DBS operators. (2) Whether MVDDS licenses should have been allocated to terrestrial providers, rather than auctioned.

T-Mobile slammed the joint H block proposal Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Nextel (VSN proposal) submitted to the FCC in Feb. (CD Feb 14 p7), saying the proposal was “not technology neutral” and shouldn’t be adopted.

In an unusual move, the FCC said it will act at its agenda meeting March 10 on a “consent agenda” in which 14 items will be voted on at once rather than be presented individually. Also on the agenda are truth-in-billing and a 3600 MHz proceeding. The meeting is Chmn. Powell’s last in his post.

The FCC said it granted in part and denied in part a Wireless Communications Assn. International (WCA) petition for reconsideration of the Commission order adopting service rules to promote the private sector development and use of spectrum in the 71-76 GHz, 81-86 GHz and 92-95 GHz bands. The WCA petition focused exclusively on the licensed use of the 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz bands. The FCC said its order: (1) Required interference analyses before registering all new or modified links in the 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz bands. (2) Eliminated the band segmentation and loading requirements and adopted an efficiency requirement of 0.125 bps/Hz. (3) Modified the interference protection criteria by deleting the minimum 36 dB carrier signal to interference signal (C/I) ratio, and by adopting for receivers employing analog modulation a 1.0 dB degradation limit for the baseband signal-to- noise ratio required to produce an acceptable signal in the receiver. (4) Reaffirmed that the 1.0dB receiver threshold-to-interference ratio degradation limit for digital systems that the FCC had adopted would still apply. (5) Declined WCA request to adopt 36 dB as the maximum required C/I. (6) Adopted a power spectral density limit of 150 mW/100 MHz. (7) Modified the technical parameters to accommodate smaller, less expensive antennas with a minimum antenna gain of 43 dBi and a 1.2 degree half-power beamwidth. The FCC said it declined WCA’s requests to shorten the construction period from 12 months to 180 days; to provide conditional authorization during the pendency of an application for a nationwide, non-exclusive license; and to require automatic transmitter power control for links with effective isotropic radiated power greater than 23 dBW.

The Wireless Communications Assn. (WCA) filed with the FCC a consolidated opposition to petitions for reconsideration of the 2.5 GHz order revising rules for ITFS and MDS operators in the 2495-2690 MHz band. The Commission is in the process of revising its 40-year-old rules governing how the spectrum is used. WCA and 2 education groups already asked the FCC to make some key changes to the July order earlier this year (CD Jan 12 p4). The latest petition is “really the last written major part of the process” that builds on the record in the proceeding, WCA Pres. Andrew Kreig told us. The FCC will now decide whether to change parts of its July order, and Kreig said WCA was “hoping that they would make some of these very important adjustments in their original order that will enable the service to achieve what is intended.” WCA said several petitions filed in the record included proposals that weren’t advanced by WCA but made “eminently good sense.” It said in addition to the rule changes suggested in WCA’s earlier petition, the FCC should adopt a number of other proposals, including: (1) Amend Sec. 27.1221(a) to clarify that the height benchmarking rules are applicable to EBS facilities. (2) Revise Sec. 27.53(1) to clarify that where 2 or more contiguous channels are used as part of the same system, all out-of-band emissions limitations should be measured at the outermost edges of those contiguous channels. WCA said it opposed several of the suggestions filed by other parties in their petitions for reconsideration, including: (1) Use of any geographic area for governing transition other than basic trading areas (BTAs). It also said it believed the deadline for filing initiation plans should be extended until 30 months after the effective date of the elimination of the major economic area (MEA), but the Commission shouldn’t extend it any further. (2) The imposition of any ban on 2-way deployments prior to transition. (3) The proposal to require some, but not all, licensees to reimburse transition costs immediately following the transition. (4) Adoption of the proposed expanded MVPD opt-put or alternative band plan for rural areas. (5) The proposal for reinstatement of the former 15-year limit on the maximum term of an EBS excess capacity lease. (6) The ITFS/2.5 GHz Mobile Wireless Engineering & Development Alliance proposals for Commission micro-management of the 2.5 GHz band. WCA also said the rules adopted in the order to govern the licensing and operation of the J- and K-band guard channels shouldn’t be modified on reconsideration. “Those bands are primarily designed to serve as guardbands between low-power, cellular operation in the LBS/UBS and high-power, high-site operation in the MBS, and the proposed revisions to the governing rules would undermine that purpose,” it said.

Nextel said Thurs. it expects to spend $900 million in 2005 as it begins to implement the 800 MHz rebanding plan, approved by the FCC last year, which will eat up much of the company’s projected $2 billion free cash flow. About $600 million will be spent on new capacity sites, filters and working with public safety radio systems and $300 million to relocate broadcast auxiliary users and microwave incumbents from 1.9 GHz to 2.1 GHz, Nextel officials said on a call with analysts discussing 4th- quarter results.