With T-Mobile/Sprint in Mind, FCC Expected to Vote on 800 MHz Order at Oct. 25 Meeting

Commissioners are expected at their Oct. 25 meeting to take up an order that would wrap up part of the lengthy 800 MHz rebanding process, which requires Sprint to pay transition costs, FCC and industry officials said Wednesday. Chairman Ajit Pai is expected to release a blog Thursday on the meeting agenda.

The order would tweak the process with an eye on moving it closer to an end. It would declare various configuration agreements closed, officials said. Commissioners approved a plan to reconfigure the 800 MHz band in 2004, which separated public-safety land-mobile radio systems primarily from what was then Nextel’s iDEN network. The move was aimed at ending interference to first responder systems.

Nextel later combined with Sprint, which eventually dropped Nextel in its name. The transition was supposed to start in July 2005 and end in July 2008. Industry officials said the order helps resolve one concern on T-Mobile’s proposed buy of Sprint.

“This would bring certainty to the 800 MHz spectrum slice” that Dish Network “said it would buy from a combined T-Mobile and Sprint,” said Roger Entner, analyst at Recon Analytics: “It's tying up that loose end before Sprint exits.” Sprint didn’t comment.

Overall, five licensees remain to be retuned, with one “classified as public safety,” Sprint said in a required monthly report posted Wednesday in docket 02-55. The remaining licensee is located in the Texas-El Paso region, Sprint said. That’s down from six public safety licenses reported in September.

The only other item to emerge so far addresses Part 61 tariff rules. In an NPRM last October, the FCC proposed eliminating two rules -- a cross-referencing rule, which bars carriers from referencing their own tariffs and those of affiliates in tariff publications; and a rule requiring price-cap ILECs file short-form tariff review plans 90 days before their access tariffs are due. CenturyLink, Frontier Communications and Verizon sought termination of both rules (see 1812210067). Other items are expected.