FCC Approves 2 Orders on 800 MHz Band

The FCC approved an order aimed at streamlining rules and procedures for the final stage of the 800 MHz band rebanding, as proposed in a Further NPRM approved 5-0 last year (see Notebook at end of 1910250036). The order, released Tuesday, said the FCC will no longer require the transition administrator give the commission "an annual audit or conduct other financial reconciliation of Sprint’s rebanding expenditures.” The TA no longer must review and approve amendments to frequency reconfiguration agreements “with respect to cost creditability,” the docket 02-55 order said. While eliminating some requirements, “we affirm that the Transition Administrator will continue its tracking, reporting, analytical, and mediation functions as needed to facilitate the rebanding program's goals and assure its successful conclusion,” the order said. Commissioners approved the original rebanding order in July 2004, aimed at addressing interference to 800 MHz public safety radio systems caused by what was then Nextel’s “enhanced” specialized mobile radio system. Nextel was later bought by Sprint and then Sprint by T-Mobile. T-Mobile didn't comment. Also on the 800 MHz band, the FCC approved an order revising parts of the rules for public land mobile radio use of the spectrum, approved 4-0 by commissioners in 2018 (see 1810220050). The Land Mobile Communications Council filed a recon petition seeking modification and clarification of some of the technical rules for coordinating interstitial channel applications and got some of what it sought (see 1812280024). “We allow for some 800 MHz interstitial channel applicants to streamline their applications, clarify standards for calculating interference contours that define the distances that must be maintained between interstitial and incumbent stations, and refine certain technical elements of the interstitial channel rules,” said the order in docket 15-32. LMCC proposed that in calculating the potential for a proposed station to receive interference from an adjacent-channel incumbent, “it should be assumed that the proposed station will operate at maximum effective radiated power for its proposed antenna height,” the FCC said: “We do not agree with this element of LMCC’s proposal, which could artificially constrain the availability of interstitial channels even where applicants propose to operate at less than maximum power.”