Radio Interference
Nextel towers in the United States have caused radio interference with commercial and public safety trunked and conventional 800 MHz two-way radio systems. To resolve the problems, Nextel and the Federal Communications Commission developed a plan, approved by the FCC in August 2004, to relocate Nextel systems elsewhere in the 800 MHz band in order to reduce the potential for interference.
Before rebanding, Public Safety, Business/Industrial, SMR and ESMR's both operate in the 851-861 MHz range. ESMR has exclusive use of the 861-866 MHz range, and Public Safety has exclusive use of the 866-869 MHz range.
During rebanding the following will occur:
- All licensees with channels between 866-869 MHz (NPSPAC) must relocate to equivalent channels between 851-854.
- All licensees other than ESMRs with channels between 851-854 MHz must relocate to equivalent channels between 854-862.
- Nextel and other ESMR operators must relinquish all channels below 862 MHz. The FCC has required Nextel to vacate all its channels in the band from 854-854.5 nationwide as soon as possible to provide additional spectrum for Public Safety needs.
- Public Safety has exclusive access to all vacated Nextel channels for 3 years, after which they are open to all eligible users.
After rebanding, Public Safety and Critical Infrastructure will have exclusive use of 851-854 MHz. ESMR systems (primarily Nextel) will have exclusive use of 862-869 MHz range, and public safety, business/industrial users, and low-power SMR's will share the 854-862 MHz spectrum. 860-861 MHz is designated as an "Expansion Band", and 861-862 MHz is designated as a "Guard Band". No licensees other than ESMR are required to relocate to channels above 860 MHz.
The use of contiguous spectrum allows for simple filters to be installed to protect public safety radio systems from interference, which is currently impossible under the existing mixed allocations in the 800 MHz band.
Nextel (Sprint) is paying for much of the cost of this reconfiguration, but in compensation for lost 800 MHz spectrum, the company is receiving spectrum in the 2 GHz band at 1910-1915/1990-1995 MHz. This spectrum is near the existing Sprint PCS allocations and can be used to expand the number of channels available for that service, without needing to bid for additional capacity in a spectrum auction.
Read more about this topic: Nextel Communications
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