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Wireless Networking United States Hardware

FCC to Reorganize 800mhz Band? 149

Posted by michael from the pin-drop dept.
nick0909 writes "Years in the making, the FCC is finally close to deciding if they will allow Nextel to pay for the reorganization of the 800mhz bandplan. In return the FCC will give Nextel a new band in which to operate their phones, where they won't destroy public safety communications. Other cell companies are angry because they had to pay millions for their GHz frequencies, and argue Nextel is getting off cheap. On top of this, if the 800MHz band gets re-sliced, will the FCC continue to push TV broadcasters out of 700MHz, which was supposed to go all to public safety in the coming years?"
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FCC to Reorganize 800mhz Band? More

FCC to Reorganize 800mhz Band?

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  • What's the fair thing to do to them? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mindless4210 ( 768563 ) * on Sunday April 11, 2004 @05:05AM (#8829438) Homepage Journal
    I think the issue is pretty straightforward, and if their service is interfering with emergency bands then it needs to be reallocated. The good question is, what's fair for them afterwards? It doesn't seem like such a move should put them out of business, but some are trying to do so [nytimes.com].

    The FCC couldn't make up their minds at the last meeting [dailywireless.com], will things change at the next? I have a feeling this could get pushed around for a while.

    • Re:What's the fair thing to do to them? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Talez ( 468021 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:19AM (#8829566)
      What Verizon are trying to do in that report is so unfair. They already "paid" for the rights to a piece of spectrum when they got the rights to 800MHz. If the FCC wants that back they should be compensated with equal share of the usable spectrum elsewhere.

      It's only fair.

      • What do you call fair ? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:32AM (#8829577)
        The 1.9Ghz Band is far more worth than the 800 Mhz. This is why some are ready to offer 5 Billion dollard for it as a STARTING point. Read the FA. This is not even the highiest worth but a "floor" bid. Nextel choose to concentrate on the 800Mhz for some reason (which is as the article point out, less usefull and disturb public service).

        The public service is the priority, to that I agree. But this is what is suggested as follow up which is downright anti capitalist. No Company has the RIGHT to claim compensation from the governement by getting a HIGHIER value spectrum. At best, they get back their money for the 800 Mhz and THEN the governement auction the 1.9Ghz.

        Giving them something which is valued at 5 Billion at least for a paltry sum, is downright anti competiting and nearly a gift of some billion from the taxpayer into the Nextel's account.

        Frankly I would not be surprised that nextel has some friends in the FCC and in the governement if this get thru...

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • [ecode]How is the 1.9GHz band "more valuable" than the 800MHz band? Especially as Nextel are running their own protocols rather than an off-the-shelf standard (so even the "it's in common use therefore there are cost savings with the hardware" argument doesn't work)?[/ecode]

            Well ... the 1.9Ghz spectrum being discussed is contiguous, nationwide spectrum compared to the disjoint patchwork of channels that Nextel currently owns.

            -rick

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
              Comment removed based on user account deletion

              • Tmobile uses 1900MHz only in the US. They are a worldwide company, and use the 900 and 1800 (not sure which, perhaps both?) in Europe.

                They used to be known as the guys with the worst coverage nationwide, but nowadays with AT&T, and Cingular on GSM (plus several little guys) this isn't a big problem. There are large holes, but they are mostly where people don't go anyway. (Today I hit an area where I didn't have coverage, the first time I noticed in several years)

          • I think you can pack more calls into a given range of the higher frequency spectrum. Nextel is paying some cash with the swap. It has been a very long process, and now the rumbling is starting after they have come close to an agreement.

        • Re:What do you call fair ? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by mgh02114 ( 655185 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @09:52AM (#8829984)
          Actually, for a cell phone provider, the 800-900 MHz band is far more valuable than the 1800-1900 MHz band. "800" allows cellular towers to be spaced much farther apart, significantly reducing costs to provide service to a given area. Much of this is do to the poor building penetration of 1900 MHz signals (I'm talking real world results, not theoretical physics) Case in point: ATT Wireless put 1900 MHz GSM antennas on their existing 800 MHz TDMA towars ... and the 1900 system had FAR worse coverage.
          • Does anyone RTFA? Nextel's use of the 800-megahertz spectrum, much of which was acquired from two-way radio dispatch services, has made it easier for the company to offer the popular walkie-talkie cellphone feature known as "push-to-talk."
          • The reason for that is because providers are allowed to transmit 800MHz signal at higher wattages than 1.9GHz. For whatever reason, the FCC allows providers to pump out 800 at higher wattage. We're talking about a difference of maybe 3 watts, but those few watts can make a huge difference.

            Coverage with 800MHz may seem great for a mobile telephone provider, but the extra coverage comes at a price, and the providers all know this.

            The majors, namely AT&T/Cingular, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Nextel are all co

        • Re:What do you call fair ? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Smitty825 ( 114634 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @10:44AM (#8830202) Homepage Journal
          As others have posted, the 800Mhz band is far more valuable to operators than the 1900 band. This is due to building penetration benefits that the 800 spectrum provides...

          The reason that Verizon, et al, is so upset, is that they are offering new frequency to Nextel. From Daily Wireless [dailywireless.com]: "Verizon Wireless remains ready to participate in an immediate auction of a nationwide license for the 10 megahertz (specifically the 1910-1915/1990-1995 MHz)."

          According to the FCC Website [fcc.gov]: "Broadband PCS is allocated spectrum ranging from 1850-1910 MHz and 1930-1990 MHz. "

          This would be a new subblock of the PCS band, that could be used _nationwide_, which is why Verizon has said it is worth 5 billion. Also, every time the FCC has released new spectrum for phone services, they've auctioned off those new services to the highest bidder.

  • It's the FCCs fault... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 11, 2004 @05:14AM (#8829458)
    They should have seen this comming before selling that spectrum to Nextel. It's too bad that it's interfering with emergency services but the FCC sold Nextel a license to use it and revoking that license w/o awarding equal bandwidth elsewhere will put Nextel out of business, which is just not acceptable.

    Of course Verizon and Voadfone don't like it! They see this is a way to easily kill of some competiton.

    • Re:It's the FCCs fault... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rfmobile ( 531603 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:05AM (#8829545) Homepage
      They should have seen this comming before selling that spectrum to Nextel.

      Nextel purchased existing licenses as well as "new" licenses from the FCC. The pre-existing licenses were converted for use in Nextel's cellular network.

      In both cases (pre-existing and new), Nextel agreed to operate the licenses in a responsible manner. That's part of the license - like using your driver's license to operate automobile in a responsible manner.

      -rick
    • too bad that it's interfering with emergency services but the FCC sold Nextel a license to use it and revoking that license w/o awarding equal bandwidth elsewhere will put Nextel out of business, which is just not acceptable.
      So I guess willfully endangering lives is kosher then?

      This isn't insightful, it's a troll. At least I hope it is, it's pretty sad/messed up when people start prioritizing corporate survival over human life.

  • Judging from their recent efforts... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 11, 2004 @05:17AM (#8829466)
    I would have grave doubts about the FCC being able to reorganize a sock drawer, much less the 800Mhz band.

  • Pushing TV out of the 700MHz (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Cable is immune to that crap being sheilded and running on the sub-band through hyperband anyway on most plants.

    If cells are wrecking emergency services, I for one would rather an ambulance make it to me in time rather than the bitch driving a car knowing what Tammy wore yesterday and what color eye shadow to put on while driving AND yip yapping.
    • If cells are wrecking emergency services, I for one would rather an ambulance make it to me in time rather than the bitch driving a car knowing what Tammy wore yesterday and what color eye shadow to put on while driving AND yip yapping.

      Though harsh (and maybe sexist), your sentiment is understandable. You're right that emergency services should not be interfered with, especially by people who are just taking up the airwaves for no real purpose. However Nextel customers are usually businesses and contrac
    • But what if she's using the cellphone to call 911?
  • For a stupid European, can someone explain what Nextel is, who they are, and what services they offer?
    • Nextel is a cell phone provider here in the US. Unlike in Europe, us USians use a medley of protocols and frequencies to get our cell phone service. We have at least one frequency for GSM, but we also have CDMA (code division multiple access) and older TDMA (time division multiple access. Now I have a question: It seems like more than one company is using the 800MHz band, is there a reason why Nextel is the only one having problems with interference?

      -Mr. Lizard
      • They don't have any more interference than any other provider. It's the quantity of the "push to talk" requests that come in that are causing a problem. You have to contact the data channel to initiate a call, and you must do the same to initiate a PTT conversation.

        With more and more people using it, and more and more "calls" being set up and torn down, the data channels are overloaded, while the bearer channels (established voice channels) are just like any other carrier.
    • Another one of those *tel companies that get all the governments money (Intel, Bechtel, Nextel).

    • Re:Who is Nextel, and what services do they offer? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Akai ( 11434 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:55AM (#8829617) Homepage Journal
      NexTel is the innovator of the "Push to talk" cel phone (something Verizon (vodaphone) has copied in some parts of the US)

      They use yet another tech (aside from AMPS/TDMA/GSM/CDMA) called iDen (integrated digital enhanced network I think) that motorola came up with.

      Their first phones were, quite apropriatly, referred to as "Bricks" (the old Ericson 888 world is stylish in comparison) but nowadays they're much better style-wise. They were really popular in replacing licensed and unlicensed handheld radios in construction/warehouse biz, and then got picked up on by the ISP folks (which is how I got my experience with them) and others who need a quick communication method.

      The push to talk is charged at a much lower rate than normal minutes, and works mostly nationwide (if you believe the adverts). Of course being PTT, there's not "ring" or "accept" phase, so the phone just starts yapping when someone pushes a button. You can do point to point or point to multipoint messages.

      I haven't had a nextel in about 5 years so some of my observations might be outdated, but while the PTT worked well, they had a bad habit of dropping calls on cel hops.

      Hope that helps. Motorola's iDen site is here [motorola.com]

  • Give away? (Score:5, Funny)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @05:34AM (#8829503) Journal
    Here in colorado, the government just gave a mountain top away for $875, that is valued at more than 16 Million. The funny thing is that they used an obscure law from 1872 to get it. But when they first tried back 1999, they were laughed out. huuuummmm.

  • 800 millihertz? (Score:3, Funny)

    by product byproduct ( 628318 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @05:40AM (#8829512)
    0.8 cycles/sec? Never heard of that frequency band before.

  • Who does this supprise? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by thogard ( 43403 )
    After all the founder of Nextel used to have what position at teh FCC?

    It was a great move. Find a bit of frequency that had been allocated to old technology (the old mobile radio phones) and then buy up all the compaines that were losing busines to the more modern cell phones. By the time anyone had figured it out, he had bought out something like 75% of the frequency over the US.

  • Switch to GSM !!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Uzull ( 16705 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @05:56AM (#8829532) Homepage
    Would resolve a lot of issues !
    a. Lower prices ! The telco equipment, because of competition, is reasonnably priced
    b. Interoperability ! 1billion GSM users, what should I say more
    c. Frequency to choose from ! Available are : 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 Mhz. Adapt to local regulations!
    d. Roaming ! When Nextel own service is not available, they could have local roaming agreements with t-mobile or at&t.

    End the end the customer would be the winner !

    • Re:Switch to GSM !!! (Score:5, Funny)

      by gilroy ( 155262 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @07:28AM (#8829660) Homepage Journal
      Too! many! exclamation! points! makes! any! argument! look! silly! not! emphatic!

    • Re:Switch to GSM !!! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by silas_moeckel ( 234313 ) <silas.dsminc-corp@com> on Sunday April 11, 2004 @08:18AM (#8829756) Homepage
      Why? I have had netel for years. I work with companies that have hundreds of nextel phones. Last time I checked GSM wasent a great platform for 2way wihc is a HUGE part of Nextels appeal. Most places I work if they dont have good nextel reception (or cell phone reception period) Nextel or a rep has put in a repeater this means a lot when your several stories underground in a datacenter but still have 6 bars of service and can 2 way your coworkers. GSM is a nice standard but it dosent seem to offer the same feature set. Nextel needs to move to a next generation solution something with higher bitrates for data and keep the fast setup for 2way to work well.
      • I'm not a GSM advocate, but the feature you describe are available to GSM. Repeaters? yes of course. It depends a lot on the companies offering service and according to legislation. And by the way : It is very nice to have the same telephone number several stories under the ground or in singapour, hong kong or new york. Without changing mobile phone or service.
        • And by the way : It is very nice to have the same telephone number several stories under the ground or in singapour, hong kong or new york

          Someone else who hasn't used Nextel! Nextel has (albeit, butt-ugly) phones [nextel.com] that transparently roam between domestic (iDEN) and international (GSM) networks. I use my i730 in the US, but move my SIM card to the i2000plus when I need to go to Europe. I know you said "without changing phones" but a 20 second change on each end of the trip to keep the same number in 144 cou
        • I have that with Nextel now with there international phone. I think the problem yu will find with GSM repeaters is since everybody can use GSM nobody wants to spend the money to put them in. Nextel is currelty solely responcible fo rthere network so they fix it they cant blame annother carrier because there is none.
      • Nextel needs to move to a next generation solution something with higher bitrates for data

        It's coming [nextelbroadband.com].
      • The problem is that nextel won't put in that repeater for free unless you have a very large number of users at your company. Most companies have had to pay for the repeater.
        • I dont see that as a problem. Actualy they will throw in repeaters for small accounts around 100 phones if you ask during your initial negotiations, at least they have for me. It's not hard to go to a Nextel sales guy your phones are great but we are expereince bad to no reception in these area's unless you can fix that we cant go with you. The repeaters cost as little at 500 with the normal ones under 5k, when you talking about 100+ accounts thats less than a months fee's.
    • I think that Nextel has made the decision in the long term to switch to CDMA. (Qualcomm gave them exclusive rights in the US to their "Qchat' functionality, which makes PTT work well on CDMA networks according to the marketing material)

      Also, IMHO, it would be foolish to begin to roll out a GSM network right now. WCDMA is supposed to replace GSM in the (somewhat) near future. It seems that WCDMA or CDMA2000 would be a better route because those technologies are being actively developed, and are more "fut
    • Good point... but what about the PTT functionality? Is that supported in GSM?

      --DM

      (GSM phone in the US worked great in England, once I unlocked it!)

  • America's Most Wanted (Score:5, Informative)

    by RedSynapse ( 90206 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @05:57AM (#8829534)
    I was watching America's Most Wanted last night, and they did a segment about the emergency services spectrum and how in some "dead zones" police, fire, and amublance workers are not able to use their radios because of interference from Nextel cell towers.

    One police officer recounted how he came upon a man who had been shot in the back and was laying there bleeding, when the officer tried to radio in for help he found that he had no radio reception, so he had to wander out into the middle of the street holding his radio up to the sky until he found a spot with reception.

    AMW has a site here [amw.com] where you can sign an online petition, and a description of the problem here [amw.com]

    Additionally here's a link to the Consensus Plan [consensusplan.org] which is supported by emergency first responders to eliminate interference. Apparently there have been over a 1000 cases of interference nationwide in these states [consensusplan.org] since the first case was reported 5 years ago.

    • Re:America's Most Wanted (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:18AM (#8829564) Homepage
      And why is it necessarily Nextel at fault, and not a building blocking the signal, out of range, or sunspots? I'm sorry, but Americas Most Wanted isn't really a news source I really trust. That and the dumb cops of the world and you've got a news source less reliable than slashdot.
      • And why is it necessarily Nextel at fault

        It's funny, I always wondered why cellphones had always been banned in RF-sensitive areas. Back when I had a Verizon cellphone on CDMA [sss-mag.com], my frequency sniffer [optoelectronics.com] never reported any activity coming out of my cellphone, being spread spectrum (aka "We live under the noise"). Then I got a Nextel, and when I walk in the room, my sniffer chirps to indicate that it's capturing freqs off my phone. Totally different beast. My Nextel phone puts noise bursts on my tv from 8 feet
    • This could also show a problem with the Emergency services equipment. There really is no reason for any (consumer/commercial/military) communications equipment to not use the latest state-of-the-art modulation techniques. The emergency equipment should just as well be running off of cellular equipment, as should any other communications equipment. Digital channels take up less bandwidth than analog channels, is clearer, and is secure.

      It's also good to get rid of AM/FM radio, Analog VHF/UHF TV, and free

      • Re:Bandwidth Consolidation needed in General (Score:5, Informative)

        by rfmobile ( 531603 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @01:11PM (#8831005) Homepage
        The emergency equipment should just as well be running off of cellular equipment, as should any other communications equipment.

        Ewww ... yuck. Folks need to understand that the two main communications modes used by public safety: dispatch and tactical. For dispatch you can use a cellular network. Examples of tactical comms are SWAT/hostage type situations or on-scene fire control. For tactical communications what you really want is direct peer-to-peer. You don't want to depend on your signal travelling all the way to a tower a half-mile away - and back again - just to talk to someone 100 feet away. This is critical when trying to talk from inside a burning building.

        Digital channels take up less bandwidth than analog channels, is clearer, and is secure.

        Less bandwidth? Not necessarily, ACSSB (amplitude compandored single side-band) fits inside a 5 khz wide channel.

        Is clearer? Nope - the digital systems all use some form of speech compression which sacrifices sound fidelity for narrower bandwidth.

        Is secure? No ... digital does not equal encryption. It's easier to encrypt once it's digital but requires key management. It's not a given.

        Also, for public safety ... encryption is of little value ... reliability and interoperability among different agencies are more important. For most agencies, encrypting voice comms for surveillance activity and encrypting data terminal access is more than sufficient.

        -rick
      • There really is no reason for any (consumer/commercial/military) communications equipment to not use the latest state-of-the-art modulation techniques.

        Sure there is. It's called money; you may have heard of it.

        Ripping out a complete communications system and replacing it is (a) damned expensive, and (b) not an overnight job.
    • This is another example of why the 700MHz band needs to be given to public safety. The lower the frequency, the better the signal can penetrate into buildings, thru dense vegetation, and into low-lying areas that RF at 800MHz and above have a more difficult time reaching. 700MHz and 800MHz aren't really that far apart in the spectrum such that the basic radio hardware and antennas will have to change much at all, so the units (especially handhelds) can still be kept small and lightweight with low power cons
    • Additionally here's a link to the Consensus Plan [consensusplan.org] which is supported by emergency first responders to eliminate interference.

      The registrant of the domian CONSENSUSPLAN.ORG is: Westhill Technologies [westhillpartners.com]. They seem to specialize in Public Policy and Issues Advocacy Campaigns...From their site:

      When a large consumer products company was looking for help in advancing its ambitious, multi-pronged external communications agenda, they turned to Westhill Partners for help on two fronts:

      *Advic

    • Well if the guy that got shot in the back wouldn't have kept saying "Can you hear me now?" Then the nextel user wouldn't have been forced to shoot him.

  • Unitology (Score:2, Informative)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 )
    FCC to Reorganize 800mhz Band? ...
    reorganization of the 800mhz bandplan.

    Uuh, what's mhz? milli-aysh-zee?
    Or maybe the poster means MHz?

  • Interference (Score:5, Informative)

    by rfmobile ( 531603 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @06:28AM (#8829573) Homepage

    Getting a license from the FCC is like buying a house. It's in your interest to know your neighbors and to make an effort to be a good neighbor. With that in mind, here's a few notes on what this whole fuss over interference is really about.

    1. direct interference - someone transmits on someone else's frequency. This happens occassionally by accident and usually gets fixed quick. Nextel was once fined for doing this unintentionally a few years ago near New Orleans, LA.

    2. co-channel interference - two entities each have a license to use the same frequency in geographically overlapping areas. The two parties are mutually responsible for making equipment and operating adjustments to eliminate interference.

    3. equipment mis-configuration (including co-located equipment) - different companies often share the same tower sites and often the signal from one company's transmitter will "leak" into another causing mixed products and emissions outside licensed frequencies.

    4. receiver desensitivity caused by proximity to low elevation, high power transmitter sites (ie. cell towers).

    Nextel is causing problems for other 800Mhz licensees mostly as a result of items 3 and 4. Non-Nextel cell towers (like Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T) also cause #4 above but the problem is more severe when near a Nextel tower site because the transmissions are in the same band as the other non-Nextel users' equipment.

    -rick
    • This whole deal is a bunch of crap. Nextel built out a system that interferes with its neighbors. They should fix the problem and keep the spectrum they are licensed for. The company I work for lost several productive, profitable, non-interfering SMR's to Nextel when the FCC decided to take away the licenses and auction them off in regions where the little guy has no chance of competing. What does Nextel do? come in and turn the systems off and *not* install anything to replace them, or they take a service
    • Exactly. If you have price competition, everyone wins. If you have coverage competition, everyone loses. When broadcasters (even unintentional broadcasters) are interfering with eachother, the FCC isn't doing its job.

  • Congress Shoud Vote For More Bandwith! (Score:5, Funny)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @07:00AM (#8829623)
    I think congress should vote more bandwidth into existance. I seem to recall something from math that talked about unreal numbers that aren't used much. I propose that Congress pass a bill allowing bandwith in the unreal number ranges since the real number ranges have been used up.

  • See the whole spectrum (Score:3, Interesting)

    by unihedron ( 579453 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @07:54AM (#8829707) Homepage
    Check out how small the 800MHz band is in comparison to everything else we currently know about: Spectrum [unihedron.com]
    • Unfortunatly this suggests that we shouldn't be so worked up about one little band in a big sea of bandwidth.

      To legitamate users of the bands it is much like saying that given the bazillion acres of realestate in the U.S. you shouldn't get so worked up if the quarter acre your house sits on should get "reallocated".
  • All of Nextel's bulky phones operate only on the 800Mhz band so if they FCC permits them to move to the 1.9GHz band, every one of Nextel's customers will have to get a new phone. Like most of the time, customers never pay full price for the phone, so Nextel would be taking another hit there. Also, moving to the 1.9GHz will put HUGE gaps in their current network.

  • Stealing candy from a baby... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What a deal:
    Do a sloppy deployment job. (That's the only excuse for the interference.)
    Lead the technologically clueless, politically motivated FCC down the garden path. "Oh, we can't fix this. We did the best we could. You just muffed the band plan. Think of the children".
    Sell the FCC on a 'fix' that leaves you smelling like a rose in the eyes of your stockholders.
    There are aspects to this game that are yet to be revealed. Follow the money!
  • At work, I can tell when a user is on a Nextel phone by the noises, dropouts, co-channel crosstalk. But that is their issue. Nextel, as well as all the other cellphone providers, have to work on a cellular concept of spectrum reuse. They have a fixed amount of channels to use and as users increase, they have to get more cellsites to reuse the allotment. If my mind is working, most Public Service equipment in the 800 MHz band is using trunking and if the radio can't hear the controlling information because

  • Bit of history about the contentious 800 MHz band (Score:5, Insightful)

    by footage ( 317314 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @08:34AM (#8829785)
    Nextel's poor behavior as a spectrum-sharer has worried many public-safety-communications officials whose ability to redesign their systems is subject to politics and shrinking budgets. Their proposal puts the public sector at a real disadvantage, no matter how much money they propose to throw at the problem.

    Public safety agencies started to move up to 800 MHz frequencies in the early 1980s. In some cases, these moves were promped by spectrum scarcity, but in many more instances it was equipment manufacturers (especially Motorola and Ericsson) who convinced local agencies to buy complicated and failure-prone trunked radio systems. These systems were often (though not always) solutions in search of problems, and their performance has often been questioned. It's clear that advanced communications technology doesn't necessarily guarantee the safety of personnel; quite the opposite is true, in fact. (Try Googling "trunked radio system problems" for more on this.)

    Since 9/11, loud voices have been calling for "interoperability" in public safety communications, in order that different agencies might better be able to speak with one another. New 800 MHz (and now 700 MHz) systems have been touted as a solution. Unfortunately, competing and contentious departments (like the NYPD and NYFD) won't talk with one another regardless of how much money is spent on systems to connect them. New York City had an interagency 800 MHz system working on 9/11 (the DoITT system, for those familar with NYC comms), and it saw very little use. Interoperability is most often a social and cultural issue, not a technical issue.

    Nextel plays a problematic role in public safety comms in another way. Many agencies, especially those engaging in undercover ops and including key Federal law enforcement agencies, prefer to let their own expensive radio systems gather dust and use Nextel handsets instead. Nextel offers comparative privacy (citizens can't monitor iDEN transmissions), group call, and cheap equipment. Tto the problem is that no proprietary system is as robust and reliable as many dedicated public safety radio systems. I'd hate to have to rely on a Nextel handset if I was doing risky undercover work -- I'd be competing for bandwidth with SMS spam and teenagers (Nextel markets to youth under the name Boost Mobile).

    Anyway, as most of us know, there are other ways to address communications issues than to lock up spectrum in the name of a few large corps.

    • ...but in many more instances it was equipment manufacturers (especially Motorola and Ericsson) who convinced local agencies to buy complicated and failure-prone trunked radio systems. These systems were often (though not always) solutions in search of problems, ...

      (failure-prone: read this [geocities.com]... It's by no means the only such incident...)

      And, I might add, to a considerable degree the fault for the problem lies with these equipment manufacturers. They knew (or certainly should have!) that there would be c

  • IDEN using seperate frequency band (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sigurd_Fafnersbane ( 674740 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @09:53AM (#8829989)

    IDEN is a proprietary Motorola system afaik only used by NEXTEL.

    Until 10 min ago I thought IDEN was using the same 800 MHz frequency band as all the other cellular standards in the US (AMPS, GSM, US-TDMA, CDMA) namely: Mobile transmit 824-849 MHz and Mobile Receive 869-894 MHz.

    It looks like IDEN/NEXTEL for some obscure reason is using a lower frequency band namely: Mobile transmit 806-825 MHz and Mobile Receive 851-870 MHz. What a mess, why were they allowed to use these frequencies in the first place?

    IDEN mobile transmit: 806-825 MHz

    IDEN mobile receive: 851-870 MHz

    US cellular transmit: 824-849 MHz

    US cellular receive: 869-894 MHz

    No wonder IDEN can cause problems the "normal" US cellular systems cannot.

    For laughs I threw in some other frequencies.

    World cellular transmit: 880-915 MHz (GSM900)

    World cellular receive: 925-960 MHz (GSM900)

    US PCS transmit: 1850-1910 MHz

    US PCS receive: 1930-1990 MHz

    World hi-band transmit:1710-1785 MHz (GSM1800)

    World hi-band receive: 1805-1880 MHz (GSM1800)

    UMTS transmit: 1920-2170 MHz (blocked in the US)

    UMTS receive: 2110-2170 MHz (Blocked in the US)

    • IDEN is a proprietary Motorola system afaik only used by NEXTEL.

      iDEN is also used by Southern Linc - a competitor to Nextel that uses the same Motorola equipment.

      -rick
    • IDEN is a proprietary Motorola system afaik only used by NEXTEL.

      In Canada, Telus offers the same PTT service (called Mike) over iDEN. In fact, the Mike phones will roam on Nextel (but I don't think you can use the radio).

      IIRC, they took it over when they bought ClearNet a number of years ago.

  • Verizon in the mix as well (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Palmzombie ( 552666 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @09:57AM (#8830001)
    Another twist to this story is the fact that Verzon has offered news.com article [com.com]5 Billion in an effort to halt the spectrum swap to its competitor Nextel. This is in comparison to the only $ 850 Million that Nextel offered to help reband its network, and pay for retuning/equipment of public safety systems and others whom its towers interfere with. Why does Nextel want the spectrum at 1.9 GHz? It's because this is where it plans to roll out its future high speed technoloy (Flash OFDM) that it is currently piloting in the Raleigh-Durham [yahoo.com] metro area using hardware from Flarion [flarion.com]. This spectrum will allow Nextel a huge advantage when it launches this service nationwide, essentially allowing it to jump right into and dominate the markets that Verizon (EVDO) and AT&T-Cingular(EDGE) are currently trying to capture. Company propaganda "With burst rate for the downlink is 3 Megabits per second (Mbps), and 900 Kilobits per second (Kbps) for the uplink. Typical user experience is 1 Mbps in the downlink, and 300 to 500 Kbps in the uplink, with average latency below 50 milliseconds." I beta tested EVDO for Verizon and when let me tell you its impressive. Nextel's foray into this space is serious and Verizon and other carriers want to prevent this from happening.

  • 800Mhz is an irresponsible place to put emergency (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 11, 2004 @10:38AM (#8830178)
    What frequency where the fireman in the twin towers using that failed so horrorably? 800Mhz of course! And the failure was hardly NextTel interference. Unless you have antenna every few miles, it is an irresponsible place to put emergency anything. With the band being line of sight with no way for it to penetrate wall's, the old 150 MHz equipment's performance makes this stuff look like a bugger.

    • It is a difficult tradeoff between spectrum efficiency and coverage. A 150 MHz system would more or less cover New York City in one cell. On the surface this is cool, but it limits the available traffic.

      In a city the size of NYC you might have mighty many police, firefighter, ambulance driver, national guard, Boy Scouts of America, etc etc that all have good reason to communicate with each other in case of an emergency. If you have a system that can only accomodate say 10000 calls at the time, that mig

  • There's a limited number of ways to attempt to write MHz, and only one of them is correct. This article's summary tries both mhz and MHz in the space of only 100 words. Why don't people make enough effort to use the correct prefix, and respect the great works of honoured scientists by capitalizing their names correctly?

    Coming up: "Incorrect use of apostrophes!!" News at 11.

    No .sig for you. Next!

  • Heh. A nice lucrative new way to profit for Motorola, GE, etc, and I can see the California bond ballot initiatives now...

    "Pass this bond, or we might not be able to respond to your 911 call due to interference on our county radio system"
  • The situation with emergency services and interference is being approached the wrong way.

    These should be the services in which the message of open spectrum should be heard the loudest. Cognitive radios that cooperate to get the message through regardless of the environment of interference that they are in.

    Instead the FCC is doing the exact opposite---allocating more "don't interfere here, please" spectrum. Does making it illegal stop it? no, instead it makes the whole system vulnerable to people wantin
  • actually the gf and i saw something on tv 2 days ago about this.. and this is how i think it should go...

    set up a meeting with all the carrier companies. if one doesnt attend, they give up their rights to have a say in it. propose 1 of 2 solutions for the companies to vote on

    1) nextel gets the new frequencies for free because the emergency services need the ones nextel already has, and they shouldnt have to pay for having something taken away from them - yes they get better frequencies for free, its calle
  • I can speak with a degree of experience here.

    I have a Nextel phone, and I also work for the local police department who, like many others, are using Motorola's Astro (APCO 25) trunked radio system. I've had more problems with the Nextel phone interfering with OTHER equipment in the patrol car than I've had with the radio. I do know that the frequencies we use are close to Nextel's. I often have the phone and radio on my belt side-by-side, and I have not had any problems to date, luckily.

    Ultimately the ch

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