Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Nextel

From: mission_critical_communications <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 05:17:50 -0000

"Steve Uhrig" <steve@s...>Wrote:

This piece is fairly technical and a lot political, and probably only 
of interest to Nextel users. Use your Delete button now if needed.

Else ...

For those of you who follow such things, below is a good satire on 
the current state of affairs.

If you haven't been following, briefly -- Nextel (a nationwide 
digital comm system with mobile telephone capability in the U.S.) has 
been interfering with 800 megacycle public safety systems, in many 
areas completely denying coverage to sections of cities. In 
emergencies, authorities have to arrange to have the Nextel sites in 
the area turned off so the 800 meg systems can function.

Nextel, who for all practical purposes is Motorola and has Motorola's 
money behind them, is made of Teflon. Nothing is their fault. They 
have proposed solutions. The one they're pushing involves moving all 
public safety communications down to 700 megacycles, which of course 
involves a complete replacement of the infrastructure and all new 
equipment of course to be provided by Motorola. Remember, some 
communities are only now just building out 800 meg systems, yet 
Nextel is proposing to move everyone to 700 megacycles while 
soliciting orders for 800 meg systems in the meantime. Those who do 
not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Remember when Nextel 
was formed, and they threw off analog users from 800 meg trunking?

In doing what they propose, this would free up the bandwidth now used 
by the public safety customers, and allow more room for Nextel to 
expand on 800 megacycles. 

The 700 megacycle channels would be taken away from UHF broadcast 
television allocations. Higher UHF broadcast television stations 
would need to move to lower frequencies, again requiring replacement 
of all equipment and antennas.

No one has yet agreed how all this will be funded, but it doesn't 
need to be said the bill, in the billions, will be paid by Nextel 
users and taxpayers.

As a side note, Verizon and other cell carriers are introducing their 
own competition to Nextel in the form of PTT capability on the 
existing cellular network. Competition will drive prices down, of 
course. Nextel is fighting, obviously.

And Nextel is claiming copyrights to the term 'PTT (Push To Talk') 
even though it has been in common use since the days of dynamotors 
and vacuum tubes in mobile radios.

The author of the below is a Washington D.C. area attorney who works 
on communications issues on behalf of the victims/users. Most of the 
land mobile industry is anti-Nextel as they seemingly are arranging 
to profit substantially from a problem they caused, and lives are 
being lost in the meantime. FCC? When FCC commissioners retire, they 
go to work for Nextel. You figure it out.

You kind of have to be following the players for the article below to 
make sense. Even if you have not, however, the situation is pretty 
clear.

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