United Telecom Council (UTC) and Edison Electric Institute in rec...

public safety groups and private wireless associations provided Commission with proposal for mitigating interference to public safety systems at 800 MHz. Plan would divide 800 MHz band into 2 contiguous spectrum blocks, with public safety, private wireless and specialized mobile radio licensees in one section and Nextel in another. Nextel would give up spectrum at 700, 800 and 900 MHz and receive spectrum in unlicensed PCS and mobile satellite services (MSS) bands. Before approving that proposal, UTC said FCC must address need for “adequate and guaranteed” funding of any required retuning by incumbents and “a need to encourage the implementation of advanced, more efficient technology across all of the band.” UTC urged FCC to adopt rules that would address interference through updated technical parameters and regulatory flexibility. If Commission adopts consensus plan or alternative such as blueprint offered by Motorola, critical infrastructure licensees should be able to relocate to bands other than proposed guard band at 800 MHz, UTC said. “Incumbents already on guard band frequencies should be permitted a funded migration off these frequencies and full co-channel spacing should be restored to reflect the differences in technology to be operated by public safety or other new licensees on vacated frequencies,” UTC said. In separate filing, Satellite Industry Assn. (SIA) opposed part of consensus plan that would involve reallocation of 1990- 1995 MHz reserve MSS spectrum. While backers of consensus plan said that provision wouldn’t harm satellite development, SIA said it “would strike a severe blow to the 2 GHz MSS industry.” SIA argued that it would undermine FCC’s international spectrum harmonization efforts and “dramatically reduce” spectrum for MSS uplink operations.