Improving Public Safety Communications in the 800 MHz Band

The Federal Communications Commission released an order it says concludes its longstanding efforts to relocate the Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS) from the 1990-2110 MHz band to the 2025-2110 MHz band, freeing up 35 megahertz of spectrum in order to foster the development of new and innovative services that can provide mobile broadband and nationwide communications capabilities.

This decision in particular addresses the outstanding matter of Sprint Nextel Corporation's (Sprint Nextel) inability to agree with Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) operators in the band on the sharing of the costs to relocate the BAS incumbents. To date, Sprint has shouldered the entire cost of this relocation, which was completed on July 15, 2010. The FCC balances the responsibilities for and benefits of relocating incumbent BAS operations among all the new entrants in the different services that will operate in the band.