Sprint Nextel “fundamentally misunderstood” a proposal from the Society of Broadcast Engineers asking the commission to make changes to the Universal Licensing System that would allow TV Pickup and Remote Pickup licensees to document the location and height of their antennas and RPU receive only sites, respectively.
That’s the contention of a March 2 SBE filing with the commission taking exception to the telecommunication company’s comments that object to the proposed ULS changes. What’s more troubling, the SBE filing said, is that Sprint Nextel “apparently does not understand the existing obligation” that commercial mobile radio service operators have to protect “an earlier-in-time” ENG receive only site. The SBE summarized the claims of Sprint Nextel as being “mischaracterizations” of the society’s plan to modify the ULS. Specifically, Sprint Nextel claims that the SBE petition for rulemaking to change the ULS proposes a prior coordination notice for operators of commercial mobile radio services, CMRS, in regard to ENG-RO sites, the society filing said.
It also said the telecommunication company objected to CMRS licensees being required to notify BAS licenses prior to building and operating a base station and a requirement that CMRS base stations postpone testing and operation till filters are installed on ENG receivers.
The SBE countered that nowhere in its previous filings had it proposed a prior coordination notice, nor was there a suggestion that CMRS licenses be required to notify a TV Pickup licensee with an ENG-RO close to a CMRS base station.
According to the SBE, its Feb. 17 commission filing seeking rulemaking on the proposal for ULS spelled out the possibility of voluntary tests by “a newcomer CMRS station.” If those tests revealed interference to an ENG-RO sited, the tests “could then be put on hold until the necessary filters were added to the CMRS base station” or to the ENG-RO site.
According to the most recent SBE filing “nowhere… was there any proposal that these steps would be mandatory.”
For more detail on the SBE proposal to modify the ULS, read: “SBE petitions commission to begin ULS modification rulemaking.”
For more information, visit www.sbe.org.
