Nextel has plan to eliminate
police-cellular interference
08/19/2001
Associated
Press Newswires
Copyright 2001. The Associated Press. All Rights
Reserved.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - With dozens of
states, including Oregon, reporting interference between cellular
phone towers and emergency communications, a leading wireless phone company has
come up with a plan to ease the problem.
Nextel Communications founder and vice
chairman Morgan O'Brien said in a speech at a conference for public safety
managers this month that he wanted to separate the more than 250 intertwined
frequencies into separate blocks. The change would keep the more powerful cellular phone transmissions farther in the radio spectrum from the
weaker public safety broadcasts.
Nextel, of Reston, Va., is the source of interference in 21 states because its wireless phone service uses 800 MHz radio frequencies that are intertwined with or adjacent to those
used by police radios, public safety officials said.
The company will ask federal regulators
this fall to approve its plan.
Nextel officials have not issued a timeline
to implement the proposal. But a committee organized by an industry group to
study the interference problem has separately established a two-year
goal.
Washington County and Portland officials
have led efforts nationwide in researching the problem that leaves emergency
personnel at risk when they cannot communicate with one another.
Committee chairwoman RoxAnn Brown, director
of Washington County's 9-1-1 center, said the panel met for the first time Aug.
5 at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International's
annual conference in Salt Lake City. The committee has not drafted a proposal to
solve the problem, choosing instead to further document interference
reports, Brown said.
Nextel's proposal would cost millions of
dollars and affect thousands of public safety agencies, as well as commercial
and industrial operations, said Glen Nash, president of the public safety
association.
It is unclear who would pay for the change.
Public safety officials have backed away from their initial requests that the
federal government or Nextel pay the entire cost of any fix.
"Ideally, we wouldn't pay anything, but
there is a big difference between ideal and realistic," said Nash, who added
that some departments may have to raise taxes to pay for the changes.
Nextel officials have said the company is
willing to pay a share of the cost.
The company would benefit from the
reorganized 800 MHz band because it would give the nation's fifth-largest
wireless provider a continuous block of frequencies, Nash said.
An FCC spokeswoman in the Wireless
Telecommunications Bureau said the agency is aware of Nextel's proposal but
declined to comment on it. The federal agency has urged public safety agencies
and wireless companies to work together to resolve the issue.