Batboard

i noticed recently that a communications contractor is installing a new cell site on the roof of a local building. this got me interested so i walked over while they were working and noticed there are RACKS of equipment sitting out ready to be hoisted to the roof, and the racks are motorola eqpt with big plastic labels on the top of each rack saying 900MHZ system duplex XXX XXXX and other info i didnt understand.
on the backs of these are contents sheets wich indicated IDEN and maybe something Enhanced but i couldnt get too close. the shipping/billing info on the sheets talking about IDEN were sprint/nextel.

is nextel starting to use those 900 mhz freqs they snatched from moto 900 systems in the late 90's?
locally they shut down the systems in 2002 but to my knowlege never did anything with them.

wazzzzzup with the 900???

Many (all?) Nextel phones are capable of 900MHz operation. Thus, I wouldn't be surprised.

Want a conspiracy theory? Suck up much of 800, get the band realigned, etc. Start sucking up 900 LMR... do the same thing there, except the vast majority of the users are businesses with less money and power to fight you if you interfere with them. Once you get both ends, then take a look at a rather valuable 26MHz of real estate... 902-928.

Yup... they've been on for about a year now. The 900 stuff is being used only for interconnect (read: phone calls) and the direct connect is being handled on 800. There is generally 1 rack of 900 gear being added in the sites for this. Nextel gobbled up most of the 900 MHz SMR frequencies that Motorola held and most of the private held as well if the money was right. I maintain a multi site 900 SMR and I see the same thing happening here as happened on 800..... I have digital within 25 Khz of a couple of my channels and it will eat it up for sure. In Nextel's defense though, where I have had the worst problem they responded within 2 days, had several engineers verify the problem then did a retune of the offending site to move it down the band away from my downlink frequencies. Probably helped that we have 400 or so handsets on account with them....

Dave

YUP, Nextel was behind the scenes when Motorola baught up my 900 systems, and they were conventional, in the early 90's.

On most Nextels for the past year and change with the DirecTalk feature it is on 900Mhz freqs.

So a lot of phone/two ways comms take place on 800Mhz still and the off-network (DirecTalk) takes place on 900MHz freqs.

Put your phone into test mode and turn on the freq track feature you will see this happening.

Now talking with local Sprint/Nextel reps for the MN market and in playing with the ic502 you are going to start (and heading into the future) the following: Phone 1900Mhz CDMA and DC 850/900Mhz Iden

The FCC, in their re-banding R&O, is allowing NEXTEL to use 900MHz. to off-load their traffic. This is pretty old news actually, NEXTEL has been sucking up 900 licenses for the last 2 to 3 years.

As a 900trs user, all I can say is

I am sure that at some point they will yet to gobble up the 900 mhz ham band. This is one of the most under used pieces of radio spectrum. While hams donlt like it, it does make some sense.

They may or may not be sucessful. We will have to wait and see.

I wasen't even thinking of the ham band, but that's another thing. We have a local 900 machine, just need to see about a radio.

They aren't there permanently. This is a temporary usage as stated in the Re-Banding R&O.

Once they occupy the current NPSPAC spectrum and the 1.9 GHz spectrum they must surrender their 900 MHz licenses.

n9upc wrote:Now talking with local Sprint/Nextel reps for the MN market and in playing with the ic502 you are going to start (and heading into the future) the following: Phone 1900Mhz CDMA and DC 850/900Mhz Iden

This is out now on the market. Cellular on Sprint PCS and 2-way on iden. I think it's called "the blend" or something like that.

The Motorola Buzz... Saw the add for it for the first time tonite... defintiely caught my attention! Have to carry two phones now (Nextel & another CDMA carrier) because Nextel coverage here sucks! This would definitely be something interesting...

The phone is called a Hybryd (spelling) it runs iDen and CDMA. Basically it will try to put all voice over CDMA (Sprint) if that is not availabel then it will go iDen for voice.

All Direct Connect is on iDen. In addition Sprint ReadyLink DOES NOT cross over with this phone.

It is a basic phone no special MP3 player, Windows platofrm, etc... It reminds me of a i90 or i60.

As for the 900Mhz band they will be keeping it to run Direct Talk on the newer phones.

"Direct Talk" or MotoTalk, or whatever you want to call it is 900Mhz ISM, spread spectrum stuff that doesn't require a license anyhow.

Regardless, idk why they would want to give up 900Mhz licenses after they spent however much money they did on the 900Mhz iDen repeaters they use.

-Josh

="Josh
Regardless, idk why they would want to give up 900Mhz licenses after they spent however much money they did on the 900Mhz iDen repeaters they use.
-Josh

Because the FCC said so...

Because the FCC said so...

I wonder what the chance is of Sprint/Nextel swaying the FCC to mod that ruling if they needed 900 spectrum? It seems as though they have gotten what they wanted/needed in the past.

Dave

In the first R&O NEXTEL was going to retain the channels, later on after the cost analysis was completed of the frequencies NEXTEL decided to give them up. Also the FCC insisted that NEXTEL use 900 to retain a higher quality of service than if they didn't during the re-banding process.

I can try to find the exact documents but it will take me a while.

But in reality, why would they retain interlaced 900 frequencies that will eventually or may already be causing interference like in 800? If they stay there I can see them getting a R&O to re-band 900 if they stay.

MSS-Dave wrote:

Because the FCC said so...

I wonder what the chance is of Sprint/Nextel swaying the FCC to mod that ruling if they needed 900 spectrum? It seems as though they have gotten what they wanted/needed in the past.

Dave

The chance is 100%. Nextel has put billions of dollars into the coffers of the US Treasury and the FCC bends over backwards for any large company that has big bucks

Just look at Martin implying the FCC might approve XM and Sirius merging, despite the condition of their licensing that says they can never merge....