USA Today Highlights Issues with 800MHz Rebanding Process

The January 16th Issues of USA Today, on the front page of the Money section, has a good article on the issues of the 800 MHz Rebanding process.

The main points the reporter hightlights in my opinion are as follows:

• Public safety officials and consultants largely blame cost disputes with Sprint Nextel
• Sprint Nextel says the disputes were to be expected
• The caveat that Sprint Nextel must pay the rebanding costs, even if it is more than the estimated $2.8 billion has prompted the company to dispute nearly all of the dozens of funding requests public-safety agencies have made and not even repond to many of them, says emergency responders and their biggest adviser, RCC Consultants.
• Sprint Nextel denies pinching pennies
• Public Safety agencies and RCC also assail the project's managers, led by BearingPoint. Despite netting more than $20 million in fees so far, the managers haven't closely monitored negotiations or prodded Sprint Nextel to be more responsive
• BearingPoint's Brett Haan, who's overseeing the swap, said the managers "take the concerns of public safety very seriously and are working to makes sure the (project) is fast, fair and efficient."
• The FCC is "looking into thesee issues," said spokesman David Fiske

RCC is pleased to see that many of the issues that we raised in our FCC filing (see www.rcc.com/rebanding for more information) are finally getting a more public viewing. We again encourage all those involved in the 800 MHz rebanding process to file comments as well. The more these issues are brought to light, the better the chances of resolving them become!

To read the complete USA Today article, click here.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please email us at reband@rcc.com