Information

This section will provide the latest news and information about EBS related activities.  This includes FCC or other related activities/topics that are of interest to NEBSA Members, the EBS industry, and/or EBS affiliates.

News

NEBSA 2009 Annual Convention

Location Announced!

7/11/2008

EBS Licenses

Late EBS Renewal Applications

10/02/2007

This message was sent via e-mail to all of the NIA list serve members on October 2nd, and is to alert you to the fact that NIA has joined with CTN, WCA, Clearwire, Sprint Nextel, and several other operators in a filing with the FCC that with the FCC that will hopefully defuse the dispute relating to late EBS renewal applications.

You will recall that Sprint Nextel earlier this year sought reconsideration by the FC of the grant of 41 late EBS renewal applications, and it has also opposed a considerable number of additional EBS late renewal applications.  Among other things, Sprint Nextel objected to having adjacent EBS licensees (and their lessees) "lose" GSA area to stations the licenses for which were expired on January 10, 205, when the new rules on GSA formations came into effect.

The issue, including whether the FCC granting late renewals actually caused any loss of GSA to any other licensee, has generated considerable controversy.  The issue has put much of the EBS community at odds with Sprint Nextel, and also, very unfortunately, has pitted EBS licensee against EBS licensee.

The NEBSA/NIA board's regulatory committee came to believe that this issue was increasingly problematic and that a settlement needed to be made -- to get us over the conflict and corrosive environment it was creating, to establish a clear and settled basis for determining GSAs so that licensing, leasing and eventually white space auctions could proceed with certainty, and to enable the FCC comfortably to continue its practice of leniency in EBS licensing matters.

NEBSA/NIA, CTN and the various other industry players concluded that the only fair way of resolving the issue over disputed GSAs, and therefore favorably resolving many if not most of the disputed renewal applications, would be to have the FCC clarify its approach to GSA formation, such that licenses that were expired on January 10, 2005 , but are later reinstated by the FCC through a late renewal process, would not "split footfalls" with adjacent licenses, but would be granted GSAs composed only of those areas that do not overlap the 35 mile radius circles of adjacent licenses.

The exception would be those reinstated licenses that had already been granted (i.e., the original 41 late renewals), which already have full GSAs.  These licenses would retain their full GSAs, splitting overlap areas with adjacent licensees.

A copy of the settlement filing is attached.  We hope that the FCC will move favorably on it in the very near future.

Todd D. Gray

Counsel, National EBS/ITFS Association

Toddy D. Gray

Attorney at Law

1200 New Hampshire Avenue, NW Suite 800

Washington, DC 20036-6802

T 202-776-2571

F 202-776-4571

tgray@dowlohnes.com

www.dowlohnes.com