Fair warning from Sprint: We can’t buy 800 MHz spectrum we just returned to the FCC

That’s an issue, because licensees are required to construct a system before selling the spectrum-license rights to another operator, according to Mark Crosby, president and CEO of the Enterprise Wireless Alliance (EWA).

“You cannot assign a license without [an operating system]; the system must be constructed,” Crosby said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “You’ve got to be operating a transmitter. It can be one tower, but you’ve got to put something up. That’s a rule of the FCC.

“You attest, on a penalty of perjury, that the system is constructed.”

During his remarks to open the EWA/USMSS Wireless Leadership Summit, Crosby noted that EWA has “vigorously” tried to protect business-industrial spectrum in the 800 MHz and the 900 MHz bands from speculators.

“At 800 MHz, there have been hundreds and hundreds of applications filed, and these folks have paid $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, maybe $50,000 for applications for 800 MHz system under the premise that the wireless carriers would buy their spectrum for millions of dollars,” Crosby said. Hundreds and hundreds [of applications]—and these are in the beautiful but remote parts of the United States. What’s going to happen when rebanding concludes in places like Memphis, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Orlando, Miami and Washington, D.C.?”

Crosby said that EWA has filed a petition with the FCC to give existing licensees in the band a six-month head start in applying for the licenses to increase the likelihood that the spectrum will be utilized.

“We want to work on this, because we want to make sure that spectrum is put into use by people that want to use it, need to use it, and deploy real systems.” Crosby said.