Rebanding schedule released by Transition Administrator

ORLANDO—Officials for the Transition Administrator team responsible for supervising the rebanding effort to mitigate interference at 800 MHz yesterday unveiled an aggressive schedule to complete the complex three-year project at APCO’s Winter Summit.

Submitted to the Federal Communication Commission yesterday, the schedule calls for an official start date of June 27 and for rebanding to be completed in the second quarter of 2008. Rebanding efforts will be staggered into four “waves” to ensure in an effort to balance workload throughout the country and the 36-month schedule, said Joe Boyer of Baseline Telecom, a member of the Transition Administration team.

Communities in the first wave produced 55% of all interference complaints.

The biggest question regarding the schedule involves border communities, because rebanding in those areas is dependent on the completion of new treaties with Canada and Mexico, without which no rebanding can be done. These regions are scheduled to be rebanded in the final wave, Boyer said.

Of course, the entire rebanding project still awaits Nextel’s approval of the 800 MHz order originally approved by the FCC in July 2004. Nextel, which already has begun negotiations with some 800 MHz users regarding terms of rebanding, has to make its decision by Monday.