U.S. Federal Court Agrees with FCC Deadline for Sprint Rebanding
May 5, 2008 11:28 AM | Sprint Nextel | Comments (0)
 Last Friday a federal appeals court ordered Sprint Nextel Corp to meet a June 26 deadline to vacate airwaves it uses that are close to public safety agency networks. If Sprint doesn’t comply, it will be costly and disruptive to its wireless service. The Federal Communications Commission had ordered Sprint Nextel to leave certain channels on the 800 megahertz band by the deadline in order which was upheld by the federal appeals courts. Sprint has requested waivers to the deadline and offered instead to leave the 800 megahertz channels within 60 days after each public-safety organization says it is ready to retune its system. |
However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said on Friday the FCC's decision to hold Nextel to the June 26 deadline was reasonable.
Sprint has stated in its most recent annual report that if it lost in the court action, its total rebanding costs could be more than $3.4 billion, including $1.1 billion it has already spent. If it won the decision, it had estimated the cost at $2.7 billion to $3.4 billion.
