EWA Files Petition for Rulemaking on 800 MHz

Publication Date: 
October 26, 2022

The Enterprise Wireless Alliance (EWA) filed a Petition for Rulemaking (PRM) today requesting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to initiate a rulemaking proceeding to modify Part 90 Subpart S rules to eliminate the assignment of frequencies within the 809-816/854-861 MHz portion of the band (“800 MHz Band Segment”) to specific “pools” of eligible entities. (In the southeastern United States and Atlanta, Georgia, the applicable range is 809-813.5/854-858.5 MHz.)  Despite being subject to identical technical and operational rules, frequencies are assigned to either the Public Safety Pool, the Business/Industrial/Land Transportation (B/ILT) Pool, the Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) Category, or the General Category.  EWA recommended that the optimum policy would be to classify all frequencies as General Category and make them available to all qualified applicants. EWA also requested the FCC to terminate the rule reserving so-called “Sprint-Vacated” spectrum for use by certain classes of entities so those frequencies can be placed into productive use as demand dictates without further delay.