(McLean, VA) – Enterprise Wireless Alliance (EWA) held its first formal T-Band User Group meeting on October 11 during the Enterprise Wireless 2012 Leadership Summit in Nashville, TN. Over forty business enterprise and wireless sales and service provider licensee representatives from the eleven major cities impacted by the T-Band freeze attended. EWA representatives Mark Crosby, President and Liz Sachs, Regulatory Counsel summarized EWA’s activities to date in defense of the Business enterprise T-Band licensees, including EWA’s initial filing questioning the wisdom of the FCC’s policy decision to freeze business and industrial licensing given that the Spectrum reform Act makes no mention of removing spectrum from such entities. The attendees were also briefed on EWA filings in support of both public safety and business enterprises that have requested waivers of the FCC T-Band licensing freeze, and public safety industry efforts to determine actual costs associated with the planned displacement of public safety T-Band systems.
Mark Crosby commented that “We have supported and will continue to support every licensee request that seeks a waiver of the licensing freeze, including public safety licensees. We are going to maintain this advocacy effort and continue to request that the FCC pay attention to the ongoing requirements of private land mobile radio licensees that today require T-Band spectrum to meet critical communications needs, rather than unknown entities a decade from now in an effort to preserve the spectrum landscape. Containing costs for parties that may bid on T-Band spectrum at some unknown date in the distant future does not outweigh the public interest in allowing existing incumbents to expand their systems to serve existing, identifiable, and quantifiable user requirements today.” Crosby added that “after the November federal election and with the assistance of affected business enterprise T-Band licensees, a concerted effort will be made to secure Congressional intervention to ensure that business enterprise licensees secure relief from the current FCC T-Band strategy that is devastating to their businesses and to the public they serve, businesses for which the legislation is absolutely silent.” Attendees at the T-Band User Group agreed with EWA actions to date and virtually all volunteered to lend critical assistance during the Congressional campaign.
