How is the spectrum split up?
In an interesting article in rcrnews.com Nextel tried to claim, among other things, that Cingular was not in compliance in Maryland over the Public Safety issues. I thought GSM and iDEM were two different balls of wax. So what is the real story of spectrum?
There are two main "bands" in the U.S. - cellular and PCS. Cellular is also known as 800 or 850. Its frequencies are near 850 MHz. PCS is near 1900 MHz.
Cellular is divided into two parts, and for any given area there is one license for each part.
PCS is divided into six parts, although they are not equal parts - some are larger than others. But it's the same basic idea - for any given area there are six PCS licenses.
Nextel uses SMR spectrum, which is in the 800/900 MHz vicinity, but separate specific ranges from Cellular.
The wireless licenses are divided into blocks and they have geographical boundaries. For each market in the US, there are six license blocks in the 1900Mhz (PCS) band and two blocks in the 800Mhz (Cellular) band.
The cellular band is at 824-849Mhz and 869-894Mhz. One frequency group is used ...
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