But Mexico has yet to act on a 2012 accord with the United States that mandated Mexico’s users of 800 MHz relocate to free up the space for Sprint and first responders on this side of the border.
New Mexico’s bipartisan congressional delegation recently sent a letter urging Secretary of State John Kerry to see that Mexico fulfills its side of the agreement.
“Public safety providers and wireless operators in communities along the United States-Mexico border cannot access radio spectrum designated 10 years ago for modernizing public safety communications networks and expanding availability of competitive wireless broadband services,” according to the April 30 letter signed by New Mexico’s two senators and three representatives.
The Federal Communications Commission ordered the reconfiguration of the 800 MHz band in 2004, and by now most of the work is done across the country — except in the Southwest.
The 2012 agreement between the FCC and Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute, or IFETEL, was supposed to clear the spectrum along the border for the reconfiguration to take place. Asked about the status of the accord, an IFETEL spokeswoman on Monday said, “The work groups in both countries are working on it.”
Jim Goldstein, senior counsel at Sprint, “Our competitors don’t have this burden of waiting for its critical asset — which is spectrum — to be used in the network. We literally have one hand tied behind our back.”
Of the U.S. cellular providers, only Sprint uses the 800 MHz band. In Mexico, Nextel de México is the major operator in that spectrum.
Sprint — the No. 3 wireless carrier behind AT&T and Verizon — has been upgrading its nationwide network to provide greater coverage and faster service has already done so in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. But those improvements are on hold in the border region until Mexico acts.
“It certainly means we’re not gaining as many customers as we would like,” Goldstein said of the holdup at the border.
Bandwith doesn’t respect international boundaries: Radio stations in Ciudad Juárez reach listeners in southern New Mexico, and U.S. cellphones can often pick up their U.S. carrier’s signal for several miles south of the Mexican border.
But as more people use cell phones for data of all sorts, the 800 MHz spectrum has gotten crowded. First responders at the border were finding their walkie-talkies weren’t working in the vicinity of certain cell towers, Goldstein said.
The city of Las Cruces uses the 800 MHz bandwith. Although the city hasn’t run into much interference, “there is always the possibility,” said Hugo Costa, executive director with the Mesilla Valley Regional Dispatch Authority. “We never know what might happen.”
©2015 the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
