L.A. Transit Agency Fears Revenue Hit if FCC Approves Spectrum Plan

WASHINGTON, September 3, 2024 – Los Angeles County’s transportation agency joined hundreds of amateur radio operators in asking the Federal Communications Commission to deny a proposal to reconfigure the lower 900 megahertz band.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is worried the in-car transponders used for its toll lanes would see interference, the agency wrote to the FCC on August 30. The toll program processes 110 million transactions annually and has more than 850,000 active transponders, according to the county.

“If all existing licensed and unlicensed users of the lower 900 MHz frequencies are compressed into a significantly reduced portion of spectrum, Metro will face potential significant difficulties identifying frequencies that can be used for its transponder communications without being subject to interference moving forward,” wrote Mark Linsenmayer, the head of the county’s toll lane program. He argued that interference would “contribute to missed transponder reads, degraded customer experiences, and lost toll revenues.”

Currently, the 902-928 MHz band is occupied primarily by federal radiolocation systems and some medical and scientific devices. Secondary to those are licensees providing “location and monitoring services,” and below LMS are amateur radio users. Unlicensed wireless devices get last priority.

An LMS company called NextNav, a geolocation company and one of the main LMS license holders, asked the FCC in April to alter its rules for the band to allow the company to operate a nationwide GPS supplement. 

NextNav’s proposal would see the company swapping its current holdings in the band for a single nationwide license for 15 MHz of the band – 902-907 MHz for uplink and 918-928 MHz for downlink – to support its geolocation network and 5G broadband. It would also involve higher power levels for NextNav and moving other users to the 907-918 block of the band. 

Hundreds of amateur radio operators have also written to the agency to oppose a rulemaking. They say the plan would make their devices and networks more prone to interference.

“I fear that further increases to interference in this band will reduce my ability to use it effectively,” wrote amateur user John Degenstein. “I live in a disaster prone area and rely on amateur use of this band for emergency communications.”

NextNav wrote in its petition that “GPS does not work well indoors or in urban canyons, and GPS signals are subject to jamming, spoofing, and other targeting events,” and that its nationwide terrestrial network was the “only viable solution” for bolstering GPS.

Comments in the proceeding are due Sept. 5, and reply comments are due September 20.