Our towers in a couple of cities are experiencing an enormous amount of interference on 150 MHz of 3.65 spectrum from one of the 800 lb gorillas in the wireless world. We are working with the FCC to understand why the SASs are not coordinating to prevent this, since we own PALs in both cities. The offending operator is now expanding into other areas and we are afraid it will completely destroy our 3.65 wireless business, as it has on one of our towers. Apparently this company believes they have a god-given right to all 150 MHz of spectrum, and the SASs either don’t care, are oblivious, or don’t know what they’re doing. We think there may be other small operators such as ours that are being spectrum-bullied by this company. Has anyone else operating 3.65 equipment seen this? Please contact me if you are seeing anything similar. Thanks.
Very first thing I’d try would be using Cambium’s collocation tools to see if sync can provide relief. We were in a similar situation and were about to either abandon 3GHz or try Tarana when we finally decided to try sync and all of our issues went away. I wrote up a pretty detailed forum post on the experience along with sync recommendations HERE.
Another thing to check would be to make absolutely sure your PAL’s are actually in use and being recognized by the SAS. You can do this by contacting your SAS provider and auditing the sites in question with them to make sure your PAL’s are in order.
Next step would be to identify the other operator and then reach out to their spectrum compliance team and see if you can come to an understanding. If you wanted to take it a little further, you could employ the help of an FCC-seasoned attorney, like Steve Coran @ Lermen Senter, to write on your behalf a strongly worded letter to the offending operator. He can also advise you on the next steps needed to escalate the matter with the FCC if this operator is breaking the rules.
I hope these steps help you get things resolved. I know how frustrating this can be!
Thanks for the response, Eric. I’m reading up on the collocation tool you referred to.
Our PALs appear to be registered and authorized properly, when looking at the Google SAS webpage. I don’t think I could even bring a new SM online if they weren’t.
If we don’t get some relief soon from the FCC or the SASs or our lawyers, I’ll see what I can do with the collocation. Thanks again.