The US Federal Communications Commission has voted five to nil to revise the rules adopted last autumn to divide radio spectrum for Personal Communications Services and while a total of 120MHz of spectrum will be auctioned, it has been moved to a lower part of the band set aside for emerging communications: there will now be three 30MHz licences and three 10MHz licences in each market, with two of the 30MHz licences covering large regions and the third, plus the three 10MHz ones will cover basic trading areas; existing cellular companies will be allowed to hold up to 10MHz of Personal Communications Services spectrum within their current service territories and after January 1 2000, generally will be allowed to acquire another 5MHz, while new Personal Communications Services providers can have up to 40MHz in any specific territory; as a result of shifting the spectrum to be shared out, all frequencies will now be contiguous where before they would have come from different bands, and the result should be that manufacturers will have to spend some 25% less on developing the handsets for the new services.
