UTAM Announces Substantial Fee Reduction for U-PCS Product Deployments.

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. -- The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules for the Unlicensed Personal Communications Services (U-PCS) band at 1920 - 1930 MHz will change as of April 5, 2005. With the sunset of the rules that require users of the band to insure that they do not interfere with point-to-point microwave incumbents that were operating in the band, the band will become open for a myriad of products designed for unlicensed uses.

Given the impact of the FCC rule changes, UTAM has announced a reduction in UTAM fees associated with clearing the band for U-PCS use. The current Clearing Fees will be reduced from $20.00 to $0.50 per radiating unit effective April 5, 2005. In addition, manufacturers will be assessed a one time fee of $50K to help offset a portion of the expense UTAM has incurred in clearing the band. All products shipped after April 5, 2005 will pay the new $0.50 rate.

These FCC rule changes have made the 1920 - 1930 MHz band very attractive for new and existing enterprise multi-cell manufacturers as well as numerous new residential single cell manufacturers. According to Mike Stima, Managing Director of UTAM, "with these FCC rule changes and the resulting reduced UTAM fees, we fully expect numerous manufacturers to enter the market with exciting new products for residential use. We also anticipate several new lower cost handsets to be introduced by existing manufacturers that can leverage current volumes and designs shipped throughout Europe."

The U-PCS band was allocated by the FCC in 1995 for use by unlicensed devices, however, in order for the band to be utilized, over 1,200 point-to-point microwave links had to be relocated. To manage this transition, the FCC appointed a frequency coordinator, UTAM, Inc. to insure that any product deployments in the band would not cause any harmful interference and to manage the collection of fees in order to pay for the cost of the relocation. To date, 99% of the microwave links have been relocated. Those not relocated by the April 5, 2005 date will become secondary users. To manage the transition, UTAM established a product certification process designed to insure that products would not cause any interference and also required manufacturers to enter product deployments into a data base. With the changes that take place on April 5th the UTAM procedures will also sunset. Products will only have to comply with the FCC Part 15 rules for unlicensed devices, however manufacturers will still have to pay a clearing fee for use of the band.

The FCC also recently announced the re-allocation of the asynchronous unused portion of the Unlicensed PCS band (1910 - 1920 MHz). The lower 5 MHz were allocated to Nextel in a swap of spectrum at 800 MHZ and the upper 5 MHz was allocated to Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) and will be auctioned off in the months ahead. As part of the re-allocation ruling, the FCC also modified some of the Part 15 rules to accommodate other industry standards, such as DECT to operate in the 1920 - 1930 MHz portion of the UPCS band. The actual FCC ruling and changes to the Part 15 rules can be viewed at the following URL: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-219A1.pdf. These changes do not impact the amount of spectrum available for the types of U-PCS products deployed to date. All existing U-PCS systems that operate in the 1920 - 1930 MHz band remain unaffected and more importantly the band remains committed to existing enterprise and upcoming residential U-PCS products.

About UTAM

UTAM is a non-profit agency designated by the Federal Communications Commission to oversee frequency coordination in the Unlicensed PCS spectrum. UTAM is an open industry organization pledged to relocate incumbents presently operating in the 1910-1930 MHz band. UTAM is responsible for overseeing the deployment of U-PCS devices and to coordinate the relocation of the incumbent microwave facilities. For more information, visit http://www.utam.org/.