A licensee of pager services in NYC has been given developmental authority to provide broadcast SCA-like services on pager frequencies.
A company in New York called FreePage has been successful in getting a developmental license to provide a service they call Limited Program Distribution Service (LPDS) in the New York City metropolitan area.
In the order for WT Docket 01-108 , the Commission specifically gave FreePage authority to apply for a Developmental License to provide this programming service in the New York City area on their paging frequencies.
These freqencies are in the 152 and 158 MHz area and were formerly used for paging and IMTS (pre-cellular) telephone systems. There are 14 channels that are 30kHz wide. Normally common carriers providing these types of services must encrypt them however the Developmental license allows FreePage to operate these frequencies 'in the clear'. FreePage is also looking at operating in Digital Radio Mondiale.
For more information, see http://www.recnet.com/freepage.
