The FCC has granted San Bernardino County’s Request for Extension of Time to execute a Frequency Relocation Agreement (FRA) with Sprint Nextel. Although San Bernardino has received numerous extensions of the mediation period, the County still has not executed an FRA. However, all disputed issues have been resolved and the parties are in pre-contract agreement. Before the County can execute the FRA, it must be approved by the County Board of Supervisors.

For the FRA to be on the agenda of the Board of Supervisor’s meeting, the FRA must be submitted to the Board no later than one month prior to its next meeting. Sprint will submit a completed but unexecuted FRA to San Bernardino by June 9. The County will review the FRA and expects to obtain approval of the Board of Supervisors by August 18. The County will then execute the FRA and send it to Sprint for signature on August 21, 2015.

The FCC decided that San Bernardino’s extension request should be granted because the County employees had no control over the Board of Supervisors approval protocol. Since the County and Sprint had resolved all disputed issues, directing the TA to have the parties submit proposed resolution memoranda would be futile. Furthermore, the extension timeframe request was reasonably brief. The text of the Order is available at: https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-15-614A1.pdf