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Band Information

The PCS and cellular bands are licensed by region and frequency range. Any given US region could potentially have eight or more licensed PCS and cellular operators. The number of operators may increase in specific regions with disaggregation and additional partitioning of the bands.

The PCS band is divided into six frequency allocations: Blocks A through F. View a PCS frequency chart. Blocks A and B are licensed for each of 51 Major Trading Areas (MTAs), while Blocks C through F are licensed for each of 493 Basic Trading Areas (BTAs).

The cellular band is divided into Blocks A and B, one for the local wireline telephone companies and the other for the nonwireline companies. Each block is allocated 25 MHz of spectrum in the 800 MHz frequency band. The FCC designated 305 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) defined by counties according to the 1980 US census. The Gulf of Mexico Service Area was subsequently added as Market 306. From the remaining counties that were not included in the MSAs, the Commission created 428 Rural Service Areas (RSAs) for a total of 734 cellular markets, where each market contains two competing licensed cellular systems.

Frequency Band Selection

To view technical and regulatory information about frequency bands allocated for PCS/Cellular use BandLocator.

Note: MTAs and BTAs are based on the Rand McNally 1992 Commercial Atlas & Marketing Guide, 123rd Edition, pages 38-39.

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