Offshore Radiotelephone Service

The Offshore Radiotelephone Service is in the 476 – 493 MHz spectrum bands. Offshore Radiotelephone spectrum is used to provide telephone service in the Gulf of Mexico to subscribers located on oil, gas, and other production platforms.

Licensing

The FCC issues initial Offshore Radiotelephone Service licenses on a site-by-site basis. You can also gain access to Offshore Radiotelephone licenses through the secondary market [1], which allows licensees to sell or lease spectrum.

You can find information about Offshore Radiotelephone licenses in the Universal Licensing System (ULS) [2].

The ULS radio service code and description for Offshore Radiotelephone licenses is CO – Offshore Radiotelephone.

The FCC service rules for Offshore Radiotelephone are located in 47 C.F.R. Part 22 [3].

Channels

There are 235 channels available for Offshore Radiotelephone. Each channel is 20 kHz. Channels are assigned based on how they are used and the geographic location within the Gulf of Mexico.