WASHINGTON-Public safety could receive more spectrum in the 700 MHz band if a bill expected to be introduced today is enacted into law.
“The Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Homeland Security are required to deliver a report to Congress on whether public-safety entities require more spectrum in addition to the 24 megahertz. This report is due by Dec. 17,” reads a memo about the bill obtained by RCR Wireless News. Congress will have “one year to consider the report and if necessary to provide more spectrum for public safety before the FCC auctions the returned spectrum.”
The Save Lives Act is being introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Senate Homeland-Security Committee. RCR Wireless News first reported McCain’s plans last week.
In 1997, Congress dictated that 24 megahertz be given to public safety and 36 megahertz be auctioned to commercial services. The FCC has already auctioned 6 megahertz of the 36 megahertz for guard-band spectrum. One of the major winners of the spectrum, Nextel Communications Inc., recently agreed to return the guard-band spectrum to the commission as part of the FCC’s plan to solve public-safety interference in the 800 MHz band. It also has auctioned some of the 30 megahertz to rural providers and another lower 700 MHz band rural license auction is scheduled for this summer. There is no official decision yet as to what to do with the remaining 48 megahertz of spectrum.
The Save Lives Act would also set a hard date for the end of the transition to digital TV at Jan. 1, 2009, with an auction of available spectrum no later than April 30, 2008, and proceeds to the U.S. Treasury no later than June 30, 2008.
McCain’s move likely will pre-empt the current chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who said June 6 that he is preparing a similar bill, but did not give a timeframe for introducing it.
The Save Lives Act will be similar to legislation by the same name that McCain introduced last year but will reduce the set-top box subsidy from $1 billion to $463 million plus administrative costs. This amount is expected to cover the 9.2 million low-income homes that receive their TV signals from free over-the-air broadcasting. Low income is defined as up to 200 percent above the poverty line.
Democrats on the House Commerce Committee were critical of the House staff draft when it did not include a set-top box subsidy.
The FCC and the General Services Administration would administer the set-top box subsidy program. These agencies would work with broadcasters to distribute the boxes.
In addition to Lieberman, McCain is expected to be joined by former Gov. Thomas Kean (R-N.J.) and former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), chairman and vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, at the press conference. The 9/11 Commission said the spectrum that TV broadcasters are using needs to be reclaimed to help public safety.
McCain’s Saves Lives Act was at the center of a debate during consideration of the intelligence-reform bill, but the Senate sacrificed commercial-wireless interests as it passed an amendment that would force TV broadcasters to give back the 700 MHz spectrum if public-safety users showed bona-fide needs.
In 1997, Congress said that in 2007, broadcasters would have to return the extra 6 megahertz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band given to TV broadcasters to facilitate the DTV transition. But TV broadcasters could keep the spectrum if more than 15 percent of the homes in their viewing areas could not receive digital signals. Removing the caveat has become known as establishing a hard date and has been widely encouraged by the wireless industry, which wants access to some of the spectrum.
