WASHINGTON-Fulfilling another congressional directive under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Federal Communications Commission last week released its report and order governing the reallocation of broadcast channels 60-69.
“The first beneficiaries of the FCC’s plan for transition to digital television are the police, fire and public-safety communities,” comments FCC Chairman Bill Kennard in a written statement. “This action will help American communities by more than doubling the spectrum available to public-safety services that are the backbone of community services in the United States. [The order] will also promote competition by allocating 36 megahertz to be made available through competitive bidding for new, innovative communications services. These uses could include new cellular telephone, land mobile, wireless local telephone, wireless cable, video, multimedia or industrial communication services, to name just a few possibilities.”
Robert Gurss, who represents the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International Inc., said the order was “pretty cut and dried” and that the commission “did what it had to do to meet the congressional time line for allocation.” APCO agrees with the four-channel selection made by the commission, he added.
The order specified that the 764 MHz-776 MHz and 794 MHz-806 MHz bands (TV channels 63-64 and 68-69) will belong to fixed and mobile public-safety concerns. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 defined public-safety services as entities with “the sole or principal purpose of which is to protect the safety of life, health or property; that are provided by state or local government entities or by nongovernmental organizations that are authorized by a governmental entity whose primary mission is the provision of such services; and that are not made commercially available to the public by the provider.”
The commission currently is mulling comments related to how this spectrum can be used by public-safety officials.
According to manufacturers that commented during the allocation process, there should be no problems related to designing two-way equipment with 30-megahertz receive/transmit separations; current equipment has a 45-megahertz separation.
The 746 MHz-764 MHz and 776 MHz-794 MHz portions of the band-those classified as commercial-will be allocated to the fixed, mobile and broadcasting services; licenses will be auctioned. “Congress did not, in the Budget Act, define the term `commercial services,’ but we believe that Congress intended to include commercial broadcasting in commercial services, meaning services operated on a for-profit basis,” the commission wrote. “We recognize that technical challenges are involved in sharing spectrum between full-power broadcasting and land-mobile services. However, we plan to address sharing issues in our service rules proceeding and are not persuaded that such sharing is not feasible.”
The FCC also decided not to allocate spectrum in the commercial bands exclusively to private-radio concerns, explaining, “The Budget Act requires that we assign this portion of the band for commercial use by auction. Private organizations or industry groups, however, will have the opportunity to seek the desired spectrum by participating in the auction.”
