WASHINGTON-The current Federal Communications Commission plan for public-safety digital-only operations in the 700 MHz band (746-806 MHz) will lead to unused spectrum for as long as seven years, the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International warned last week.
The FCC adopted rules in September that required that a federal advisory council, known as the National Coordination Committee, become accredited through the American National Standards Institute and then develop technical standards to operate digital equipment in the 700 MHz band all within four years.
In a petition for reconsideration filed last week, APCO urged the FCC to allow use of equipment incorporating a digital standard currently available from the Telecommunications Industry Association or allow analog use of the spectrum until five years after a standard is approved by ANSI.
Unless one of these two options is allowed, APCO warned, the spectrum in the 700 MHz band will remain unused for up to seven years. That time line is reached by APCO assuming it will take the FCC a year after NCC makes its standard recommendation to finish it and then two years for equipment development. “Normally when the FCC delays implementation of spectrum the only consequence is economic. Here, delay could cost lives and lead to unnecessary destruction of property,” read the APCO petition.
Spectrum in the 700 MHz band became available when Congress mandated the FCC give TV broadcasters an extra channel for digital TV operations. The broadcasters are slated to return one of their channels to the FCC for reallocation before 2006. When it became apparent that channels in the 60-69 channel band would not be given to most broadcasters for the DTV transition, Congress said 24 megahertz of this band would be assigned immediately for public -safety use.
The main proponent of public-safety spectrum, Senate commerce committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), received a copy of the APCO petition and his staff is looking at it “closely … especially if there are negative ramifications on public safety,” said Pia Pialorsi, press secretary for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
In addition to the spectrum laying fallow, APCO makes other assertions about the FCC ignoring congressional intent regarding spectrum usage in the 700 MHz band. Attempts to contact FCC officials about the specifics of the APCO claims were rebuffed. “We have the petition and we are reviewing it as well as other comments we received on or before the Dec. 2 deadline,” said one FCC official.
