WASHINGTON-The private-wireless industry told FCC Chairman Kevin Martin that it supports the creation of a new homeland-security bureau within the Federal Communications Commission. However, the industry wants its policy and licensing issues moved to the new bureau if public-safety policy and licensing issues are moved.
“We ask that sufficient commission resources be assigned and dedicated to efficiently regulate the estimated hundreds of thousands of licensees that our organizations directly and indirectly represent. Ideally, a separate division, distinct from public safety, would be created, which would be delegated responsibility to implement the FCC’s decisions on operational rules and to license the thousands of applications submitted each year for business and industrial enterprise communications systems. While such a division could function from within either the wireless or homeland-security bureau, we do see advantages to being located within the homeland-security bureau given that our members share frequency allocations with public-safety users. Experience has shown that these spectrum users benefit from a common regulatory philosophy,” according to a letter signed by 10 groups representing various segments of the private-wireless industry.
While private wireless-also known as critical-infrastructure-industries are not considered first responders, they are often second or third responders, said the groups.
“They are often depended on to be the second or third responders in order to restore basic energy and water services, contain oil or chemical spills, repair downed power lines, transport and distribute emergency supplies to disaster areas and quickly establish emergency-dispatch communications networks to replace those lost due to natural or intentional forces,” reads the letter. “These industries are among those deeply engaged in critical-infrastructure protection efforts being carried out in the Department of Homeland Security.”
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Martin said that he intends to create a new Homeland Security and Public Safety Bureau.
The FCC’s Homeland Security and Public Safety Bureau would include many of the issues-including 911, public-safety communications and other priority emergency communications-handled today by the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
Martin has not named a chief of the new bureau, and the full commission plus Congress must pass off on the plan, which three months later has still not happened.
RCR Wireless News first reported Martin’s goal of creating a homeland-security bureau in July, so while Martin has used Hurricane Katrina as impetus for the changes, the gears already were in motion long before the storm formed in the Atlantic Ocean.
