WASHINGTON-Comments were due late last week on the draft proposal forwarded by the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee, which contained recommendations by five subcommittees regarding ways to fill the country’s public-safety spectral and technical needs between now and 2010.
PSWAC, sanctioned jointly by the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, will work industry comments into a document to be presented to both agencies by mid-September.
The five PSWAC subcommittees-Operational Requirements, Interoperability, Technology, Spectrum Requirements and Transition-narrowed their initial findings to seven basic future requirements:
more spectrum;
improved interoperability;
flexible licensing policies;
more sharing and joint usage;
greater use of commercial services and private contracts;
establishing an ongoing consulting process;
breaking down funding obstacles.
“The steering committee believes that none of these proposed solutions alone will solve the problems now confronting the public safety community,” the group admitted. “Rather, these solutions will need to be used together to achieve solutions that are tailored to the unique needs of each community and agency.”
Upon reviewing all committee reports, findings and recommendations, the PSWAC steering committee found that, in the short term, some 25 additional megahertz will be needed to facilitate growing voice and data requirements; by 2010, 70 more megahertz will be needed to handle voice and data plus video and imaging applications. The committee would like to see a block allocation of these channels, adding that the current process that focuses on narrowbanding “does not provide the public safety community the flexibility of selecting or obtaining the most spectrally efficient technology to meet user-defined requirements. The steering committee recommends that public safety spectrum management emulate the management of commercial spectrum, which is based on a more open process.”
The committee also projected that a more flexible regulatory environment at the federal, state and local levels would help public-safety agencies transition to systems of the future, those that truly will be interoperable. Because such interoperability will impose costs on such agencies-which must pass everything through a long-winded contract process-PSWAC suggested the following alternative funding sources to supplement traditional funding means: appropriations through spectrum-auction revenues, through non-public safety user fees and through matching funds and block grants.
Another way to gain services and cut costs would be to turn to existing commercial cellular, personal communications services and enhanced specialized mobile radio systems for non-critical communications use.
The draft also outlined where new spectrum for near- and far-future public-safety needs could be mined, including unused UHF TV channels in the 60-69 range, increased sharing on unused TV channels nationwide below 512 MHz, a reallocation of any channels regained by the FCC due to refarming, the takeback of many unused or underused Defense Department channels and increased sharing on other federal spectrum.
