PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICIALS EYE STREAMLINING OF SPECTRUM DECISIONS

Public safety officials have pushed for streamlining federal spectrum decision-making in talks under President Bush’s call for recommendations on promoting efficient spectrum use. But groups have warned against merging the duties of NTIA and the FCC to accomplish that. At an NTIA forum on public safety spectrum Tues., issues debated as part of the year-long process included simplifying federal frequency coordination, spelling out spectrum requirements of agencies and improving interference analysis.

Bush signed an Executive Memorandum last year that set up a task force to stimulate more efficient spectrum use by federal operators (CD June 6 p1). The steps proposed included a forum for soliciting private sector suggestions. An interagency task force -- including the Depts. of Energy, Defense, Homeland Security and Transportation -- also has been meeting to examine federal spectrum use. Bush called for legislative and other policy recommendations from the federal task force by May 29. The Commerce Dept. has been holding meetings to help create recommendations for improving policies for state and local govt. spectrum use. It has touted the overall initiative as the first comprehensive study of federal spectrum policy “in the modern era.”

The start of the 2-day NTIA meeting on public safety aspects of the President’s memorandum sought comments on areas such as spectrum needs of national and homeland security, public safety and federal transportation infrastructure, how to improve the spectrum management system, draft policy changes to create incentives for efficient spectrum use and how to balance innovation against public safety and other needs. Commerce Deputy Secy. Samuel Bodman encouraged policy recommendations “with the greatest specificity possible.” Of the spectrum policy reform effort, he said: “I can tell you from first-hand experience, it’s very important to the President.”

Ticking off a list of FCC public safety efforts, Comr. Abernathy said the pending 800 MHz interference proceeding was “one of the most critical issues facing the FCC right now.” Nextel, public safety groups and some private wireless operators have proposed a plan for mitigating interference to public safety operators at 800 MHz that would entail rebanding. In that plan, Nextel would give up some spectrum in return for bands elsewhere, including 1.9 GHz. The carrier would pay $850 million in relocation costs for private wireless and public safety operators that would have to move. A competing plan by CTIA and others would rely on best practices and other approaches and not wholesale rebanding. Abernathy said she expected the FCC to have a staff recommendation and accompanying analysis “shortly, perhaps as early as this quarter, so that we can move forward.”

Abernathy noted that the proceeding had opened in summer 2002 and “we haven’t worked as quickly as I think we should have. On the other hand, when this proceeding started there was very little support for any one solution. Comments were all over the place. But substantial progress has been made recently.” In Aug., supporters of the plan backed by Nextel and others made substantial changes in their proposal, she said: “One of the reasons why this is so important is that you really just get one crack at this. You don’t just turn around and reband spectrum every day. And when you do it, it’s very complex.” In other areas, Abernathy said the FCC recently adopted proposed service rules for dedicated short- range communications in the Intelligent Transportation Systems service at 5.9 GHz and said she hoped the proceeding would be concluded quickly. The agency also has examined innovative arrangements for spectrum that aid public safety providers, she said.

Among issues in task force discussions has been how to streamline federal frequency coordination, said Fred Wentland, NTIA assoc. administrator-Office of Spectrum Management. It takes 14 days for a federal agency to receive an assignment after applying, “which is not too bad,” he said, but a centralized database would be better. An application would receive a “green light,” meaning the agency had received the assignment, a “yellow light,” meaning there was a problem, or a “red light,” meaning “you chose the wrong frequency,” he said.

Another key topic is efficient spectrum use, which isn’t “always an easy task,” Wentland said. He cited NTIA requirements for govt. nonmilitary land mobile operators to move to narrowband operations by 2005 in some bands and as late as 2008 in others, he said. Funding for replacement equipment for narrowband 12.5 kHz channels has been a problem for some agencies, depending on their budget planning, he said.

The task force discussions also have covered spectrum decisionmaking, with some even proposing a combination of the FCC and NTIA, Wentland said. Briefing materials distributed by NTIA at the forum Tues. said state and local public safety representatives had questioned whether the FCC rulemaking process “may be too concerned with perfecting a rule, often making the rulemaking process unnecessarily protracted.” But the “fact sheet” said public safety agencies believed combining NTIA and the FCC wouldn’t be practical.

When the idea of merging the agencies was floated in work group discussions last fall, public safety agencies circulated a statement that NTIA shouldn’t be given public safety responsibilities. The Assn. of Public Safety Communications Officials, International Assn. of Fire Chiefs, International Assn. of Chiefs of Police and others signed on to the statement. It said federal spectrum use was managed by NTIA, itself a part of the Executive Branch. “Thus, NTIA has an inherent vested interest in meeting the communications requirements of federal agencies under the common control of the President,” it said. An Executive Branch manager of state and local govt. public safety spectrum “would have a built-in conflict of interest and would be expected to give preference to the needs of the Executive Branch,” the groups said.

Acting NTIA Dir. Michael Gallagher told us last fall that among the issues with which federal spectrum users were grappling on the interagency task force was whether there should be some form of Executive Branch oversight when differences arose on difficulty policy issues (CD Nov 6 p7). The General Accounting Office in a report last year called for an independent federal commission to examine U.S. spectrum management, citing past govt. problems in resolving user disputes.

Separately, Wentland stressed the importance of funding to carry out the recommendations. “Almost all the recommendations that I've seen so far are going to require resources -- people and money,” he said. “Resources in terms of dollars are needed to engage industry into this process, to engage the public safety community into this process one way or the other. So if the government can let contracts, memoranda of understanding, joint finance projects -- I think that will help immensely,” Wentland said.

Wentland also stressed the importance of continuing activities at NTIA as underpinning future changes in spectrum management. He said policy-makers often were compelled to address immediate problem areas and there had been a need for addressing longer range strategy. He said NTIA studies included: (1) A recently published receiver standards study that runs through the standards the federal govt. uses. (2) A pending study on a particular geographic area on effective land mobile spectrum uses and how such operations could be used elsewhere. (3) An interference criteria study, which is being done in conjunction with the FCC.