The American Public Transportation Assn. (APTA) opposed a petitio...
The American Public Transportation Assn. (APTA) opposed a petition by the Industrial Telecom Assn. to coordinate power, railroad and auto emergency frequencies in the VHF and UHF land mobile bands. APTA told the FCC that under the existing system,…
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railroad frequency coordination was conducted only by the Assn. of American Railroads. APTA said it would be against the interest of rail transit companies if the FCC certified more than one entity to perform that frequency coordination service. It said its members operated their rail transit systems on rights-of-way that freight railroads owned, which meant their communications systems must be interoperable with the freight systems. “This system has served the industry well, and we see no reason to change it,” APTA said. Wisconsin Electric Power/Wisconsin Gas (WE) also opposed the ITA petition. WE supported United Telecom Council (UTC) retaining “its limited ability” to protect the utility’s mission-critical communications systems from congestion and interference. WE said ITA “lacks the general knowledge of critical utility business functions to effectively represent its utility member interests.” It said adoption of ITA’s frequency coordination proposal would reduce protection for the power radio channels in which the utility operated. “This has been clearly demonstrated by ITA’s openly adverse position to utilities in the 800 MHz public safety interference docket,” WE said. The Railway Assn. of Canada (RAC) also weighed in against the ITA proposal, saying: “It would unnecessarily complicate and impede the consultative process for near-border and through- service applications.” It said U.S. and Canadian railroads shared a common frequency plan for land mobile radio channels at 160 MHz, 450 MHz and 900 MHz. In the past, RAC said it and the American Assn. of Railroads routinely had consulted with each other on “applications of common concern… These benefits would be lost if the RAC were required to deal with a multiplicity of frequency coordinators in the U.S., especially if eligibility were opened up to U.S. frequency coordinators with no knowledge, expertise or experience in railroad operations.” It said opening up frequency coordination to more than one group in that area would hamper the ability of Canadian and U.S. railroads to migrate to narrowband channel use.