No agreement exists among wireless manufacturers and public safet...

revealed. The Coalition for Wideband Data Deployment (CWDD) said it was “premature and counter-productive” to adopt any 700 MHz wideband interoperability standard at this time, because: (1) “The pubic safety community has not identified any genuine communications need that would be met by having interoperable 700 MHz wideband data equipment.” (2) “There is no commercially available SAM- capable equipment today and it is unclear when it will be available.” (3) “SAM technology will present significant cost and complexity challenges for public safety licensees.” CWDD represents land mobile manufacturers that make wireless data systems and products for the mobile radio industry. Several public safety entities expressed similar concerns. “We had planned on and need the option of operating radios on the wideband general use channels to meet our specific wideband data applications,” several commenters said: “Forcing us to have SAM capability in those radios certainly will make that difficult and may make it impossible.” But the National Public Safety Telecom Council (NPSTC) representing 13 public safety groups supported the proposed rule changes as “a necessary step toward providing for interoperable communications… amongst public safety entities not only in a voice mode of operation but also in a data mode.” Motorola urged the FCC to “expeditiously” adopt the proposed changes to “provide clarity and flexibility in the design and manufacture of 700 MHz equipment that is urgently needed to address urgent Homeland Security and mission critical applications.” Meanwhile, M/A-COM urged the FCC to revert to its original Dec. 31, 2006, transition deadlines for banning the marketing, manufacturer and importation of 700 MHz public safety equipment using 12.5 kHz bandwidths, and the filing of applications for new 700 MHz public safety systems using 12.5 kHz voice channels. It said the Commission’s recent deadline extension until Dec. 31, 2014, was based “on a stale record developed in early 2003,” consisting mostly of “unsubstantiated claims of Motorola.” But, it said, in the subsequent 2 years, the development of “public safety equipment using more efficient 6.25 kHz bandwidths has progressed rapidly.” It said it has tested 6.25 kHz equipment and already installed one such system. As demand for public safety spectrum grows, M/A-COM said “public safety agencies have begun to require more efficient equipment… to meet their spectrum needs.”