FCC Asked to Terminate Existing, Pending Public Safety Waivers
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will circulate an order terminating all 20 of the existing waivers allowing early build out of public safety networks in the 700 MHz band, an FCC official said late Thursday. The waivers were already scheduled to expire Sept. 2. The draft order also rejects the 36 waiver requests from other jurisdictions now before the agency. However, it allows the Public Safety Bureau, on delegated authority, to allow systems such as Charlotte, N.C., and Harris County, Texas, that had started construction to reapply for special temporary authorizations (STAs) to continue construction of their systems if they so choose. The order also approves, until Sept. 2, the interoperability showings for Charlotte and Harris County.
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The move was not a surprise, though it could prove controversial. Republican members of the House Communications Subcommittee asked questions about the waivers at Tuesday’s FCC oversight hearing (CD July 11 p1). A number of jurisdictions, including Oklahoma and Louisiana, have pressed hard to join the list of waiver recipients, flexing political muscle.
"Not having read it, it sounds like it’s the same bottom line wrapped in a different color,” one FCC official said of the order. But a second FCC official said the order will remove all encumbrances on the spectrum, clearing the way for the eventual launch of FirstNet, a national public safety network partly funded by the February spectrum law. In May, NTIA suspended the seven Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grants it had made also in part due to FirstNet concerns (CD May 14 p9).
In May at CTIA and in June at the Telecommunications Industry Association conference, Commissioner Robert McDowell said the FCC should address pending waiver requests “on a case-by-case” basis rather than dismissing them out of hand. Eighth-floor advisers were still waiting for the draft order at our deadline. In an April filing, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials said since “the FCC’s waiver regime is no longer operative” all waiver applications should be denied. The Public Safety Bureau approved the original waivers in May 2010 (CD May 13/10 p1).