SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT BILL TO BE GUIDED BY UPCOMING GAO REPORT
General Accounting Office (GAO) report that will help guide Sen. Burns (R-Mont.) in developing spectrum management reform legislation is expected next week, his spokesman told us. At Comcare Conference in Washington, Burns said he was looking toward end of year for introduction of bill. He acknowledged there wouldn’t be time to move bill through Congress this session, but said he wanted to get debate started. He said he was working with Sens. Hollings (D-S.C.) and Inouye (D-Hawaii) to develop effective bipartisan bill addressing many aspects of spectrum management. “We think it should be comprehensive,” Burns said. He requested GAO report on U.S. spectrum management system nearly a year ago and it’s expected to examine system comprehensively, spokesman told us. Spokesman for Hollings told us Senate Commerce Committee chmn. believed FCC’s policy on spectrum had “flipped the law,” allowing companies to act as if they owned spectrum, instead of renting it. Spokesman cited NextWave case, saying company was allowed to treat spectrum allocations as though they were company property instead of property that it rented from govt. “If a company fails to make a payment, the license should go back to the government,” Hollings spokesman said. If NextWave case creates precedent on spectrum policy, FCC wold become “moot” in regard to spectrum, spokesman said.
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Senate Communications Subcommittee is scheduled to hold spectrum management hearing June 11, spokesman said. Witness list hasn’t been announced. In related spectrum news, Burns said he supported delay of 700 MHz spectrum auction. “It’s a good delay,” he said. “Why make people pay for spectrum they can’t use yet.” Hollings doesn’t yet have opinion on whether to delay spectrum auction.
CTIA Pres. Thomas Wheeler proposed creation of Homeland Emergency Response Operational Enhancement Systems (HEROES) to enhance communication among first responders. He said 4 million emergency users could be served with 10 MHz of spectrum because new wireless technology was more efficient. New efficient technology could put handset in first responders’ hands at $1,000 each, compared with $1,500 now needed to supply antiquated equipment, Wheeler said. Most current first responder equipment is about 10 years old, he said. Also, it’s “not logical” to create govt. emergency priority system that bumps consumers, Wheeler said. He said a national emergency communications plan, to be pushed by national leadership, was needed to address issue.
Several participants at day-long E-Safety conference said increased federal involvement in public safety issues in some cases had opened possibility of more funding and but had complicated what traditionally had been purview of local and state govts. “We know we need to reach out, we know we need to work with other agencies,” said Robert Coughlin, deputy dir. of Office of Intergovernmental & Public Liaison at Justice Dept. “Homeland security money is not going to be there forever,” he said, listing funds in this year’s budget available for homeland security-related issues. Coughlin cited 56 joint terrorism task forces created by FBI, Justice Dept. and state and local govt. agencies since Sept. 11 as kinds of increased cooperation occurring among local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Comcare Dir. David Aylward also cited expanded role that Federal Emergency Management Agency has taken in Office of Management & Budget (OMB) wireless public safety effort called Project Safecom. Project Safecom is focusing on implementation of interoperability and other public safety wireless issues related to federal agencies and related state and local users (CD June 6 p3).
Several participants at Comcare conference also cited need to upgrade technical information systems at public health agencies, many of which they said still relied on voice-centric communications for disaster and other alerts. Richard Hunt, vice chmn. of Comcare Alliance, said emergency communications infrastructure that connected govt. agencies and health organizations still was largely “voice-centric… Data has to be addressed.” Emergency alert information often is passed along through series of phone calls among different agencies “without the ability to check out the reliability of the information,” he said. Angelo Salvucci, chmn. of Cal. Commission on Emergency Medical Services, said public health communications infrastructure “has been allowed to totally deteriorate in this country. So if there is another problem with public health it would be conveyed by telephone.” He and others called for data communications that relied on combination of mapping capabilities and projected public health impacts to address problems on scale of anthrax or other outbreaks. Karl Moeller, govt. relations mgr. for American Heart Assn., said that since Sept. 11, there had been trend toward federal agencies’ seeking input from state and local entities that typically had operated outside federal limelight. Increased cross-communications means these interactions have “become extremely more complicated,” he said.