NTIA Dir. Nancy Victory called Tues. for redoubling of efforts to...

community is left with a Tower of Babel in which no one can understand what anyone else is saying or learn what others are doing.” Victory said NTIA would work “closely” with new White House Office of Management & Budget initiative, Project Safecom, on which Federal Emergency Management Agency recently took lead (CD June 10 p2). Project is focusing on issues such as federal-to-federal and federal-to-state public safety interoperability. NTIA’s spectrum research lab in Boulder has been tasked with standards development for public safety digital land mobile radio (LMR) communications systems, she said at conference co-sponsored with Public Safety Wireless Network (PSWN). Lab will conduct interoperability testing of systems “in the near future,” Victory said. As for NTIA Spectrum Summit in April, during which agency joined with industry and other parts of federal govt. in discussing potential changes in federal policy in that area, Victory said NTIA expected to have report on solutions stemming from summit discussions “in coming weeks.” Public safety needs will play “preeminent” role in that broader review of spectrum management processes, she said. In other spectrum areas, Victory reiterated that Administration had sought delay of 700 MHz auction, for which FCC recently delayed upper band bidding by 7 months while keeping June 19 date intact for lower band. “Negotiations continue on Capitol Hill regarding whether or not the auction will go forward,” Victory said. Following NTIA’s public safety interoperability summit, she said it would examine recommendations that emerged from conference in coordination with FCC and PSWN, which is program run by Depts. of Treasury and Justice. NTIA’s Public Safety Program office also will examine spectrum needs of public safety users and work with FCC to address them, she said. In separate session, Rick Murphy, PSWN program manager for Treasury Dept., said one interoperability issue that beset some local agencies was large proportion of 3 million public safety officers in U.S. who were volunteers. “They don’t get much money to buy equipment,” Murphy said, and often accepted hand-me-down gear from their professional counterparts. Those different generations of equipment make it harder to achieve interoperability in some cases as new gear comes on line, he said. Robert Lee, PSWN program manager for Justice Dept., cited several tough questions he said lay ahead for public safety operators, including funding and spectrum needs and whether incentive programs should be created to promote interoperability solutions among public safety systems. Lee said grant funding or seed money could be used in that area, including from homeland security funding proposals now moving through Congress.