TRAMONT CALLS DTV TRANSITION NEXT BIG PUBLIC SAFETY FOCUS

The first step, the next few months, will be addressing the public interests of broadcasters in a digital age, Tramont said, followed “very quickly” by an order clarifying what constitutes the prerequisite DTV market penetration of 85% allowing broadcasters to turn off analog signals. “We tried to do this 2 years ago, tried to move forward with an auction, and Congress decided that we should not do that,” Tramont said: “However the times have changed, the imperatives have changed in terms of the needs for the public safety community.”

Paul Margie, wireless aide to Comr. Copps, said the order is also “an important issue” for his boss, as one of the 9/11 Commission’s 2 specific communications-policy recommendations. “This is another example of how the public safety community and the FCC have to work even closer together,” he said. “I think that there are going to be calls to try to understand exactly what spectrum public safety needs, how much spectrum public safety needs, where it should be, what its characteristics should be.”

The FCC will sponsor a fall conference on public-private partnerships, Tramont said. He said the Commission hopes to encourage building on the secondary markets order approved by the FCC in July allowing public safety to lease some spectrum to other public safety groups. “One of the things we're looking for is different ways we can find a synergy between the public safety community and either private entities or critical infrastructure type groups that could provide either infrastructure or financial support or other things to help build out the networks,” Tramont said: “We know one of the primary challenges facing the public safety community is the resources issue.”

Margie said Copps is more “nervous” about the prospect of leases and wants to make sure that public safety groups “maintain control of the process” and “it’s not something that someone can claim that they're public safety when they're not really public safety… that you're put into situations where maybe there’s financial pressures to recast public safety spectrum for some other use.” Copps dissented from the secondary markets order.

APCO Gen. Counsel Robert Gurss asked staffers the status of an FCC order issued last year on narrow-banding deadlines, which imposed what his group saw as a problematic timetable. APCO and other public safety groups filed a petition for reconsideration, and the FCC granted a stay. The groups sought a single conversion date of 2013. “The recon is pending and is actively being worked on by the staff,” responded Catherine Seidel, deputy chief of the Wireless Bureau: “Folks are sensitive to the petition that was filed. The 2018 date, you may remember, was in part because at the time that’s what public safety was asking for… Within the Bureau we're definitely considering the proposal.”

Tramont said he hoped an FCC order on the subject would be voted out before year-end. “When we adopted the 2018 date we actually thought we were being helpful,” he said: “The sweet spot is trying to find something that is a little bit predictable so that we have confidence that the 2013 date will be real.”

John Muleta, Wireless Bureau chief, said the FCC was looking closely at issues raised by the industry on a Commission order allocating 4.9 GHz spectrum to public safety -- to be used for wireless data transfer, which is also the subject of pending petitions for reconsideration. “We are actively working on it. In fact, last week there were a number of people who talked to us,” he said. “The issue that we're trying to figure our way through is on one of the masks. We have seen the problem defined as you can either get really cheap equipment, which require a little more coordination on the ground, or you could have a better definition of the mask… We think we're close, within the next month or 2, to get something out to the Commission.”

Tramont said the FCC also will likely issue an order the next few weeks providing final rules for satellite phone use in E-911.

The FCC staff fielded several questions about the 800 MHz rebanding order, which was to be the subject of another panel. Tramont said the FCC was going to work with Canada and Mexico to resolve cross-border issues. Margie said the issues are critical because of homeland security. “Border communications issues are going to just increase in importance, not only at 800 MHz,” he said: “This is something the FCC is going to take very seriously.” Tramont said the FCC will look closely at any provision that “doesn’t necessarily reflect exactly what we meant or is ambiguous.” In comments that brought applause from the APCO audience he added: “We will be prepared to act promptly on whatever clarification is necessary.”

Muleta advised public safety agencies: “Plan, plan, plan, plan, as soon as possible. This is not the time to wait. The order reflects a sense of urgency that we have… and we'd like to see the licensees of all kind act accordingly. The chairman said it best: This is one of the most important issues that we have at the FCC.” Muleta said the 800 MHz rebanding shouldn’t be viewed “as the fix for everything,” including the repacking and reapproval of regional plans for emergency communications. The process “is specifically designed to reduce the amount of interference, move the channels, especially the NPSPAC channels, down to the lower bands,” he said: “To the extent that there is a more elegant solution than can be done without having a lot of disaffected parties, I think you've got to give it a shot. That’s sort of my gut feel, that you've got to give it a try. But if it’s going to delay stuff for a year… that becomes overly ambitious and outside the bounds of what we believe is the boundary of the actual 800 MHz transition.”