NPSTC Asks FCC for Major Changes in 700 MHz Band Plan
The FCC should rewrite the band plan and revise channel assignments for the 700 MHz public safety service, said the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council, speaking for all major public safety groups. The FCC should cut the number of sets of nationwide interoperability calling channels from two to one and use the spectrum to create a nationwide interoperability travel channel, the council said in a petition for rulemaking filed at the agency.
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“With the Commission’s recent consolidation of the narrowband channels, two sets of Nationwide Interoperability Calling Channels are no longer necessary,” the council said. “Having two sets of Calling Channels would be detrimental to nationwide interoperability because local/state agencies would not know which channel to monitor and/or use in any particular area of the country.” The group wants one set of nationwide interoperability calling channels using channels 39 and 99.
The council said a national public safety travel channel would help public safety with a big problem: Coordinating movement of personnel and gear into disaster areas. “Assets and personnel must be transported, often at significant distances,” the group said. “Frequently this movement is by ground transportation in vehicle convoys. Coordination with and among these units would be enhanced by a designated travel channel.” The channel could avoid sending responders first to staging areas.
The council asked the commission to allow higher-power transmissions on some channels for emergencies, especially fires, in which responders are beset by noise. “Since release of the original 700 MHz rules, it has been found that the vocoder in digital radios becomes overloaded in high ambient noise environments, such as those encountered in fire ground operations, often resulting in severe transmission distortion,” the group said. “The distortion is so significant that it renders the radios unusable in their native digital mode during times of critical communications need.” Some fire departments have refused to use digital radios as a result. “This is problematic for the 700 MHz band where the only usable choice for systems is currently digital modulation,” the council said.