LMCC Members Say Concerns Remain as FCC Readies Public Safety Bureau
The FCC isn’t giving a date for launching its Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau, approved at its March 17 agenda meeting, an FCC official told the Land Mobile Communications Council (LMCC) Thurs. Industry and public safety officials at the meeting told us group members have many questions about the bureau -- especially a plan to split spectrum licensing, with part staying in the Wireless Bureau and public safety licensing moving to the new bureau.
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The FCC is done notifying Congress but still is in talks with the union, Timothy Peterson, acting chief of staff of the FCC Office of Managing Dir., told the LMCC. “The Commission isn’t asking for an increase in budget, rather a reallocation of resources,” he said. “The important point is that we'd like to get the bureau up and operating as soon as possible. We're working through the process right now.”
“The major concerns right now are the formation of the new bureau and how we're going to fit into that given that LMCC is a diverse group divided between business, industry and public safety,” LMCC Pres. Ralph Haller, former chief of the FCC’s Private Radio Bureau, said: “We've always worked well together, but it has always been under one bureau.”
Many unknowns remain regarding the bureau’s form, in particular a plan to split public safety licensing from other licensing, Haller said: “The actual channels that people transmit on, whether it’s public safety or business, are intermixed… It’s not like there’s a public safety and an industrial band. They're intermixed. If policy decisions were made that affected the use of the business channels and the consideration was not given to how it’s going to affect public safety you can have public safety issues develop, and vice versa.”
“A lot of the concerns are sort of concerns that people have because they haven’t seen specifics,” said Robert Gurss, dir.-legal & govt. affairs at APCO and a past LMCC pres. “We obviously strongly support the new bureau. We do want to make sure it’s rolled out in way that is not disruptive, especially to the licensing process… There’s questions about it. I think it’s going to work out. I just want to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible.”
Jill Lyon, gen. counsel to the United Telecom Council, said another recurring concern is that critical infrastructure won’t move to the public safety bureau. “There is substantial integration and interdependency among sectors,” Lyon said. “Nothing works until the power comes back on and the field crews recognize that they all have to work together. And yet critical infrastructure was very pointedly left out of the new bureau -- not just our licensing, but our issues, our participation, our status as emergency responders.”
Other sources said they worry the FCC could fall behind schedule in setting up the bureau. They noted that Chmn. Martin hasn’t said who will lead it. When the FCC voted to create the bureau, officials indicated it would take months. Officials cited the 2002 reorganization, when the Commission approved a plan in Jan. and it took effect mid-March. “They said it would probably take 2 months and it looks like it’s going to take longer,” a source said: “But then again we don’t know all the details and the FCC isn’t saying much.”