NPSTC Members Say Group Should Ask FCC to Drop 700 MHz Narrowbanding Deadline
Members of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council sharply criticized the FCC’s Dec. 31, 2016, 700 MHz narrowbanding deadline, as NPSTC works toward developing a formal position. The NPSTC board, holding the second day of its meeting in Washington, discussed several issues Wednesday, but narrowbanding proved the most contentious. In April, the FCC sought comment on whether it should extend or eliminate the deadline requiring 700 MHz public safety narrowband licensees to change over from a 12.5 kilohertz voice efficiency standard to a 6.25 kilohertz standard (CD April 2 p4).
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NPSTC Board Member Harlin McEwen said the group should ask the FCC to drop the deadline entirely. “I don’t like it at all,” he said. “To me we should be strongly opposed to any of this. We should stop it and tell them, ‘Look, it’s not anything that’s currently urgent and all it does is just cost more money.'"
Stu Overby, vice-chairman of the group’s Spectrum Management Committee, said NPSTC members working on the narrowbanding issue held their latest discussion on the topic last week. “It sounded like we were kind of honing on a position of saying that for new systems going in it might be appropriate to keep the date but on existing systems ... eliminate or move the date out,” he said. “There’s a recognition, I think, that for the systems that are out there people may need more time.”
"There are some operational and technical detriments” to narrowbanding, said NPTSC board member John McIntosh, representing the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. “Parts of the country would like to see [the deadline] eliminated. ... Any requirement that would force new systems to spend tons of extra money to get nothing in places like Idaho is nuts.” Overby said, “In general, I would agree with John that there’s a recognition that there needs to be some relief from the rule."
"We tend to talk a lot about systems, but for the [agencies] out there who are not capable of being upgraded, it’s a huge amount of money,” said Tom Sorley, Houston’s deputy director-radio communication services. “We ought to advocate, A, pushing it out pretty far, or, B, doing away with it.” But David Buchanan, chairman of the spectrum committee, said in some regions of the country some agencies find they have to narrowband their systems as a matter of spectral efficiency. “I know in Southern California we're already at the point where it’s very hard to add in more channels,” said the retired network services supervisor for San Bernardino County, Calif.
Meanwhile, NPSTC’s 4.9 GHz working group is wrapping up its work with the goal of competing a final report by the end of July, Buchanan said. The group is looking at frequency coordination, point-to-point issues, air-to-ground and specialized uses, the band plan and channels and use of the spectrum by utilities and other critical infrastructure users, among other issues, he said.Henry Goldberg, the lawyer for the Part 15 Coalition, went before the NPSTC to discuss the group’s concerns about Progeny’s proposed rollout of its E-911 location service (http://bit.ly/YWAePD). Progeny’s proposal has received some support from public safety groups, including the National Emergency Number Association, which said it could play a big role in improving E-911 location accuracy (CD March 27 p8). The coalition is pressing the FCC not to move too quickly and to mandate more tests, Goldberg said. “If the FCC gets it wrong, I don’t mean to imply that the FCC would every get anything wrong, and Progeny begins regular commercial rollout and there is interference ... we have no recourse, we have to accept the interference,” he said. “There is time, what’s the rush, particularly when what’s at stake is a vast number of unlicensed, very important service?"
Goldberg, asked by members why he wanted to address NPSTC, said some public safety groups have weighed in in support of Progeny’s network. “You guys have been in the same position that we are in in the past, and I would think that additional testing, safeguard testing, is appropriate and if you want to support additional testing we welcome that support,” he said. Progeny officials were not at the NPSTC meeting but contend there’s no need to draw out a testing process that has already gone on for two years (CD April 15 p5).
At least five members of NPSTC have filed similar letters in support of Progeny, McEwen said, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which he represents at meetings of the group. “The ICP, for instance, their position is that we do need improved and better indoor location technology for both locating the public when they need our help and for locating our own personnel when we need to find them,” he said. “That should be no shock to anyone.” The NPSTC shouldn’t get involved in the debate over whether Progeny poses an interference risk to Part 15 devices, McEwen said. “We have no scientists, we have no engineers, to make any judgments about whether it does or does not cause interference.”