FCC Finds Way to Grant Frequency Waiver

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has determined that Westchester County (NY) did not meet regulatory requirements in a request to use certain paging frequencies to complete a large public safety radio network established in 2004. But the FCC dug into its own rules and came up with another way to justify granting the county’s waiver request. In 2004 Westchester County  asked the FCC for permission to use frequency pairs in the 476/479 MHz range, saying at the time that, “no other spectrum allocated to public safety services is immediately available to satisfy the requested public safety service use.” The FCC granted that waiver request since the New York/New Jersey area spectrum was severely congested at the time. In its current request, the county said that frequency congestion situation had not improved since that time. But in its decision, the FCC noted that frequencies in the 700 MHz band have become available to public safety. Therefore, by regulation the FCC could not grant the waiver for one additional pair of 476/479 frequencies. But despite its finding, the FCC said it could grant the waiver under another catch-all section of the rules that allows FCC action to promote “safety of life and property through the use of radio communication.” Download (pdf) the FCC’s decision here.