FCC Denying Old Waiver Requests, But Still Helping

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has recently issued waivers for two public safety agencies, allowing them to use paging frequencies for two-way voice communications. But the commission also warned that 700 MHz frequencies freed up by the digital television (DTV) transition must be considered “available,” even by agency’s who submitted their request before the transition. In separate rulings, the FCC denied Marin County (CA) and Garden City Park’s (NY) requests to use certain frequencies in the 480 MHz band, so-called “Part 22″ frequencies, under the usual conditions for granting a waiver. However, on its own initiative the commission reconsidered the requests using other FCC rules, and granted the requests.

The commission’s initial denial was based on the agency’s required showing that there was no other spectrum assigned to public safety service immediately. In Marin’s case, they applied for a waiver in Oct. 2007, before the transition to digital television and the free-up of frequencies in the 700 MHz band.

The FCC agreed that frequencies in the common public safety bands of 30-50, 150-174 and 450-470 MHz in the congested San Francisco region were unavailable in 2007. But the commission said the county’s waiver request must be considered in light of current frequency availability, including the 700 MHz frequencies freed up by digital TV. The Garden City Park request was similarly evaluated.

“A previous finding of insufficient public safety channel availability in an area, while relevant, does not address changes in the spectrum landscape over time that must be considered,” the FCC wrote in the New York case.

Therefore, with public safety frequencies in the 700 MHz public safety band now available after the DTV transition, both waivers were denied. However, the FCC then immediately reconsidered both requests under a “unique circumstances” rule (Sec. 1.925), and granted the waivers. In both cases the commission said interference, if any, would be minimal, and ruled that certain bandwidth overlap would not hinder adjacent channel operations. Download (pdf) the Marin County waiver and the Garden City Park waiver.