Kerry backs the administration - not the FCC - on how to develop a public safety communications

[karynnj]

network. Obama (and Kerry) want to reallocate part of the unused spectrum to the public safety agencies to develop the network. The FCC wants to auction all of it off and have private companies build it.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is now siding with the White House in the debate over how to construct the first nationwide communications network for police officers and firefighters.

The senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee said in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission Thursday night that he supports a process called “reallocation,” which would turn a valuable chunk of wireless airwaves known as the D-Block directly to public safety agencies. The view shared by Kerry and the White House is contrary to the FCC’s original recommendation to auction those airwaves to private companies that can afford to build out the network for public safety agencies to use.

It’s a notable development for proponents of reallocation, including Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who seek to use one of Kerry’s related proposals to pay for the build-out of a nationwide public safety network.

Congress and the FCC have been trying to figure out how to create a communications network for first responders for nearly a decade. Public safety agencies currently use airwaves that make it difficult for different departments in different parts of the country to communicate with each other – an issue that has impeded first responders during national disasters such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and Hurricane Katrina.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/48861.html#ixzz1D0F70ZaD

For those of us who read that the NYC firefighters and police could not communicate - and the firemen stayed in the towers after the police called for evacuation, the Obama position makes far more sense. They need one unified network.