Barnett Says FCC’s Listening to Public Concerns on 700 MHz D-Block
FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett opened remarks to the APCO conference Monday by recognizing a simple fact about the 700 MHz D-block. “We have a disagreement,” he said. “We are committed to a public debate, public dialogue on the network."
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Barnett spoke to a large, attentive audience. In the middle of the room were tables with campaign buttons and a button asking Congress to reallocate the spectrum to public safety.
"I didn’t pick a fight on the D-block,” Barnett said. “I would have loved to be in concert with the public safety community.” If the spectrum were “put on the shelf” indefinitely and not sold at auction or given to public safety, that wouldn’t be good for public safety communications, he said.
Earlier in the day, Steve Proctor, executive director of the Utah Communications Agency Network, said 800 MHz rebanding in the state wrapped up 18 months ago after proving harder
than many had expected when the work started six years ago. “For all of you who are just beginning: Good luck,” he said. “When it came down to it, it was amazing the number of hours we put into this project. The rebanding was good in the fact that it made us look at every piece of equipment in the system,” but “when we thought we were done, we were still meeting people coming in saying, ‘My radio won’t work.'”
Rebanding hasn’t solved all the state’s interference issues, Proctor said. “We still have some itinerant frequencies out there that have caused us some interference,” he said. “We still have carriers in the state that cause us interference problems all the time.”