Barnett Sees Little Chance FCC Will Broker D-Block Deal
HOUSTON -- Congress would have to broker any deal on the 700 MHz D-block and the future of public safety communications and not the FCC, Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett told reporters late Monday at the APCO annual conference. The D-block is the only area of real controversy between the FCC and public safety, he said. Others at APCO questioned how much good such discussions would do. Ex-Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Ed Thomas suggested last month that the FCC should lock all parties in a room, “slide pizza under the door” and not let anyone out until an agreement has been reached. The FCC largely brokered an agreement on 800 MHz rebanding six years ago and in recent weeks has sought an agreement on broadband reclassification. Thomas suggested a similar push on a public safety broadband network.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Barnett received a mostly polite reaction when he spoke to APCO members late Monday (CD Aug 3 p2). “There’s only one controversy that we've had,” he said in response to our question. “From the beginning there’s been a polite discussion. We started having discussions about the D-block in August of last year. I'd only been at the commission about a week. I've had hundreds of conversations, conference calls, workshops, meetings, technical meetings, all of them in one way or another ending up taking about the D-block. I've been very open. We looked at it, despite some of the things you hear here."
The FCC remains unique in that it has done an in-depth fiscal analysis of how to guarantee funding for a national wireless broadband network for public safety, Barnett said. “I've asked today in my conversations, has anyone done any financial analysis?” he said. “Consistently, what I get is, well, no we really don’t have the money for it. The FCC has done financial analysis -- lengthy, in depth cost modeling. We would be remiss if we didn’t raise that to the Congress. Here’s the thing, it’s Congress’s decision whether to reallocate or not. If they decide to reallocate it creates those issues of cost that we need to deal with."
Barnett said he’s not concerned that House Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., have backed different approaches on a public safety network. Waxman largely supports the FCC plan and Rockefeller favors D-block reallocation. “I'm actually very encouraged that there’s a discussion about funding,” Barnett said. “I think that this is probably the normal rough and tumble about how they work that out. The FCC is not going to get involved in that. We will certainly provide any expertise that we can."
Barnett said he was aware of the Thomas comments, made during a C-SPAN interview. “I do like pizza,” he said. “I'm for the pizza. The locked room, I don’t know. It’s the wrong image to me. To me it’s more of an open door, of discussing. I'm very open to discussing right now. We can do it on a theoretical basis. What happens if Congress reallocates D-block? We also, I think, need to move forward on what happens if they don’t. We need to be prepared one way or another.” Barnett questioned whether the FCC is the right place for these discussions. “It’s something I'm open to,” he said. “But you know, really for the past year we've had that dialogue.” The problem is “we can’t reallocate the D-block. So it’s got to be a government-wide discussion, I think, in some ways,” Barnett said. Discussions on the D-block “may be a little bit above the FCC’s level at this point” and may be better held by Congress, he said.
Talks don’t “make sense” at this point, said Public Safety Spectrum Trust Chairman Harlin McEwen. “That would be the logical thing to do but from a legal perspective the only answer is going to come from Congress. If Congress changes the law to give public safety the D-block that’s the end of the discussion,” he said. “We feel we need the spectrum. There has been no offer for a solution that we see other than getting the D-block allocated to public safety, so I don’t know what there is to discuss.”
The D-block is the only area of contention between APCO and Barnett, said President Richard Mirgon. “As much as much as people may think that we feud, we only have a disagreement on one issue,” he said. “Other than that, on the other 99 percent, the relationship has been outstanding."
"I'm just not sure folks are very much in disagreement,” said a second public safety official, asked about whether FCC-brokered negotiations make sense now. “What’s the issue? The issues are whether or not to reallocate the 10 MHz [D-block] and this raises issues of funding as well. I'm not sure where the huge difference lies.”
"I don’t think there is a way to force an agreement,” said Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld. “Sometimes there just isn’t an agreement to be had because what the parties want is inherently irreconcilable and there is no gain from agreeing to anything short of what you want. Here, the D-block either gets auctioned or it doesn’t. [FCC Chairman Julius] Genachowski already tried to address the underlying concerns -- access to more spectrum on an as needed basis and money to build out the network -- and that offer was rejected. … I still think Genachowski’s best hope here is to go ahead with a D-block auction notice and force the public safety community to chose between backing the Rockefeller bill (when it is introduced) or backing Waxman … which will at least get them money for build out. But as long as there are no consequence in going for the total win, why should they compromise?"
A public safety official said Barnett’s remarks didn’t make any converts at APCO, which remains committed to pursuit of the D-block and opposes the FCC’s proposal for a public safety network. “I don’t think people were pleased generally,” the official said. “People felt that public safety is pretty unified in what they believe is necessary here. He doesn’t seem to want to recognize that.” The reaction was polite, but “I didn’t see an awful lot of joy in the room.”