Trade Law Daily is a service of Warren Communications News.

APCO Raises Public Safety Interference Concerns

Wireless carriers are causing harmful interference to public safety radios using the 800 MHz National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee channels, APCO said Wednesday in a filing at the FCC. The interference “appears to be mainly due to commercial cellular…

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.

operations overloading the front end (862-869 MHz) portion of public safety radios that was left in place following the 800 MHz rebanding proceeding,” APCO said. It said it bases its complaints on reports from the field. The problem “is expected to only grow worse as cellular carriers continue their deployments, including LTE,” APCO said. “Further, even on a going-forward basis, APCO understands that very few radios are available that might be capable of addressing the overloading issue.” The letter was written by Jeffrey Cohen, APCO chief counsel. APCO said it has spoken with various FCC officials from the Public Safety and Wireless Bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology about its concerns. The filing was posted in docket 12-40. The FCC approved a landmark order in 2004, which set in motion the still-ongoing rebanding of 800 MHz spectrum with the goal of alleviating interference to public safety radios.