Frequency Coordinator’s Corner
by Ken Yoder

FCC's NPRM on Frequency Coordination Below 470 MHz

The Chapter Officers has submitted a letter to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission providing the chapters comments of the Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) WT Docket No. 02-285 RM-10077, which is an amendment of Section 90.20 and 90.175 of the Commission’s Rules for Frequency Coordination of Public Safety Frequencies in the Private Land Mobile Radio Below 470 MHz Band.

This office informed all that are on our list server about this rule making and I hope you had the opportunity to provide your comments. To provide you with a short background, we must return to the year 1997. Prior to this year, 1997, the public safety assignments were segregated into separate pools of frequencies for police, fire, EMS, highway maintenance forestry conservation and local government, each with it own specific coordinator. Then in 1997, the FCC consolidated the public safety services into a single Public Safety Pool. From this point forward, public safety agencies were free to apply for any Public Safety Pool channel. However, the FCC retained the separate frequency coordination responsibilities for channels that had previously been in service-specific pools. The only exceptions are the channels that were designated in the local government pool, which can now be coordinated by any of the public safety coordinators.

In 2001, APCO filled a petition asking the FCC to change this rule so that any of the four public safety coordinators can coordinate any public safety pool channels below 479 MHz. This is consistent with the FCC’s recent ruling that the other three coordinators can now coordinate 800 MHz public safety channels, for which APCO had previously been the sole coordinator. This NPRM seeks comments on APCO’s proposal.

APCO, as well as this advisor, believes that this proposal will provide you, the applicant, with a choice of coordinators, faster processing and reduced cost. It will also allow for “one-stop shopping” for applications seeking multiple frequencies, which today often require complicated approval from multiple coordinators. As they have in contexts, the coordinators will continue to share information and monitor channel assignments to protect existing frequency assignments and plans.

While there are several issues brought out in the NPRM raised by the three other public safety coordinators, IMSA, AASHTO, and FCCA, your Chapter Officers addressed them in a positive manor. Your Board of Officers should be commended for taking a positive approach to this NPRM. You the member and your agencies will truly benefit form a positive rule making by the FCC, which supports the APCO petition.