March 10, 2006

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) will decide March 17 whether to create a new Public Safety and Homeland-Security Bureau, according to its meeting agenda released late today.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was forced to tell congressional appropriators earlier this month that the reason his budget request did not include numbers for the new bureau was because his colleagues had not yet signed off on it.

Martin announced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that he intended to create the new bureau.

The request was not included in the budget request submitted by President Bush last month, but Martin told reporters it would be in the detailed filing he planned to submit to Congress.

However, the request wasn’t there either.

Martin plans to submit the request for the new bureau to Congress after he receives approval from his FCC colleagues.

Because it’s also expected to cover wireless issues, creating a new Public Safety and Homeland-Security Bureau throws into doubt the status of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.

In July 2005, Martin wanted to eliminate the wireless bureau, move its functions to other bureaus and perhaps create a new bureau.

Since the details of Martin’s reorganization plan have not been released, it is unclear which functions and policies would be moved to the new bureau.

However, it now appears that the wireless bureau could largely oversee spectrum licensing, while the new bureau would take over public-safety policy issues.

Other large policy issues facing the FCC—including the protection of customer call records—are being handled by the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau.

Also at its meeting, the FCC is expected to consider proposed rules on how public safety would use the 24 megahertz of spectrum it’s scheduled to receive as part of the transition to digital TV.

The FCC told Congress late last year that it planned to examine whether some of the 24 megahertz of spectrum public safety is set to receive as part of the DTV transition could be used for a nationwide interoperable broadband network.

The National Public-Safety Telecommunications Council last month warned the FCC that localities had already purchased 700 MHz equipment and begun making planning decisions based on the current band plan.

Also, it said that if changes were made to allow for broadband use of the band, these changes should be made at the regional level “because agency requirements differ across the country and change at varying times.”

Source: RCR