APCO Government Affairs

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, (APCO) International and the Public Safety Alliance urge you contact your two US Senators to ask them to support S. 911 (the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act of 2011), a bipartisan bill sponsored by Senators John "Jay" Rockefeller, IV (D-WV) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) that allocates the D Block of spectrum directly to public safety, provides sufficient funding, and establishes an effective governance structure to construct and oversee a nationwide public safety wireless broadband network.

TELL YOUR SENATORS THAT PUBLIC SAFETY OPPOSES
provisions passed as part of House bill, H.R. 3630, Title IV, including:

Contact your Senators today and tell them you support the language in S. 911. Click below to visit the International Association of Chief of Police's Legislative Action Center to quickly and easily send a message to your Senators. Included in the Legislative Action Center is a sample letter for your use.

You can also locate contact information for your senators on the U.S. Senate website by selecting your state from the drop-down menu in the top right-hand corner of the homepage.

Please take this opportunity to contact your United States senators and ask them to support public safety and our nation's first responders by supporting S. 911. Thank you for your help.

Chief Walter A. McNeil, President International Association of Chiefs of Police

Chief Charles H. Ramsey, President Major City Chiefs Association

Chief Ned Pettus, President Metro Fire Chiefs Association

Gregg Riddle, President Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International

Jim Mullen, President, National Emergency Management Association

Chief Al H. Gillespie, President and Chairman of the Board International Association of Fire Chiefs

Sheriff Paul H. Fitzgerald, President National Sheriffs' Association

Sheriff Doug Gillespie, President Major County Sheriffs' Association

Randy Kuykendall, President National Association of State EMS Officials

LAW MAKERS URGE SUPER COMMITTEE TO INCLUDE D BLOCK AND FUNDING FOR PUBLIC SAFETY BROADBAND

A group of lawmakers, including Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) as well as Representatives Peter King (R-NY) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) were joined on Capitol Hill by more than 40 uniformed public safety officials and dozens of supporters, urging members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, or 'Debt Super Committee,' to include language from S.911 that would allocate the D block spectrum within the 700 MHz band to public safety and to provide for $11 billion for the construction of a Public Safety Broadband Network.

The Debt Super Committee is under legislative mandate to provide a comprehensive proposal to Congress by November 23rd that must reduce the federal deficit by more than $1.5 trillion dollars over the next 10 years. The House and Senate will have until December 23rd to perform a simple, up-or-down vote on the Super Committee's proposal without the ability to amend its contents.

Senator Schumer assured attendees that if the Debt Super Committee does not succeed in including S.911 language into the larger proposal, he and his colleagues would seek to attach the bill to any number of legislative vehicles, including omnibus appropriations bills that must be passed by Congress in order to continue funding the Federal government.

Members of the Public Safety Alliance (PSA) leadership were on hand and several of the key stakeholders spoke at the event, including Major City Chiefs (MCC) representatives Chief Christopher Moore of the San Jose, CA Police Department and Deputy Chief Charles Dowd of the New York City Police Department. National Sheriffs Association (NSA) President Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald of Story County, Iowa, International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) representative Chief Charles Werner of the Charlottesville, Virginia Fire Department and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) representative James R. Craze of the Greenbelt, Maryland Police Department also participated in the press event.

The press event was the culmination of a two day fly-in, where PSA stakeholders conducted meetings with both the Administration and Congressional staff and members of the Debt Super Committee and the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Communications and Technology.

On November 9, 2011 Public Safety officials sent a formal letter to the co-chairs of the U.S. Congress' Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction ("super committee") urging them to include S.911, the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act of 2011, in deficit reduction legislation under consideration by the supercommittee. The complete letter can be read here.

APCO Supports Outage Reporting for Interconnected VoIP and Broadband Internet Service providers (ISPs)

APCO International has released a letter supporting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in an effort to craft rules that would require Interconnected VoIP Service providers and Broadband Internet Service providers to report outages, while urging the FCC to require outage reports of all kinds of service providers to be delivered directly to the relevant Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) as soon as possible. A copy of the original Notice of Proposed Rulemaking can be found here. For more information on rules affecting VoIP and Broadband Internet Service providers (ISPs) you can visit the FCC website.

On October 31, between 9:00 AM and 12:30 PM, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will host a workshop to explore how deployable aerial communications architecture (DACA) would be utilized to provide communication following a catastrophic event for a period of 72-96 hours if the terrestrial communications infrastructure is severely damaged or unavailable. The final panel will consider technical issues associated with the deployment of DACA for emergency communications, including interference concerns. A copy of the public notice for the event can be found here, and a link to register to for the event can be found here.

APCO RESPONDS TO NIST INQUIRY FOR MOST DESIREABLE FEATURES ON NATIONWIDE PSBN

October 13, 2011 - At the request of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), APCO International supplied comments on the subject of research and development (R&D) priorities for the most desirable features of a nationwide public safety broadband network (PSBN). APCO filed the comments with NIST on October 12. A copy of the comments can be found here.

October 12, 2011 - The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently announced both the comment and reply comment dates for a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for the recent Next Generation 9-1-1 proceeding. The NPRM seeks comments on a number of issues relating to accelerating the development and deployment of NG911 technology that will enable the public to send emergency communications to 911 Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) via text, photos, videos, and data and enhance the information available to PSAPs and first responders for assessing and responding to emergencies.

Comments must be submitted on or before December 12, 2011, and reply comments on or before January 10, 2012. If you wish to submit your own comments, please follow these instructions.

October 4, 2011 - Citing recent progress on a spectrum bill, Greg Walden (R-Ore.), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology recently released a press statement indicating he would not be bound to "any arbitrary deadlines for action" for spectrum reform. Mr. Walden commented that it is his "personal goal" to move legislation by the end of this calendar year. A copy of the press release can be found here.

Congressman Walden's press statement came after days of heavy speculation that his Subcommittee would take up spectrum legislation as early as the week of October 10th. The day before his statement, APCO President Gregg Riddle delivered a Call to Action to every APCO member living in the districts of those 28 House Members who comprise the Communications and Technology Subcommittee, urging them to push for passage of a comprehensive bill that would allocate the D block to public safety.

Please continue to contact Congressman Walden and the rest of his Subcommittee and tell them to move legislation forward that would allocate the D block to public safety, provide $11 billion funding to build out a nationwide public safety broadband network (PSBN) and provide the framework for a nationwide governance structure to oversee the construction, maintenance and operation of the proposed PSBN.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently introduced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on facilitating the deployment of text-to-911 and other Next Generation 9-1-1 systems. Individuals seeking to file a comment on the record with the will have 60 days to do so. A copy of the NPRM can be found here.

Washington D.C. - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has reached arrangements with Industry Canada and Mexico's Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT) for sharing commercial wireless broadband spectrum in the 700 MHz band along the U.S.-Canadian and U.S.-Mexican border areas. The FCC also reached an arrangement with Industry Canada for sharing spectrum in the 800 MHz band. These actions will help support commercial broadband services and public safety mission-critical voice communications.

"These arrangements will unleash investment and benefit consumers near the borders by enabling the rollout of 4G wireless broadband service and advanced systems for critical public safety and emergency response communications," Chairman Julius Genachowski stated after signing the documents. "I appreciate the commitment and dedicated efforts of everyone who has been involved in these discussions to ensure that we are making the most effective use of this valuable spectrum."

APCO International submitted comments in response to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Public Notice on a Petition submitted by Sprint Nextel Corporation regarding wideband operations in the 800 MHz band. The 800 MHz band is in the process of a comprehensive rebanding effort to move public safety licensees to the lower end of the band to create channel separation with Spring Nextel's Enhanced Specialized Mobile Radio Service (ESMR) operations. However, APCO is concerned with the introduction of any new technologies in a band that is currently undergoing a major transition, which could lead to interference issues. Therefore, APCO would recommend that Sprint Nextel be prohibited from deploying wideband operations in any region where rebanding is not complete. A copy of APCO's comments can be found here.

In response to a June 30th Public Notice, APCO recently filed comments regarding a report prepared by the LightSquared Technical Working Group to evaluate any potential interference with the Global Positioning System (GPS) operations. Based on its original deployment model, LightSquared? would severely interfere with a number of GPS devices. Even with a pledge to use 10 MHz of spectrum immediately adjacent to GPS spectrum as a buffer, additional tests must be completed to ensure such action would provide interference-free operation. A copy of APCO's comments can be found here.

The allocation of the D-Block spectrum and funding to public safety is critical to building a nationwide wireless broadband network that provides the capacity needed to transmit mission critical real-time high-resolution video, voice and data. Unless Congress passes legislation this year to allocate the D-Block spectrum to public safety, the FCC will auction the spectrum for commercial services.

Go to www.psafirst.org for more information about this top priority for APCO International and the Public Safety Alliance partners and supporters.

February 17, 2011, Alexandria, Va. - APCO supports remarks made yesterday by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. "Jay" Rockefeller, IV, at a hearing on Capitol Hill to discuss development of a nationwide wireless, mission-critical broadband network for first responders. At the hearing, Senator Rockefeller declared that the issue of allocation of D Block spectrum for public safety and funding to support its build out was the Commerce Committee's top priority. He pledged his all out effort to work with all parties to pass legislation by the 10th anniversary of 9/11 this year. Chairman Rockefeller asserted, "Far too often we talk about the important role these brave first responders play but fail to give them the tools they need to do their job. I think it is long past time to do something about that."

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a full committee hearing today titled, Safeguarding Our Future: Building a Nationwide Network for First Responders.

February 14, 2011, Alexandria, Va. -The Public Safety Alliance welcomed formal release of President Obama's budget request today, and heralded its high level inclusion of funding and mandatory commitment of resources toward establishment of a nationwide, interoperable and mission-critical public safety broadband network. The President's budget provides over $10 billion of resources in mandatory spending, offset by spectrum auction proceeds, to help build an interoperable network to strengthen economic growth and public safety, while benefitting from commercial innovation. Specifically, the President's Wireless Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative provides $7 billion in funding for building the public safety network, and includes allocation of the "D Block" spectrum within the 700 MHz band for public safety use. The budget also includes a payment of $3.2 billion to offset the funding gap created by taking the D Block off the auction schedule and reallocating it to public safety. This spectrum was previously estimated to fetch that price on the commercial market. Additionally, a Wireless Innovation Fund is created to provide $3 billion of spectrum receipts to help develop and promote cutting-edge wireless technologies to advance public safety, telemedicine, Smart Grid, other broadband capabilities, and to facilitate spectrum relocation.

February 11, 2011, Alexandria, Va. - The PSA leadership came to the Nation's Capital once again this week to ask for Members of Congress to support and co-sponsor current and pending legislation that allocates D Block and provides funding to help build the public safety broadband network. The PSA has received record numbers of commitments of bipartisan support for D Block allocation and an increasingly shared commitment among all parties involved for significant federal investment to be secured to ensure build-out and sustainment of the nationwide public safety broadband network.

January 25, 2011, Alexandria, Va. - The Public Safety Alliance today urged all Members of the United States Senate and the entire Congress to support public safety, and the public's safety, by co-sponsoring S. 28, The Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act of 2011 as a significant step toward finally realizing a nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband network. S. 28 is identical to legislation previously introduced by Chairman Rockefeller late in the Second session of the 111th Congress.