The 700MHz '
D Block' has been the subject of much debate over the past few years, primarily because the FCC's master plan to auction it off -- yet require the winner to open up the waves for public safety use on command -- didn't exactly pan out. Post-failure, the agency
made clear its plans to host up
another auction or two in order to accomplish the same goal via slightly different means, but now public safety entities are coming forward with a healthy amount of opposition. Rob Davis, head of the San Jose Police Department, puts it bluntly: "If they auction this spectrum, we've lost it forever." These public safety officials also have allies in Congress, with many worried that auctioning off the spectrum may lead to an inability to accurately wield bandwidth in a hurry if needed during a national emergency. The
FCC plan also alleviates the cost issue, but public advocates have a solution there as well -- they say that if given the 'D Block' outright, they could "lease excess airwaves to commercial carriers since they would not always need all of it." Of course, that's a pretty big assumption about the willingness of carriers to lease space, and we suspect a lot more back-and-forth will go on here in the coming months. Oh, the drama.
posted July 27th 2010 8:18AM
Straight out the D Block, son
@paul34 It's actually a GREAT idea to give this block to public safety to decrease their costs. If we decrease public safety's costs (which is *taxpayer funded*), then we decrease our governments costs. That's kind of a no brainer.
@bstump They can actually acquire it cheaper through itunes...
@bstump
You fail at being a bureaucrat. What will actually happen is they'll increase their budget even more, end up overbudgeting, create a sub-agency to oversee the overseers of that spectrum, spend even more than they would have otherwise, then increase taxes again anyway... which will start the cycle all over again.
There's no actual cost decreasing when it comes to government spending.
Ha HAAA (jadakiss laugh)
@LIMITPROOF
LOL, beat me to it!
No surprise that Moto, Sprint, ATT, etc all want to see the D block go to public safety. Sprint and ATT block out any competition (while getting lucrative long term operations contracts), Moto gets to sell yet another police radio.
Does anyone believe their BS anymore?
The gov'ment cant afford it, including the city of San Jose... they are already $100 million in the hole for this year alone.
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/budget/FY1011/2010-2011PreliminaryGFForecast11052009.pdf
"A shortfall of $96.4 million is projected for 2010-2011, which is above the most recent
estimate of $91.6 million developed at the time the 2009-2010 Budget was adopted. This
updated budget gap for 2010-2011 represents 10.8% of the projected expenditures for next
year. The increase in the shortfall reflects the net impact of lower estimated expenditure
levels ($29.4 million) that are more than offset by lower projected revenue levels ($34.2
million). The most significant changes include: net downward adjustments to a number of
the economically sensitive revenue estimates and the 2009-2010 Ending Fund Balance/201 02011
Beginning Fund Balance assumption; downward adjustments to the revenue and
expenditure estimates for the Development Fee Programs; lower cost assumptions for the
increased retirement contributions necessary in 2010-2011; and lower base costs resulting
from the analysis of actual expenditure trends and updated debt service costs."
@wraith404 So 91 million means they cant afford it? Its alot of money to us. its an amount rich person might consider spending. Its what some companies pay their CEO alone (if not pretty close)) trust me 91 mil is nothing to the US even at this current time of crisis
@SskyNnet
That's just one year of deficit for one city. I'm just pointing out that this particular police chief that was quoted needs to worry about his current budget, not new projects and new costs. The borrowing needs to stop.
carries lease space all the time
the lease spectrum ,towers, backhual everything actually
@DefPoet They buy the spectrum licenses, but yes, they do lease towers and purchase backhaul.
Jadakiss, Styles P, and Sheek won't be too happy about this.
And this is where LTE dies...
I thought verizon already started manufacturing 4G USIM Cards just for this 700Mhz 4G Band
Psh, they don't need it, they just want it.