The FCC Public Safety Bureau let Weld County, Colorado,...

The FCC Public Safety Bureau let Weld County, Colorado, continue to use two Business/Industrial/Land Transportation (B/ILT) channel pairs in the Greeley area despite objections from the Enterprise Wireless Alliance. The county filed an application seeking to use the channels in December 2012, saying no Sprint-vacated channels were then available for public safety use. A month after filing the application, channels became available as part of the 800 MHz rebanding. In April 2013, the bureau approved the waiver and “Weld County constructed the facilities authorized by the Bureau’s action,” the bureau said (http://bit.ly/1lPs5lx) in Tuesday’s order. EWA sought reconsideration, saying other public safety channels were available for the county’s use. The bureau acknowledged mistakes. “We have not before encountered a situation in which Sprint-vacated spectrum became available between the time a licensee submitted a request for waiver of the intercategory sharing freeze and the Bureau reached that request,” the order said. “Had the Bureau recognized that the Sprint-vacated channels had become available, that would have factored into its decision whether to grant Weld County’s waiver request. However, the Bureau lacked that recognition, as did Weld County, until after the Bureau issued its waiver order and Weld County, in reliance on that order, constructed facilities on the channels authorized by the order.” As a result, the bureau said it would not require the county to modify its system. “The immediate financial and disruptive consequences to Weld County in doing so outweigh the speculative possibility that our designating two B/ILT channels for use by Weld County could result in a shortage of channels for B/ILT use sometime in the future,” the bureau said. The order emphasized: “Proponents of waivers of the intercategory sharing freeze must keep their waiver requests current and report to the Bureau if any material assertions therein -- including, without limitation, unavailability of suitable public safety channels -- prove no longer correct."