Congress to examine failure of plan for emergency communications network

A congressional panel wants to know why a plan aimed at using public airwaves and private money to create a nationwide emergency communications network failed to attract any interest in an otherwise successful spectrum auction. The House Energy and Commerce telecommunications and the Internet subcommittee on Tuesday was to hear from all five members of the Federal Communications Commission as well as key figures in the behind-the-scenes negotiations that failed to lead to an agreement to construct the wireless broadband network. The recently completed auction of a portion of the public airwaves, while raising a record $19.1 billion, failed to attract a bidder to build the network. Disasters like Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, revealed limitations of the nation's emergency communications networks, like the inability of police and firefighters to communicate with one another. Ideally, a new network would help solve the interoperability problem and avail emergency personnel of many of the advances in wireless technology that are available to commercial users.
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