NTIA: Give early public-safety deployments the full 700 MHz allocation

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) wants the Federal Communications Commission to revisit its recent order authorizing early public-safety LTE network deployments on 10 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum and instead open up the full 20 MHz available in that band for public safety.

"NTIA believes that such action would further the critical goal of advancing interoperability as well as mitigating cost concerns associated with the deployment of a nationwide public safety broadband network," wrote Lawrence Strickling, assistant secretary for communications and information, in a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. On July 30, the FCC adopted an order permitting limited deployment of broadband networks for first responders using the existing public safety broadband spectrum allocation of 763-768/793-798 MHz, which is leased out by the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST). Only jurisdictions complying with the commission's Special Temporary Authority (STA) rules will be allowed to use this spectrum for early deployments.