If the Public Safety Spectrum Alliance’s (PSSA) objective was truthfully to “raise awareness about public safety communication needs, including the use of the 4.9 GHz Band,” they would unequivocally support the waiver request filed by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). BART plans to add an additional 1,500 fixed stations to its existing system within its present, licensed geographic area. PSSA is urging the FCC not to act but to punt to the future 4.9 GHz Band Manager. I mean really, who else is going to deploy a 4.9 GHz system, regardless of the technology, on top of BART’s infrastructure? And who has the years to wait while the FCC selects the Band Manager who must then negotiate a sharing arrangement with FirstNet before beginning its work. Not BART, which is already in the process of a multi-year $1 Billion deployment effort. PSSA’s argument that BART’s waiver request should be set aside until such time as the FCC has selected the Band Manager who will then make a “fulsome”* assessment of the impact on existing licensees is nothing more than a circuitous attempt to preserve as much geography in the band as possible for AT&T, FirstNet’s partner. The existing licensee that the Band Manager will be required to protect is BART! End of discussion.

The complaint throughout this now two-decade proceeding has been that public safety has not made appropriate use of the band. As EWA President Robin Cohen stated, “BART did exactly what the FCC asked public safety entities to do by putting the 4.9 GHz band to work in the public interest. Granting the waiver would send a clear signal that incumbent entities that have invested in this band will be supported, even as the regulatory framework evolves.”

*PSSA presumably means to indicate the assessment would be “full,” rather than the common meaning of the word today as indicating “excessively flattering, insincere, or over-the-top,” as in fulsome praise.