Letter from Public Safety Associations Expressing Concern With the 800 MHz Rebanding Process

Today the following Public Safety Associtions submitted a letter to the FCC expressing their grave concern with the status of the 800 MHz Rebanding process. Those associations are:

Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International
International Association of Chiefs of Police
International Association of Fire Chiefs
Major Cities Chiefs Association
Major County Sheriffs’ Association
National Sheriffs’ Association

Below are some of the key reasons that these associations have heard why the Request For Planning Funding process has stalled.

"We have heard many reasons why the Request for Planning Funding process has stalled, including :

• the lack of timely responses from Sprint Nextel to Requests for Planning Funding;
• the lack of clear guidance from the TA or established precedents to follow;
• a reconfiguration schedule that “front-loaded” heavily populated areas into the first wave;
• significant disputes between major vendors and Sprint Nextel regarding the cost and detail of proposed planning services;
• demands from Sprint Nextel that licensees provide extraordinarily detailed cost estimates, despite the estimates being “not-to-exceed” numbers with a “true-up” process;
• an apparent “disconnect” between Sprint Nextel and the TA regarding what is required or permitted in the Request for Planning Agreement;
• TA forms and procedures that have changed mid-stream;
• vendors who combined reconfiguration tasks into planning estimates or otherwise overestimated costs;
• an apparent lack of understanding by Sprint Nextel of the complexity of public safety systems and the need for detailed and properly managed planning for band reconfiguration;
• an apparent lack of personnel resources devoted by Sprint Nextel to the process;
• the inability of the TA to track negotiations; and
• insufficient knowledge of the process by public safety agency personnel.

Do any of these reasons sound familiar to you???

For a full copy of the letter, click here.