FCC to take on public-safety network without addressing D Block controversy

“The FCC sees the creation of a public-safety mobile broadband network as a priority and we will continue to move forward with initiatives in this area that will help advance interoperable communications for America’s first responders,” said Robert Kenny, an FCC spokesman. 

The D Block, a controversy this item does not address, is a chunk of airwaves that Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va) and incoming House Homeland Security Chairman Pete King (R-N.Y.) want devoted solely to public safety.

The issue became controversial because FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and other Democrats, including former House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), wanted officials to share the spectrum with commercial purposes in a plan they said was equally safe and more efficient.