Proposed legislation to allocate to public safety a 10 megahertz swath of spectrum known as the D block would pay for construction of a national first responder broadband network with auctions of spectrum licenses voluntarily returned by broadcasters.

"With incentive auctions, we can pair this with funding," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), who introduced Jan. 25 the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act (S.28). Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation committee, held a Feb. 16 hearing on the bill.

The bill would encourage spectrum license holders to return to the Federal Communications Commission their license for re-auction by giving them case-by-case piece of the proceeds based on how much their relinquished spectrum contributes to new services.

As for the government's portion of the auction takings, $5.5 billion would go to a national broadband network construction fund, another $5.5 billion would go to a network operations and maintenance cause. Any auction proceeds worth more than $11 billion would go to other government projects such as the NextGen air traffic control modernization effort, development of high-speed rail, and development of a smart grid electricity transmission network.

Rockefeller's bill would also allow the Commerce Department to borrow $2 billion from the Treasury to start network construction, to be paid back from auction proceeds by Dec. 31, 2015.  

Many public safety groups have said that without them controlling the D block license, plans for a national broadband wireless network won't come to fruition. The Obama administration announced in January that it now supports allocation of the D block license to public safety.

The FCC has said as recently as mid 2010 that public safety's existing 10 MHz broadband license adjacent to the D block is sufficient for most situations and that it would sell the D block to the private sector with the proviso that public safety get priority access to the bandwidth when necessary.

Indeed, proponents of auctioning the D block have said that private sector licensing of the D block is vital to development of the first responder network, since companies would create commercial end-user devices that would be compatible with the D block and public safety's existing 10 MHz license.

"With no commercial economies of scale, public safety will again find itself held hostage by a limited number of providers, resulting in the same low demand, high cost marketplace," said Joe Hanna, president of wireless telecommunications consultancy Directions, at the hearing.

Other witness panels said they're not against sharing spectrum with the private sector, but that they need to control the license and the network specifications.

"We know from past experience that we can't totally depend on system run by the private sector. They are too susceptible to failure in a crisis," said Raymond Kelly, New York City police commissioner.

During the hearing, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), said he supports allocation of the D block to public safety, but expressed concern about funding sources for the network operations and maintenance

"No network is ever finished, there's always going to be upgrades, and we're going to need to make sure that there's some dedicated source, other than coming back to Congress on a regular basis," he said.

For more:
- go to the hearing webpage
- go to the THOMAS page of S. 28

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