Minutes

New England Technical Advisory Committee Meeting

Region 19 700 MHz

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Massachusetts State Police General Headquarters

Framingham, MA

 

The meeting was called to order at 10:30 AM by Mr. Pohorilak. The individuals present signed the attendance sheet and checked the accuracy of their contact information.

Approval of Minutes - June 10, 2008

Mr. Pohorilak noted that there was not a quorum present. The quorum required one more member from Massachusetts or a member from another state. The minutes could not be approved in addition to any official vote on any matters. The annual election of officers will be postponed until the next official meeting.

State Update--

Connecticut: The State is involved with on going initiatives; grants and interoperability initiatives that other member States are pursuing. The State is very close to hiring two interoperability coordinators. One will serve in the Department of Public Safety the other will work for the Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

The State is also continuing to work on building out IP fiber connections to all PSAPs.

Massachusetts: Mr. Sutherland notes that interviews for Interoperability Coordinator are still being conducted. Meanwhile the Statewide Interoperability committee continues to meet without a defined leader. The components of the Interoperability committee tasks are being merged and reduced to operable levels.

New “911” legislation was passed in the Commonwealth which streamlines the funding and overseeing of the 268 primary Massachusetts PSAP’s. This legislation makes more funding available for training. Most importantly funding incentives will be made available for the PSAP’s to regionalize. The amount of funds available is based on a formula which takes into account multiple factors. Regionalization is still a matter of local concern and is defined by the Commonwealth Statutes of Massachusetts.

New Hampshire—Mr. Leary noted that the problem now seems to be that matching funds are not available from the small towns. Numerous governmental entities are continuing to compete for interoperability funding and control. Mr. Leary said he has tried to use State money for the matching portion of the grant and has been told that the local must raise the funds. It was identified several times to him that the local communities must come up with the matching funds.

All Public Safety departments have the same radio programming in zones. That allows for the availability of interoperability. The Police and Fire academies are teaching this availability so that everyone can talk with each other if needed.

FCC Update: Mr. Zarwanski reported that the FCC is looking for comments regarding the broadband frequencies in the 700 MHz segment. They were asking for the type of technical applications that would be used in the band and what it would be used for. Would it be used for high speed data, video and various other technologies? There will be a Third Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM). Mr. Zarwanski asked Mr. Leary to provide any information that he was able to disclose about the progress.

FCC Broadband Auction – D Block Carrier:

Mr. Martin Chairman of the FCC wants to complete the re-write of the rules for the public-private partnership providing obligation certainty for both the commercial side and the public safety side which includes; lowering the effective D-Block reserve price, easing the network build out. Mr. Martin wants to propose more restrictions for the PSST. He wants to insure transparency and guard against a conflict of interest

The proposed rules would also allow the entities to bid on the D-Block either as one complete nationwide license or as 58 different regions. Mr. Leary also commented on the reduction of the required percentages of coverage being proposed by the Chairman of the FCC.

 

Region 19 Plan CAPRAD sort and repack:

Mr. Pohorilak commented on the CAPRAD sort/repack and the difficulties Region 19 will be faced with when the time comes to assign frequencies from the orphan pool. The fact is this committee thought 12.5 kHz bandwidth was going to be the acceptable spectrum efficient choice. CAPRAD sort was based on 25 KHz which left Region 19 with adjacent 12.5KHz orphan channels.

 

It was noted that information about the technical parameters of the CAPRAD resort was not completely identified to the members of the Region 19 RPUC prior to the re-sort. The geographical boundaries of the sort could have been varied to meet area specific and smaller segments of the region. This might have resulted in a more practical dispersal of frequencies. A major factor entering into the Region 19 sort is the composition of the Region. It is the only Region comprised of multiple states. This caused an unequal dispersion of frequencies based on the population concentrations.

Practices for allotting the frequencies were discussed at length. Mr. Pohorilak notes that the major problem will be along the border regions between Regions 8 and 30. Mr. Zarwanski pointed to the graphic presentation of channels on a county by county basis for the CAPRAD sort. He also identified the Regions border distribution of channels 12.5KHz vs. Region 8 and 30 of 25KHz. He indicated that the orphan channels could be utilized in other areas.

NRPC / NPSTC:

Mr. Carbonell reported that the next meeting of the committee will be on Monday, September 15, 2008 in Seattle, WA. He stated there is no scheduled discussion about the national regional planning initiative. The representative of the East portion of NARPC is Jay Groce. Mr. Zarwanski notes there has been no contact from Mr. Groce to the Region 19 Chairmen in his area. The Chairman noted that Mr. Groce was on the conference call bridge from Syracuse Engineering during the CAPRAD discussions.

 

Region 8 and Region 30 700 MHz Plans:

Mr. Pohorilak states that we are not able to put to committee vote approval of the Region 8 and 30 Plans since there is not a quorum. After discussion it was determined that an electronic ballot will be sent to: accept the CAPRAD repack; approve the Region 8 Plan; and approve the Region 30 plan.

4.9 GHz:

Mr. Zarwanski states that the Committee has received about six plans or descriptions of systems to be built out. These plans will be placed on file for reference in the event of conflict.

He noted that the first letter to licensees requesting the information had no returns. It was suggested that the person(s) who become Interoperability coordinators should try to gather 4.9GHz use information.

 

 

 

 

 

New Business:

There was no new business introduced. All present agreed to adjourn. The meeting was adjourned at 12:20 PM

 

Respectfully submitted,

James A. Warakois, Secretary