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4.9 GHz

As many are aware, last year the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided public safety was not making sufficient use of the 50 MHz of spectrum in the 4.9-GHz band the Commission had made available to the public-safety community for Wi-Fi-type services starting in 2002.

The FCC’s idea was to assign the spectrum to each state and each state could then award a master lease for the spectrum. The successful leaseholder would then be able to determine how the spectrum would be used within that state, and supposedly protect existing public-safety users of the spectrum.

The Public Safety Spectrum Alliance (PSSA) filed a number of comments and then filed a request for stay to prevent the FCC from moving forward with its intended plan. In 2021, the new FCC implemented the stay order and to a limited extent, began permitting public safety to once again license systems for use in the 4.9-GHz band…