Hopefully it will be a lot more years, like forever before the change actually happens! There have been so many problems with UHF usage for the fire service that departments all over the nation are dropping it like a hot potato in many cases.
Please cite some instances of problems from UHF usage, preferably from NIOSH or NIST.
It's a frequency band. Nothing more. Each one of the public safety bands has unique characteristics that make it better for certain environments. The wave propagation characteristics of UHF tend to do better in urban areas, and that's been documented through a number of empirical studies.
Whenever there is a deployment of new technology, the sea monster stories follow. Twenty years ago, I was reading (and writing) about 800 MHz trunked radio systems being "bad juju" for the fire service. And it was. It's impossible to cover everything with one site (even on VHF). Lessons were learned and wide area coverage solutions were implemented. Sixteen years ago, I was reading (and writing) about P25 implementation being bad juju the fire service. And it was. The fireground is a noisy environment, and is nothing like a sterile, quiet testing lab. While less mentioned, cops had a problem, too, as wind noise would "take out" their speech. A number of industry and stakeholder players got together and investigated the problem, then implemented solutions (like a different vocoder that's better suited for noisy environments, along with training for firefighters and best practices).
There will eventually be the painful implementation curve for 700 MHz LTE and 5G connectivity. It's coming, and so are the sea monster stories, and there will be fixes.
Today's fire service is HEAVILY engaged in the technology that they rely on. Members from a number of departments, paid and volunteer, sit side by side with manufacturers in standards-making committees. They're open meetings. You can go to them, too, or submit comments online. Your peers will go through them and give them serious consideration.
FDNY's VHF frequencies are ALL shared with other agencies in the region, both input and output. The UHF frequencies have exclusivity within the region due to their channel loading and by how the FCC constructed the rulemaking to carve out the spectrum used.
But VHF will work absolutely fine for other departments in certain environments, especially those with less-dense usage. And so will Low Band in some cases. It all depends on environment. There's no cookie cutter solution.
