For those who don't remember, this is only part of the story. The FCC ordered them to shut down the system because the State of Nevada did not have licenses at all. The did not obtain coordination from APCO or the Railroad Industry (some of the input frequencies were on those normally allocated to railroads) User's Group or whatever it is called, and they did not even apply for many, if not most of the frequencies. This is pretty blatent in my opinion. They came out publically only when the issue was raised in Nevada media and said it was "an oversight." That is akin to a tour bus comapany saying they forgot to license the busses or their drivers before carrying passengers.
About $15 million was wasted. It is too bad because they would have been assured interoperability in all of the state except for Washoe and Clark Counties, as well as with the federal government (save the DEA) and NDOW and NDF. Who knows what would have developed in those urban areas if the NHP had done this correctly? In areas of low population density with scarce electronic sites, statewide implementation of 800 MHz trunking is proving to be very problematic.
By the way, I make it a point to program in state DOT's in my mobile scanners wherever I go. I've been saved dozens of hours stuck in traffic due to congestion, repairs, accidents, and hazmat situations because I know the system's DOT's use and how they are operated. DOT traffic is almost as essential as highway patrol traffic, maybe even more as DOT systems are almost always on repeaters and their personnel are usually more descriptive when reporting road conditions than the highway patrols are.
