FCC sees surge in public-safety LMR licensing

[mikepdx]

I'm not sure what this exactly means, but I thought I'd share it.

FCC sees surge in public-safety LMR licensing

 

[mmckenna]

40% is a pretty good jump.

This gets reported periodically and the numbers go up and down all the time. Sometimes licensing increases, sometimes it drops off. I think there's some that read into it as an indicator of the health of the radio world, but not sure how accurate it is. I think often they are looking to use it as an indicator to show how many are migrating to cellular/PTToC/or leasing service from someone else.

 

[nd5y]

It doesn't even say if it's new licenses or renewals.

 

[mmckenna]

It doesn't even say if it's new licenses or renewals.

It's usually just new licenses.

 

[cg]

I would say it is strange that the last big surge was in 2015 or the 10 years it would take for those same 2015 licenses to just expire. An interesting number would be those that were truly new as opposed to those licensees who held the same frequencies at the same locations but for various reasons received a new callsign (which is what I would guess was counted for the story). My local EMS channel was just granted a "new" license but it was because they failed to do a timely renewal of the exact same system.

 

[mrsvensven]

Ever since the FCC stopped sending mailed paper reminders of pending license expirations, the number of agencies unintentionally allowing their licenses to expire is through the roof. So there are also a large number of agencies applying for new licenses to "get back" the frequencies that they allowed to expire.

 

[lenk911]

I think it is a misleading report. The FCC is in the throws of a relicensing of the 4940-4990 MHZ low density public safety microwave/mobile data band. Original licenses were a "light" version of a microwave license. On 12/8/2024 they mandated all who want to keep their licenses need to to migrate to a microwave format license in the PB and PF radio services. Those PA licenses not migrated and approved by 7/8/2025 will turn into a "pumpkin". This is in anticipation of the FCC shifting licensing over to First Net and opening the band sharing with critical industries.

This band is popular as a modestly priced low density connection of a rural PSAP to a state trunk node or interconnecting sites in a low density VHF/UHF conventional radio system.

 

[TampaTyron]

I had an indepth discussion with EWA executives about this at a recent Motorola MSS meeting. EWA is pushing for the FCC to migrate to 5 year renewals as it would: A-increase revenue and B-cut out a lot of dead licensing for agencies/org who no longer need the freqs. After reviewing a sample of Commercial LMR licenses, I see a ton of businesses that have closed, abandoned the radio system, or changed hands and relicensed. I think it may be a good idea.

TT

 

[mmckenna]

B-cut out a lot of dead licensing for agencies/org who no longer need the freqs.

I'm all for this. Along with requiring some proof that all those VHF pairs they are sitting on are actually used and not just being sat on so no one else can have them. Too many areas that have gone to 700 Trunked systems that are sitting on a ton of unused VHF pairs.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

I had an indepth discussion with EWA executives about this at a recent Motorola MSS meeting. EWA is pushing for the FCC to migrate to 5 year renewals as it would: A-increase revenue and B-cut out a lot of dead licensing for agencies/org who no longer need the freqs. After reviewing a sample of Commercial LMR licenses, I see a ton of businesses that have closed, abandoned the radio system, or changed hands and relicensed. I think it may be a good idea.

TT

It is very difficult to get frequencies in southeast Florida.
1) The dealers gobble them up for radio rentals.
2) The NXDN systems create a situation whereby if a .0625 channel offset is licensed, the remaining chunk is only good for NXDN.
3) Unlicensed users: I had a coordinator tell me there was so much unlicensed that we should just monitor for a clear channel. My answer to him was do your job and let the FCC deal with the unlicensed users.

I had a major client that needed a system narrowbanded. I found they had long lapsed an old Motorola license for a major site in Broward. The three different dealers they worked with loaded all their radios with frequencies the client had no license for. A big mess.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

I'm all for this. Along with requiring some proof that all those VHF pairs they are sitting on are actually used and not just being sat on so no one else can have them. Too many areas that have gone to 700 Trunked systems that are sitting on a ton of unused VHF pairs.

The FCC needs to do what they did decades ago and require licensees to certify (Under threat of perjury) they have constructed and still maintain all the channels they have. The bigger entities are the worst and you have to pry those channels from them.

 

[N4DES]

I'm all for this. Along with requiring some proof that all those VHF pairs they are sitting on are actually used and not just being sat on so no one else can have them. Too many areas that have gone to 700 Trunked systems that are sitting on a ton of unused VHF pairs.

Unfortunately the same FCC "turn-back" requirements that originally existed for the 800 MHz NPSPAC licensure doesn't exist for the 700 MHz band. We turned in a lot of VHF/LB pairs around 2004/2005 after the migration to 800 was competed in late 2001/2002 and my previous employer's conventional infrastructure was being de-commissioned.

 

[hanlonmi06]

The unintentional license expiration scenario is exactly what I am faced with currently at work. License lapsed, no one noticed until some more radios got ordered and just out of curiosity I looked it up. It is a struggle right now to get management to understand the importance of this issue as we rely heavily on the HH radios and the lil' Motorola box in the corner quietly humming away doing repeater stuff. Since its not a production inhibiting pain point, they are dragging their feet, meanwhile the clocks ticking.

And the issue stands that no one is ever going to know to stay on top of this as turnover occurs and there is no "internal" audit of taking care of the admin of all this. I'm just the guy with the antennas on his truck so "surely you must know something about this, can you fix it?"...If a letter was sent notifying some admin schlep that something had to get done, questions would begin to get asked, maybe it would be caught in time, and we wouldn't be operating illegally in way that no one actually gives a rats patootie about cuz....it doesn't stop production.

 

[mmckenna]

Unfortunately the same FCC "turn-back" requirements that originally existed for the 800 MHz NPSPAC licensure doesn't exist for the 700 MHz band. We turned in a lot of VHF/LB pairs around 2004/2005 after the migration to 800 was competed in late 2001/2002 and my previous employer's conventional infrastructure was being de-commissioned.

I was always really good about canceling licenses if I no longer needed the frequency. I can look back on one or two where I wish I'd kept them since it's been difficult to get new VHF frequencies.

 

[TampaTyron]

We are trying to migrate FCC license away from Joe Blow facilities/security/IT guy and point it towards legal/compliance departments. This is a double edged sword. We are also offering FCC maintenance as a service, which is a growing area of our business.

We are also now building systems with at least 1-2 extra repeater pairs included in the combining/filtering/channel plans as a mitigation around interference AND to allow for expansion. Freq X is dirty, so we move Repeater X to freq Y that is already in the combining and site channel lists.

TT

 

[AM909]

We are trying to migrate FCC license away from Joe Blow facilities/security/IT guy and point it towards legal/compliance departments. This is a double edged sword. We are also offering FCC maintenance as a service, which is a growing area of our business.

We are also now building systems with at least 1-2 extra repeater pairs included in the combining/filtering/channel plans as a mitigation around interference AND to allow for expansion. Freq X is dirty, so we move Repeater X to freq Y that is already in the combining and site channel lists.

TT

I'm assuming, at the end of the one-year construction requirement, you don't report the unused channels as operational? Does the FCC actually get around to modifying the license when that happens? (Not being snarky here – I forgot anything I learned about licensing decades ago, and mostly farm it out in my current deployment. )

 

[N4DES]

I'm assuming, at the end of the one-year construction requirement, you don't report the unused channels as operational? Does the FCC actually get around to modifying the license when that happens? (Not being snarky here – I forgot anything I learned about licensing decades ago, and mostly farm it out in my current deployment. )

If one does a "license modification" that adds additional sites and/or frequencies and a satisfaction of construction isn't followed, yes, the FCC will remove the added sites and/or frequencies. If it's a new license the satisfaction of construction is in whole, and you must also state at that time how many subscribers are programmed.

 

[speedway_navigator]

We are also now building systems with at least 1-2 extra repeater pairs included in the combining/filtering/channel plans as a mitigation around interference AND to allow for expansion. Freq X is dirty, so we move Repeater X to freq Y that is already in the combining and site channel lists.

I started doing that at Bearcom after we had some jamming issues which we believed was a former employee. I would change to my unused freqs on race day

 

[speedway_navigator]

I think it is a misleading report. The FCC is in the throws of a relicensing of the 4940-4990 MHZ low density public safety microwave/mobile data band.

Is this what APCO was spun up about? It seems like every special interest group does an 'OMG the sky is falling' press release when they see bandwidth sharing pop up.
Remember all the hype about planes falling out of the sky due to 5G causing RFI with altimeters?