McCain-Lieberman Bill

Below is a link to the McCain-Lieberman Senate press release announcing legislation to give public safety to the D Block and $11B in funding. Attached is the draft legislation. At first blush, it looks pretty good and gives $5.5B for construction (80-20 match) and $5.5B for operations and maintenance. The money comes from an auction of the 1.7 and 2.1 GHz band. It also looks like the 700 MHz voice channels are protected. There is one interesting caveat in the bill; the FCC is directed to perform a study to look at the issues of completely moving public safety into the 700 and 800 MHz band in the future.

http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=f6f4bfa4-ece0-1ceb-98e1-ebbdcd599205

I’ll update everyone as I learn more about this bill and how it may contrast with other legislation in the hopper.