Top 5 stories: Week of Jan. 19-23

Here’s a look at the most popular stories onIWCE’s Urgent Communications from last week:

1. “Motorola Solutions issues statement regarding company’s TETRA plans in North America” – Motorola Solutions declined to be interviewed by IWCE’s Urgent Communications about the company receiving FCC certification for a TETRA base station, but the company did provide a lengthy written statement. Based on that statement, in spite of appearances, the certification shouldn’t be construed as the company changing its long-held view that Project 25 should be interoperable standard for public safety in North America.

2. “Why carrier-hosted P25 as a Service provides a roadmap for greater agency participation” – Alphonso E. Hamilton, the head of strategic business with Airbus DS Communications, writes about how carrier-hosted P25 as a Service can serve as an alternative to those who have been reluctant to adopt a shared P25 service because of concerns over governance policies. 

3. “Newscan: Latest FCC auction shatters spectrum myths” – The response to the FCC’s AWS-3 auction and the $45 billion raised prove that 1 GHz and higher spectrum is more desirable than previously thought and that it holds the potential for the most capacity, Peter Rysavy wrote in Gigaom.com. “First, the record sums that are being paid for relatively high-band spectrum at 1.7 and 2.1 GHz obliterate the notion that low-band spectrum below 1 GHz is the holy grail,” Rysavy wrote. “Second, the mountain of dollars carriers are willing to spend to obtain more of the precious asset proves that more infrastructure or more efficient technology cannot be the sole solution for adding capacity to wireless networks.” Click here for more recent industry stories from other news sources.

4. “Nationwide wireless carriers alter proposed roadmap to improve location accuracy for indoor 911 calls” – Just eight days before the FCC is set to vote on the issue, the four major wireless carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile) submitted a revised proposed roadmap to the FCC. The new roadmap came nearly two months after the carriers signed an agreement with the National Emergency Number Association and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials. That initial proposal attracted criticism, and the new version, which did not include NENA and APCO as partners, didn’t fare much better. The FCC is scheduled to consider the issue this Thursday.

5. “PDV’s 900 MHz LMR-to-broadband proposal could be crossroads for critical-infrastructure comms” – IWCE’s Urgent Communications Editor Donny Jackson explains why utilities and critical-infrastructure entities should embrace Pacific DataVision’s plan to provide broadband services, if technical issues are resolved and prioritization commitments are made. “If these technical issues are addressed and prioritization assured, utilities and critical-infrastructure entities should back the PDV proposal, because it would give them a path to broadband that they do not enjoy today,” Jackson wrote in his recent column. “Even if these critical-infrastructure entities do not choose to subscribe to the PDV offering, the simple existence of a PDV offering would provide an important option and give critical-infrastructure groups additional leverage as they try to negotiate an agreement with FirstNet in future.”