FCC official addresses T-Band issue during hearing before Congress

In addition, many question whether the public-safety T-Band spectrum would be attractive to wireless carriers in an auction, noting that the available airwaves would not be geographically uniform and may not be in the large contiguous blocks that commercial providers prefer. The fact that the law does not require business-industrial licensees to vacate the spectrum could be another complicating factor.

These limitations have caused many industry sources to speculate that there would not be enough money bid in an auction to pay for the relocation of the large public-safety T-Band systems—especially because such relocations presumably would be to higher-frequency spectrum, which would require additional sites.

What could alter this scenario would be the success of FirstNet. FirstNet’s promised data capabilities could result in the significant reduction of the amount of voice traffic on LMR networks, meaning fewer channels may be needed and more T-Band relocation options could exist, according to some.

But the most-watched aspect in this area is the development of mission-critical voice/push-to-talk (PTT) services across the FirstNet system. If FirstNet provides the kind of reliability, security and performance that public-safety entities need, first-responder entities in the T-Band markets at some point could be willing to retire their LMR systems operating in the band and opt to rely on FirstNet, according to several industry sources.

Of course, there is no industry consensus about when this might happen. A mission-critical PTT standard for LTE is supposed to be finished next month, and equipment enabling the functionality is expected in 2018. However, FirstNet officials have been outspoken that public-safety users would determine when they are comfortable enough with the mission-critical-voice technology to utilize it in various first-responder scenarios.

In fact, FirstNet President TJ Kennedy said during the hearing that FirstNet continues to encourage public-safety entities to invest in their LMR network.