LMR licensing activity sees business-industrial growth, slight public-safety decrease

Business-industrial land-mobile-radio (LMR) licensing activity in 2024 reached its highest level in five years, while public-safety LMR licensing, while public-safety LMR licensing dropped slightly to its lowest figure in four years, according to figures from the FCC’s online Universal Licensing System (ULS) database.

As of Thursday, the FCC had granted 10,447 of the 10,806 business-industrial LMR licenses submitted during 2024—the first time since 2019 that the agency has granted more than 10,000 LMR licenses for the sector. It also marks the third consecutive year that the number of business-industrial LMR licenses has increased.

In the event that all 359 pending business-industrial LMR licensing applications are approved—an admittedly unlikely event—the resulting total would be the largest figure for the sector since 2016, when 13,945 licenses were granted.

Despite these encouraging trends, the 2024 business-industrial licensing activity—even with the most optimistic projection—still ranks among the lower totals in the 24-year history of the FCC’s only ULS database. The 2024 figure will mark the eighth consecutive year that the business-industrial entities has failed to have 11,000 LMR licenses granted by the FCC—a stark contrast to the previous 16 years, when the agency annually approved at least 11,256 LMR licenses for the sector.

As a point of comparison, even the most optimistic business-industrial LMR licensing total for 2024 would represent a 63.5% decrease from the 29,569 licenses granted to the sector in 2012, which was significantly influenced by the FCC’s narrowbanding mandate.

Public-safety entities submitted 2,993 applications for LMR license during 2024, with the FCC granting 2,954 as of Thursday. Even if all of the 39 pending public-safety applications are granted, the resulting figure will be the lowest in four years and will mark only the second time that fewer than 3,000 public-safety LMR licenses have been approved during the 24-year history of the FCC’s online database.

The only other time public-safety licensing has dipped below the 3,000 mark was in 2020, when activity was limited dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public safety’s LMR licensing figures in 2024 continues a trend of lackluster activity for the sector, which has failed to reach 4,000 FCC licenses granted during each of the last eight years. As a point of comparison, the FCC granted at least 4,248 public-safety LMR licenses during each of the previous 14 years, from 2002 through 2015.

Even the most optimistic total of public-safety LMR licenses during 2024 represents a 71.8% decrease from the all-time high total of 10,602 granted for the sector during 2012, when entities were trying to meet the FCC’s narrowbanding deadline.