Disqus - Latest Comments for Caver

Re: The FCC keeps making it worse for public safety

Caver — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:46:51 -0000

Rebanding would have been the perfect opportunity to get the majority of public safety on one band, which would have alleviated many problems. Instead of moving within the 800 MHz band, PS should have been given the entire D-Block and relocated there. A band plan could have been established designating certain portions of the band for voice and some for data. Then, the FCC would have been able to sell the vacated 800 MHz spectrum to offset the cost of the lost revenue from the 700 MHz band. The interference problem is gone (at least with S/N), interoperability is largely solved without the expense and performance issues of tri- and dual-band radios, and a private corporation picked-up most of the tab. And there's no need for a black box (kluge) to connect the 700 and 800 MHz PS systems together. In this country PS is still on VHF, UHF, 800 and now 700. With the money that was used for Rebanding along with that spent on interoperability, PS could have been moved to one band. Once that's done, the technical portion of interoperability is just a radio programming exercise, assuming P25 lives up to expectations. Maybe it's not too late to find a suitor willing to pay enough money for existing PS spectrum to fund it?

Re: Procrastinators win, public safety loses

Caver — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:35:25 -0000

I too got burned by the expiration date on the cards. I ordered and received my cards more than 6 months before the transition. I briefly checked and then filed them for future use. It never ocurred to me that they would expire before the February '09 deadline. When I got wind of an expiration date back in October, I checked my cards and found they had expired only a few days earlier.

I delayed using the cards because I was going to use them in a remote area and I wanted to first make sure there would be DTV coverage in the area. If not, the plan was to take the boxs back for a refund, since the coupon does not cover the full price of the box. I tried to get replacement cards issued and found out the government will not issue replacement cards.

Re: The readers always write: Sprint's interoperability proposal gets a thumbs down

Caver — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 07:52:50 -0000

I thought the same thing... 700 MHz just fragments public safety across even more bands and creates another interoperability crisis in need of a solution. Rebanding should have moved Nextel to 700 MHz and gave their vacated 800 MHz frequencies to public safety. That would have at least kept everything in the same band.