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The shared public/private access would not have been free access. Public safety would have paid for access, though the first "chunk" of access would be at below-commercial rates since public safety gave up some of its spectrum for this network to be built.

"The FCC paired the upper band D block (a single 10 MHz nationwide license) with 10MHz of public safety spectrum located next to the D block, and conditioned the D block license on an obligation to negotiate with public safety representatives towards the construction by the D block licensee of a nationwide public safety network. The idea was that a robust, dedicated public safety network would be built to the specifications of the public safety community, and in exchange the commercial licensee of the D Block would be permitted to use the public safety spectrum (in addition, of course, to the D Block spectrum) when it was not otherwise needed. Absent this private participation, funding for a shared public safety network was unavailable." -- http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1370

The sticking points were instead things such as "the network must be able to serve 99.3% of the U.S. population by 2019," "the need to be 99.9% reliable" and pre-emption over other users for public safety's 10 MHz of spectrum. See MRT Magazine for more info about the proposal.

http://mrtmag.com/mag/radio_shuttle_blackout_myth/

and

Who the fuck authorized the usage of 2.4 GHZ with wireless routers when the phones already had that spectrum?

The phones didn't "already have" that spectrum. 2.4 GHz is "non-licensed" spectrum, meaning it's open to anyone's use with caveats. Anyone can build a 2.4 Ghz (or 900 MHz or 5 GHz) device as long as it follows certain rules about max power output (see here for details). Originally 900 MHz/2.4 GHz/5 GHz was "industrial, scientific & medical" use -- it wasn't intended for radio transmission at all, it was to designate certain bands off-limits to radio because ISM devices radiated lots of incidental noise in those bands.

You can build a 2.4 GHz white-noise radiator as long as it follows the FCC rules for the spectrum. It'll piss off your neighbors with 802.11 or cordless phones but there's not a damn thing they have a right to do about it.

Not for long. Sprint purchased Nextel and is migrating them off of Motorola's proprietary iDEN network over to CDMA REV-A. The combined network is too big for the 10.x.x.x address space.

http://www.wirelessweek.com/article.aspx?id=76946

http://mrtmag.com/mag/radio_pt_cellular_works/

Little did he realize that traffic backed up so far in one area that it was backing up on a freeway exit. A crash happened and fatalities ensues. Guy went to jail. However, this falls under manslaughter.

A 911 service now falls under terrorism (possibly). Thanks to Homeland Security I would bet it would get a harsher penalty.

True life story is of a guy from my neck of the woods, Rajib Mitra, who was recently given 8 years in federal prison because he interfered with police radio frequencies.

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Mitra, 26, was convicted in March of two counts of transmitting communications to a protected police computer. Madison police testified that the Brookfield man blocked their radio signals intermittently over several hours Halloween night 2003 and later broadcast sex sounds after losing a court case over a parking ticket Nov. 11.

"It's not New York or Sept. 11, it's based on immaturity by the defendant," Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim O'Shea said. "But it is domestic terrorism."

http://september11.mrtmag.com/ar/radio_world_trade _center/

Two dozen or more hams per shift are covering communications and logistical support for the American Red Cross as well as supplementing communication for the New York City Office of Emergency Management.

you were saying?

This is politicking from the ham radio community. They are worried because internet over powerline would be far more valuable than ham radio. They worry that if trials are successful the FCC will abandon them for more internet access. This is akin to car companies wanting to ban dangerous unsafe cars for Japan in the 70s. The car's might be unsafe, but that's not why the car companies are against it.

So some points:

1. It doesn't have to be better than dsl, cable, or fiber optic to help competition. Many people would be happy to upgrade from their 56k modems. Seen the ads for NetZero? It's crazy but some people are still paying $8 per month for dialup. If you are a slashdot reader you're like "damn dude pay the extra 15 bucks", but other people have lives. By providing a cheaper alternative it also puts pricing pressure on dsl and cable. It really is good for everyone who buys internet access.

2. If it's slow and crappy people won't by it. Like a, metricom's richocet. So the government doesn't need to strangle the baby here to save people from being suckered in. If this is such an obviously dumb idea why are entrepreneurs and companies funding development of it?

3. Ham is really cool, both my dad and grandfather use it. But we can survive a little interference with it, while we figure out how to make the two systems work together. In other words, Ham radio is not in fact of a vital communications link for the US. It's a neat hobby that is occasionally life saving (usually when some rural Ham operator has a heart attack). The point of pilot programs is to discover these issues and work them out.

4. With emergency services, they are starting out with different frequencies based on the city so that there will be no interference. There is a chance (but a very small one) that misconfigured or resonant wires will cause interference with their motorola radios. What the author didn't mention is that this happens a bit already. There are lots of locations where cops know their radios won't always work right now for the same way your cell phone doesn't work everywhere. For example police departments already have problems with interference with cell phones http://mrtmag.com/news/commentary/first_response_c oalition/ Most cops and paramedics carry cellphones and/or pagers already to account for this. It's not like these folks are drones. They are smart folks and the world isn't going to end if there is some crackle on their radio for a couple of minutes. So the very small risk is well worth the possible benefit.

What the FCC is doing is allowing these trials, by lowering the definition from no interference to "try really really hard" not to interfere. Now it's up to the companies make it work.

The FCC is being entirely reasonable here and we should note that similar arguments were made by first responders and broadcasters at the introduction of wifi. Without Powell's decision wifi would still be in the lab.