WHEREAS, in September 1996, the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee (PSWAC) documented an additional spectrum requirement of 3 MHz immediately and 25 MHz by the year 2000 to meet the communication needs of the public safety community; and

WHEREAS, in response to this demonstrated need and requirements, with support from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Major Cities Chiefs, and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, the Congress directed in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocate 4 TV Channels (24 MHz) of spectrum for exclusive public safety use; and

WHEREAS, in December 1997 the FCC allocated 764-776 and 794-806 MHz for such use; and

WHEREAS, actual access to this 24 MHz of spectrum within the 764-806 MHz band to deploy public safety communications systems requires determination of an interoperability standard by the Public Safety National Coordinating Committee (NCC); and

WHEREAS, the NCC desires to support access to and licensing of this additional public safety spectrum as quickly as practical, consistent with user needs, FCC reallocation initiatives, and Congressional requirements to begin licensing; and

WHEREAS, the FCC requires that all narrowband mobile and portable 746 MHz band public safety radios be capable of operating on all of the narrowband interoperability channels; and

WHEREAS, the FCC has determined that any standard recommended to the Commission by the NCC must be developed under an open process, governed by ANSI or standards approved by ANSI or a similar standards body; and

WHEREAS, the FCC requires that the 746 MHz band public safety equipment be designed to use digital modulation as its primary modulation mode when operating on the interoperability channels; and

WHEREAS, the Project 25 standards that already exist were developed by the public safety community, including a broad range of local, state, and federal users; and

WHEREAS, the Project 25 standards that already exist have resulted in an ANSI-approved common air interface (CAI) and vocoder digital interoperability standard; and

WHEREAS, the Project 25 standards suite incorporates provisions for both conventional and trunked operation in accordance with the standards; and

WHEREAS, the Project 25 standards incorporate provisions for direct unit-to-unit ("talkaround") mobile-base and repeater-assisted communications in accordance with the standards; and

WHEREAS, Equipment meeting the Project 25 standards have been deployed in the US public safety market within the VHF, UHF and 800 MHz band spectrum allocated to the public safety entities; and

WHEREAS, The two recent proposals from Ericsson and Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) for Project 25 Phase II Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) both recommended the Project 25 Phase I CAI and vocoder for their interoperability mode; and

WHEREAS, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, at the annual business meeting on October 20, 1993, joined other public safety organizations in supporting the Project 25 initiative and its standard-setting process for digital radio communication systems for public safety; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the International Association of Chiefs of Police, at the annual business meeting on November 3, 1999, recommends that the Federal Communications Commission immediately adopt a reference to Project 25 as the interim interoperability standard into its rules governing public safety use of the 764-776 and 794-806 MHz bands.