By a vote of 21-4, the Senate Commerce Committee approved an amended version of S. 911, a bill that would allocate the 700 MHz D block to establish a nationwide interoperable broadband network for use for public safety. Sixteen of eighty amendments proposed prior to the mark-up on Wednesday were adopted in the final version. Staff will attempt to iron out differences between the version introduced by Sens. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ) and the version approved by the Senate Commerce Committee before sending the bill to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to schedule Floor consideration. Timing for full Senate consideration is uncertain given the limited amount of time available on the Senate calendar, although Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) emphasized that he has made passage of this bill before September 11, 2011 his number one priority.

Of note to utilities, the bill as passed includes several provisions which address the concerns that would have had the potential to limit opportunities for utilities to partner with public safety in the construction and operations of the network: 1) The requirement for backwards compatibility with 2G and 3G networks has been modified to situations "where such capabilities are necessary and technically and economically reasonable;" and 2) the network should leverage existing commercial "or other communications infrastructure" in its build-out. However, the retention of priority access for public safety still remains.

The bill creates a Public Safety Broadband Corporation in lieu of the Public Safety Spectrum Trust to oversee the network construction, funding and operations. The 15-member board of directors would be headed by the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the US Attorney General, the Director of Office of Management and Budget and 11 additional non-federal members to be appointed by the Commerce Secretary. Concerns were raised that the creation of this new bureaucracy would lead to unnecessary federal regulations, add to costs and slow the actual creation of the network.
Other provisions of the bill include a spectrum inventory of all federal and nonfederal spectrum license holders, which will be made accessible on a public website. Limited exemptions for national security and public safety are available, but further revision is needed to ensure that information pertaining to licenses held by those in the energy and water critical infrastructure is withheld from disclosure on the public website.

The prognosis for favorable consideration of similar legislation in the House is less than certain.