Chairman Pai Remarks to the International Association of Firefighters

This past Nov, a bipartisan majority at the Federal Communications Commission adopted a vertical, or “z-axis,” location accuracy metric of plus or minus 3 meters for wireless 911 calls. That means that in the coming years you will be able to more accurately identify the floor-level for most 911 calls and reduce emergency response time.

In addition to our z-axis proceeding, I know that the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) has also taken a keen interest in the T-band. For decades, this spectrum has been used by public safety licensees in 11 of our largest cities. But back in 2012, Congress passed legislation requiring the FCC to reallocate and auction this spectrum. The agency has taken a hard look at the T-band. And we’ve concluded that moving forward with an auction of it wouldn’t be feasible. The costs to relocate public safety licensees to other spectrum would probably be much higher than any potential auction revenue we’d get from companies bidding to win licenses for this spectrum. Because of these concerns, I called on Congress last Dec to repeal the T-band auction mandate. Currently, there are bills pending in Congress that would do just that. I’m hopeful that they can get the job done soon.