The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week gave the permission  for 21 states, cities and counties to build out public safety networks using 10 MHz of spectrum granted to the public safety community in 1997.

FCC approvals included conditions that the waiver jurisdictions build LTE networks that would interoperate with the proposed 700 MHz nationwide broadband system and that all public-safety entities in the geographic area be invited to use the new networks. The plan for that spectrum has been to create a nationwide interoperable network, and the waivers were granted under the condition that the state, county or city networks would be interoperable. 

"My largest concern at this point is that Seattle and other jurisdictions be allowed to bring on second responders — utilities, public-works departments and transportation departments — as secondary users to public safety, because they play such a vital role to public safety and to help spread the construction and operations costs," city of Seattle CTO Bill Schrier said, according to Urgent Communications.

Read Urgent Communications article for more.