DHS wants to ride commercial wave for interoperable radio network - FederalNewsRadio.com: "We have this wave of commercial capability that is outstripping everything we've done in our traditional land mobile radio capability," said Richard Spires, DHS chief information officer, Friday during a breakfast sponsored by AFCEA Bethesda in Bethesda, Md. "How is that we can, as a government, start to leverage that capability? I don't want to be in the business of building towers. We just don't want to do that anymore. We are not that good at that. We are not a telecommunications provider. That is not our expertise. We want to buy these capabilities as services."

Homeland Security Today: Despite Funding of Public Safety Broadband Network, Technical Challenges May Keep First Responders from Using it For a Decade: President Barack Obama signed legislation Wednesday to fund a nationwide interoperable broadband communications network for US first responders, but congressional investigators warned the same day that it could take a decade for the network to materialize as envisioned.

Public safety gets its D Block wish, doesn't have to return narrowband spectrum -- Urgent Communications: Over the past eight years, there have been three all-consuming stories that we have covered: the reconfiguration of the 800 MHz band, the narrowbanding of spectrum in the UHF band, and public safety’s pursuit of spectrum in the 700 MHz band — the so-called D Block — that would provide the foundation for a nationwide wireless broadband network. Today, as Senior Writer Donny Jackson reports, Congress has struck a deal to make that network possible by reallocating the D Block to public safety and committing $7 billion of federal money to build it.

Obama's Next Solyndra-Style Scandal Is Called "LA-RICS" - Forbes: "Remember those 'shovel ready' jobs that President Obama promised the $700 billion stimulus bill would create? Almost four years and more than $250 million in federal grants later, they still haven’t arrived in Los Angeles.

"Meanwhile, life-saving improvements to the police, fire and other local government communications systems have been delayed–putting the more than 9 million residents of Los Angeles County at risk.'

Why public shouldn't return narrowband spectrum in D Block deal: We are fast approaching the sixth anniversary of Morgan O’Brien’s pronouncement — made during his keynote address at IWCE — that not only should a wireless broadband network for first responders be deployed, it also was feasible. There were a great many skeptics at the time who posed a slew of legitimate questions.