D-block gets hearing tomorrow

House Communications subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden will head a hearing tomorrow about how spectrum can be used in support of public safety. This has been a contentious issue for some time — whether the government should auction the airwaves off to private companies who will then share the spectrum in the event of an emergency or allocate those airwaves directly to public safety agencies. Smaller carriers have been behind an auction. It would mean they get access to more spectrum, and it’s thought big telcos would be prevented from bidding on the spectrum. There is some pressure to get this all worked out before the 10th anniversary of September 11th.