Summary

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) granting and monitoring of licenses from its 800 megahertz (MH) public safety services radio band, focusing on the: (1) types of services that obtain licenses; and (2) amount and efficiency of usage.

GAO found that FCC: (1) broadly defined public safety for purposes of 800 MH licensing as including medical, rescue, and emergency response services and any official state and local government activity; (2) nationwide, granted 38 percent of licenses for police and fire activities' exclusive use; (3) believed that local authorities were in the best position to establish local public safety priorities; (4) could not analyze usage since it did not enforce its requirement that licensees report usage information; (5) did not verify reported usage data; (6) used its license database, which only contained information about intended use, to assess usage amount and efficiency; (7) did not keep a waiting list of licensees for whom frequencies were unavailable; and (8) did not monitor radio signals or conduct on-site inspections in 1987 and 1988. GAO also found that, in ten large cities: (1) police and fire activities had exclusive use of 34 percent of radio systems; (2) a mix of government activities, including police and fire activities and general government activities, had access to 17 percent of radio systems; and (3) general government, medical, and emergency response activities had access to 49 percent of the radio systems.