§1423 Public Safety Interoperability Board

Summary

Creates an advisory board inside the Federal Communications Commission called the Technical Advisory Board for First Responder Interoperability and sets rules for who joins and what it must do. The FCC Chairman must appoint 14 voting members no later than 30 days after February 22, 2012: 4 wireless provider reps (2 national, 1 regional, 1 rural), 3 equipment makers, 4 public safety reps (including at least 1 manager and 1 front-line employee), and 3 state or local government reps chosen to reflect geographic and population differences. All members must have the technical or public-safety communications experience needed. The Assistant Secretary appoints one non-voting member. Members serve for the life of the board, can be removed for cause by the Chairman, fill vacancies the same way, pick a Chair and Vice Chair, and need a majority for a quorum. Within 90 days after February 22, 2012, the board, working with NTIA, NIST, and DHS’s Office of Emergency Communications, must develop and submit minimum technical requirements to ensure nationwide interoperability for the public safety broadband network. Those requirements must be based on commercial LTE standards. The Commission must approve and may revise the recommendations within 30 days of submission and then send them to the First Responder Network Authority; that approval cannot be reviewed as a final agency action. Board members may receive travel pay and per diem at federal employee rates under title 5, chapter 57, subchapter I. Chapter 10 of title 5 does not apply to the board. The board ends 15 days after the Commission sends its recommendations to the First Responder Network Authority.