Fire Chief Gary Ludwig, president and chairman of the board of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), along with other public-safety officials held a March 10 press conference asking Congress to repeal the T-band auction mandate.

Wireless carriers said they are working to meet the FCC’s proposed April 2020 initial compliance deadline for 9-1-1 location accuracy, but the metrics shouldn’t be made more stringent. The carriers also said more emphasis should be placed on handset-based solutions for delivering Z-axis location data.

During a speech at the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF), FCC Chairman Ajit Pai addressed criticism about the FCC’s new location accuracy rules and also said an auction of the T-band would likely not be feasible.

The future direction of Florida’s Statewide Law Enforcement Radio System (SLERS) is still uncertain after a contract award to Motorola to build a replacement system fell apart at the start of this year. However, a renewal of the current contract with L3Harris Technologies to allow for a transition period is likely, a state official said.

The European Emergency Number Association (EENA) postponed its annual conference, scheduled for April in Riga, Latvia, because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) submitted two reports on the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) to the FCC in an ex parte filing.

The FCC put in place new measures to protect the health of its staff in response to the coronavirus. Visitors who, during the most recent 14 days, have been in any country subject to a COVID-19-related Centers for Disease Control (CDC) level 3 travel warning are not allowed to enter FCC facilities. These countries are currently China, Iran, Italy and South Korea.

Opposition to a petition for reconsideration on the FCC’s fifth report and order regarding wireless E9-1-1 location accuracy requirements filed by the Boulder Emergency Telephone Service Authority (BRETSA) are due 15 days after publication in the Federal Register. Replies to oppositions are due 25 days after publication.

The FCC proposed a framework for sharing detailed communications outage information with state and federal agencies to improve their situational awareness, enhance their ability to respond more quickly to outages affecting their communities and help save lives while also preserving the confidentiality of this data.

Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale released his audit of the purchasing process for a new radio network designed to help Pennsylvania State Police and other emergency responders communicate with each other and keep the public safe.