The Washington Post is reporting that the FCC is becoming increasingly concerned with the ways that wireless voice and data services are overlapping on frequencies that are used by “first responders” — firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical technicians — to be notified of emergencies:

Emergency departments across the country — including some in the District [of Columbia], Maryland and Virginia — report unsettling stories of officers who can’t call for backup, dispatchers who can’t relay suspect descriptions and firefighters who can’t request ambulances because of radio “dead spots” believed to be caused by wireless phone interference.

“Just by the grace of God or good luck, we’ve been able to avoid a major problem,” said Gary Manougian, a police officer in Portland, Ore. “But I don’t think we can go on like this indefinitely.”

The article gives special attention to Nextel, which has been the source of many of the reported problems. In response, Nextel has prepared a plan calling for massive reallocation of spectrum to resolve the problem — and which (coincidentally I’m sure) would grant several chunks of prime, high-value spectrum to Nextel. (In their defense, they have offered to pay $850 million to defray the costs of their proposed reallocation — but given the exploding value of spectrum, they may see that as a relatively small sum compared to the future earnings that spectrum could generate.)

The Washington Post is reporting that the FCC is becoming increasingly concerned with the ways that wireless voice and data services are overlapping on frequencies that are used by “first responders” — firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical technicians — to be notified of emergencies:

Emergency departments across the country — including some in the District [...]