Comment submitted by L. Davlin

The President, in conjunction with Congress, needs to put interoperable communications as the number one priority in funding for the ENTIRE country, not just UASI cities. UASI cities and along the southern border states can't spend their money as fast as the money is showing up. Interoperable communications needs not to be politicial, not who has the best radio system, but a system by which communities and first responders can communicate with each other. All the efforts at trying to build new system, allocate new frequencies, and charge the large populated areas of the country to spend money like it's going out of style, won't get the ENTIRE country interoperable. You have to look at the country as a hybrid communications system, and the only way to afford interoperability is to "connect the dots", not build a new picture. Too many factors come into play, politics, environment, land contours, etc. Find fairly inexpensive ways using "off the shelf" technology and start fixing the problems. I'm not an amatuer radio operator, but they have done so many of the things the government hasn't done, nor first responding agencies. The idea is not to reinvent the wheel. Buy new radios, analog or digital, postpone P25 (it's too expensive for the average first responding agency to afford in equipment purchases), if analog works - then buy analog equipment, the idea is to everyone communicating with each other, not limiting who can talk to who because of lack of funding to smaller agencies, cities, and counties throughout the country. You want a baseline? The Federal government needs to develop their own baseline before the rest of the country is asked to do so. Safecom wants to lead, then lead by example - get the federal government interoperable first, then the rest of us who are already moving toward Level 4 (and will be at this level by Jan 07) will set the baseline for regions, cities and counties and probably for the government. Everything can't be decided within the beltway of D.C. - it's not what is decided within the beltway that is always best for the country. One last note....There needs to be ONE federal agency in charge of Interoperability, not several agencies. On the local level, if at the federal level no one can select one leader to lead the government in achieving interoperability, then the locals will decide what they want, based on their available funds, and types of equipment that is available that can talk, no matter if it's non-P25, analog, digital, microwave, satellite, phones, cell - they don't care as long as they can push the button on the radio and someone on the other end can hear them and respond.