Alaskan innovations avoid FCC narrowbanding fines, ensure safety: allowing industry to 'keep on trucking'.

• Author: Gallion, Mari
• Position: TRANSPORTATION

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Young fans of popular trucking TV shows of the 1970s--like Movin' On, Cannonball, and BJ and the Bear--might have come away with the impression that the primary purpose of two-way radio communication is to chat with your good buddy, stay one step ahead of your nemesis, and warn your entertainingly dubious co-worker that he's got Smoky on his tail.

However, two-way communication is essential for safety and efficiency in the trucking business, an industry on which we all depend largely for our basic necessities for life--a business with strict timelines, stiff regulations, and significant safety concerns. Truck drivers carry a high level of accountability to themselves and their employers. If there is an industry in which a professional can get away with being fly-by-night, the Alaska trucking industry is not one of them.

In January, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) handed down the FCC Narrowbanding Mandate, which in layman's terms means that the channels that all industries were using for two-way communications were made illegal in lieu of narrower channels, so there could be more of them.

In highly populated areas of the United States, this mandate was necessary in order to cut down on congestion of these radio channels and allow people to communicate. However, while this may have solved problems in the Lower 48, it created unnecessary problems for Alaska, much like it would if federal regulations required every Alaska home to have an air conditioner. Alaska did not have any issues with overcrowding, yet because of this mandate all businesses that use two-way radios--if they haven't already--must now convert to narrowbanding.

"It doesn't fit Alaska at all," says Gene O'Neal, chief technology officer for Carlile Transportation Systems. "[Alaska] is almost one quarter the size of the entire country," not to mention the most sparsely populated state, the vast majority of which is not even accessible via the road system.

In most cases, compliance with the mandate requires purchase, installation, and programming of a new radio for each vehicle in a company's fleet, as well as the cost of applying for and licensing frequencies for them to use. This process is extremely time-consuming and expensive.

Many industry professionals agree that the mandate was not well thought out.

"The narrowbanding mandate was necessary," says Linda Peters, chief administrative officer and general manager of ProComm Alaska LLC. "Having agreed on that, how you implement it could be more or less...