Philly.com, 5/25:
Cost of radio spectrum an obstacle to Postive Train Control
WASHINGTON - After a 2008 train collision killed 25 people in California, Congress mandated new safety measures to prevent more high-speed disasters.
But the goal was met with an invisible obstacle: radio spectrum.
Licenses to the airwaves - used for everything from TV to police scanners to space exploration - are critical to the new system, Positive Train Control. But Amtrak and most other passenger rail agencies floundered for years while trying to acquire those licenses, leaving them short of the bandwidth needed to use the new safety systems.
SNIP
Passenger rail lines have blamed Congress for failing to set aside the radio spectrum they needed. Congress blamed the Federal Communications Commission. And the FCC said its hands were tied by lawmakers' inaction.
More here.