A group of emergency responders and industry leaders in major urban areas have banded together to call for the Federal Communications Commission to protect critical service communications as it looks to overhaul the 4.9 gigahertz airwaves.

The Coalition for Emergency Response and Critical Infrastructure, or CERCI, was organized to pressure the FCC to put guardrails on new uses of the public safety-dominated band to avoid first responders’ worries about signal disruption.

Currently, the band is only used by police, fire departments and other emergency responders. Proponents of opening up the band believe it is partly going to waste and want the FCC to consider possible secondary uses, including wireless internet and 5G mobile services, as long as it can ensure that these do not interfere with public safety uses…