Before the
                     FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
                           Washington, DC  20554


In the Matter of                               )
                                               )
Amendment of Part 95 of the Commission's Rules )   RM = 10564
to prohibit Daily Business Communications on   )
Family Radio Service Frequencies               )


                         Comments Filed in Response
                        to a Petition for Rulemaking


Filed by:    Personal Radio Steering Group, Inc.
             PO Box 2851
             Ann Arbor, Michigan  48106
             (734) 662-4533

    Date:    October 17, 2002


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                       TABLE OF CONTENTS

                                                              Paragraph No.

    I.  Background of the Commenter.                                     1
   II.  Petitioner has not fully described its interest in this
          matter.                                                        4
  III.  The FCC intended to permit a variety of business
          communications in FRS.                                         7
   IV.  Claims of congestion cannot be evaluated.                        9
    V.  The proposed solution is impractical and ineffective.           14
   VI.  The proposed solution could become counter productive
          and harmful.                                                  16
  VII.  Other procedural matters.                                       17

===============================================================


I.  BACKGROUND OF THE COMMENTER.


  1.  The Personal Radio Steering Group, Inc. (PRSG) is an all-volunteer,
not-for-profit Michigan corporation established in 1980 by licensees in the
General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS, FCC Part 95-A) to provide services to
and to serve as an advocate for personal and family users of the FCC's
personal radio services.

  2.  The PRSG has published more than 300 different guides to GMRS
licensing, technology and operating practices in the various personal radio
services. PRSG's flagship publication, the GMRS NATIONAL REPEATER GUIDE,
lists the more than 3,500 GMRS repeaters, their sponsors, technical
characteristics and detailed coverage information.  The GUIDE has become
the essential reference to this cooperative, nonprofit communications
network for licensed private individuals.  PRSG also works closely with
major land mobile equipment manufacturers to disseminate instructional
materials for radio purchasers.

  3.  PRSG also has a continuing interest in the growth and evolution of
the FRS. We also have extensive experience in evaluating the nature of
interference caused by some FRS operations both to other FRS operations
and to licensed GMRS operations, especially the operation of GMRS
repeater stations.


II.  PETITIONER HAS NOT FULLY DESCRIBED ITS INTEREST IN THIS MATTER.


  4. The petitioner is a trade association of commercial spectrum users.
Agricultural, construction, manufacturing, transportation, and energy
industries and mobile radio vendors are its constituency. Nothing in the
petition's Statement of Interest evidences any history, expertise or
standing in the Personal Radio Services. [1]

  5. For a fee, the petitioner coordinates frequencies in the Private
Mobile Radio Services. As FRS does not utilize formal frequency
coordination, ITA and its vendor members lose revenue when users select
FRS for certain of their communications.

  6. The petition makes unsupported claims of spectrum congestion in
FRS [2] and deviation of FRS from FCC intention. [3] Yet financial loss
to the petitioner and its associates -- and not any matter of public
interest -- is the gravamen and sole motivation of the Petition.


III. THE FCC INTENDED TO PERMIT A VARIETY OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS
     IN FRS.


  7. Unlike the General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) -- where the
Commission, through specific policies, discouraged usurpation by
commercial operations, the FCC expressly contemplated business use of
FRS:

      "Small businesses...may be users of this service in their
       business activities."[4]

  8. Some business entities use FRS, not because of "lack of clarity in
the rules" [5], but because FRS is cheaper than conventional land mobile
radio -- where a myriad of coordination fees, application fees,
regulatory fees, renewal fees, and higher equipment cost produce little
or no improvement in the desired radio communications. Certainly, the
protections afforded by licensing and FCC enforcement are necessary in
some applications, but use of the unlicensed FRS is likely adequate in
many others.


IV.  CLAIMS OF CONGESTION CANNOT BE EVALUATED.


  9. The petition describes scenarios wherein business use of FRS
precludes or interferes with personal uses. [6] These hypothetical
situations do not constitute actual data derived from monitoring FRS
traffic, nor are they accompanied by comments or claims by FRS users
against business entities. Consequently, the petition's assertions of
FRS congestion are impossible to evaluate.

  10. PRSG has reviewed thousands of messages both from our subscribers
and from GMRS and FRS users in general in numerous Internet fora. We
also have extensive monitoring and operating experience on GMRS and FRS
frequencies. There IS a general complaint that FRS congestion DOES exist
in some areas. Those areas are primarily in and near sports and
recreational facilities attended by the general public: sporting events,
theme parks, shopping malls, and similar places where friends and family
members desire to communicate with each other.

  11. Characteristically, little of the congestion observed at such
locations seems attributable to recurrent business or commercial
operations of the type which the current Petition seeks to prohibit.
Instead, the preponderance of complaints that we have observed, and that
we have received from others, about such congestion and interference
derives instead from FRS users' failure to monitor "open squelch"
(without the masking effect of tone coding) before transmitting, and
from abuse of various noise-makers nominally intended to signal a desire
to initiate a contact with a friend or family member.

  12. PRSG does not dispute that FRS should principally be a personal
and family-oriented resource. Nor do we dispute that extensive business
use can preclude or disrupt non-business use in a service. However, we
conclude that routine daily use of FRS by entities eligible in the other
Private Land Mobile Radio Services is not currently (and is unlikely in
the foreseeable future to become) an overwhelmingly important factor in
this congestion.

  13. Furthermore, we concluded in the 1980s that policing of radio
utterances is not a worthwhile way to segregate personal and business
users. Instead, we recommended strengthening of the licensing process to
emphasize individual accountability. The Commission adopted our proposal
almost in its entirety in GMRS, but declined to require licensing in
FRS. [7]


V.  THE PROPOSED SOLUTION IS IMPRACTICAL AND INEFFECTIVE.


  14. It should go without saying that a pronouncement by the FCC that
business users should forego FRS, and select conventional mobile radio
instead, would be absurdly ineffective without drastic changes to FRS
radio distribution and sales. ITA has not proposed to physically
restrict access to the devices only to private individuals for personal
use. The petition proposes no such changes.

  15. Nor does the Petition identify any practicable method to
discourage daily business use of FRS, or any other measure with actual
enforcement potential. As much as PRSG would like to see entities
eligible in other Private Land Mobile Radio Services license and operate
instead using those services, we have to discourage adoption of any
rule language which risks being entirely unenforceable and impractical.


VI.  THE PROPOSED SOLUTION COULD BECOME COUNTER PRODUCTIVE AND HARMFUL.


  16. There is a greater risk in proceeding in the manner requested by
the Petition. If the FCC were to adopt rules so clearly unenforceable,
this would risk raising the disdain of the FRS user public for all rule
enforcement, including enforcement of those rules intended to protect
the public from spectrum abusers. It would also risk encouraging
"spectrum vigilantes" whose purpose might become to harass FRS users
engaging in "business-sounding" communications.


VII.  OTHER PROCEDURAL MATTERS.


  16. PRSG authorizes parties replying to these COMMENTS to submit them to
us by E-mail at: prsg@provide.net

  17.  However, all other requirements of the applicable FCC Regulations
(including full personal identification and an accurate current mailing
address) must still be provided.


                    Comments filed by: Corwin D. Moore, Jr.
                                       Administrative Coordinator
                                       Personal Radio Steering Group Inc.
                                       PO Box 2851
                                       Ann Arbor, MI  48106
                                       February 13, 2002


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ENDNOTES:

[1] "Statement of Interest," Petition page 1.

[2] "The overcrowding of FRS spectrum by business use is depleting the 
usefulness of FRS..." Petition page 2.

[3] "[T]his use...was not the type of use originally envisioned by the 
Commission in the FRS band." Petition page 2.

[4] FCC Report and Order, WT Docket No. 95-102, at 20(D).

[5] Petition page 4.

[6] Petition page 4.

[7] The FCC's decision to reduce GMRS licensing to a minimalist 
procedure [Report and Order, WT Docket 98-20], while retaining excessive
licensing fees, dramatically reduced both the value of the license and
the appetite of radio users to obtain licenses. PRSG and the GMRS user
community vehemently opposed those drastic actions.