All of the licenses dedicated to security and maintenance for a sheriff's office had expired. Sheriff or no sheriff, not an optimum situation since one of the channel use applications was to open and close jail doors. EWA received the call for spectrum restoration assistance.
Initially, EWA conducted necessary research of the now former licenses and discovered that some of the frequencies had been reallocated for other classes of eligible users. Expired licenses remove the possibility of having “grandfathered” rights to continue to use channels that were no longer available for public safety use. After having identified the full portfolio of the licenses once held by the sheriff's office, EWA advised that two options were available: attempt to regain the exact frequencies that had expired through a potentially long and laborious waiver process; or, have EWA identify alternative channel solutions. The latter option was chosen, pursued successfully and today the sheriff’s office has two valid licenses authorizing the use of exclusive-use channels at ten locations. Jail doors are functioning properly.