The Federal Communications Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau has rescheduled its public forum to discuss creation of an "emergency response interoperability center" for public safety broadband communications.

It has been set for Feb. 10 but Washington's back-to-back snowstorms pushed it back to March 2.

Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Public Safety Communications Research Program and the Bureau will make remarks; the floor will then be open to the audience for questions and comments.

The FCC says information, whether submitted in person or over the Internet, will be made part of the record in the National Broadband Plan proceeding, GN Docket No. 09-51.

The bureau said it is holding the forum in response to comments received as part of the FCC's National Broadband Plan proceedings that identified a need for better cooperation among public safety organizations, to achieve broadband interoperability and operability.

An emergency response interoperability center would develop standards and provide procedures for public safety licensees authorized to construct, operate and use the nationwide wireless broadband network.