AIS technology, which has been under development worldwide since the early 1990s to improve navigation safety, helps prevent collisions by enabling ships to electronically “see” and track the movements of similarly equipped ships and to receive pertinent navigational information from shore. Like other wireless technologies, AIS uses a portion of the radio frequency spectrum to carry information. In the United States, specific frequencies within the radio spectrum are allocated primarily by two agencies: FCC—an independent agency that regulates spectrum use for nonfederal users, including commercial, private, and state and local government users—and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency within the Department of Commerce that regulates spectrum for federal government users. These agencies (1) decide how various frequencies are used and (2) assign the frequencies to specific users. FCC makes these assignments by issuing licenses to nongovernmental parties; NTIA does so by assigning specific frequencies to federal agencies that have radio communication needs. AIS is designed to improve upon information available through vessel- monitoring systems already in use. Existing VTS systems apply radar, closed-circuit television, radios, and other devices to monitor and manage vessel traffic from a central onshore location, much as an air traffic control tower does (see fig. 1). An AIS unit consists of a global navigation satellite system; computer hardware and software; three radio receivers; and one radio transmitter-receiver, or transceiver. The unit gathers vessel information—including the vessel’s name, identification number, dimensions, position, course and speed, destination, and cargo—from shipboard instruments or from manual input and transmits it to receiving AIS stations installed on other ships or on shore. Radio frequencies, or channels, carry the information. AIS also requires considerable infrastructure on shore—including antennas and base stations equipped with electric power, transceivers, computers, and displays—to monitor vessel activity and transmit information or instructions back to vessels. In the United States, such infrastructure now exists only in areas where VTS systems operate. MTSA and Coast Guard regulations require that certain vessels on U.S. navigable waterways install AIS equipment between January 1, 2003, and December 31, 2004. Coast Guard regulations implementing the law provide that vessels include (1) commercial vessels 65 feet long or more on international voyages, including all tankers regardless of tonnage; (2) passenger vessels of 150 tons or more; and (3) commercial vessels on strictly domestic U.S. voyages in the 10 VTS areas, which encompass approximately 10 percent of the U.S. ports recognized by the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (see fig. 2). Currently excluded from Coast Guard regulations are fishing vessels and passenger vessels certified to carry 150 or fewer passengers. Regardless of itinerary, any private vessels not in commercial service, such as a pleasure craft, less than 300 gross tons are not required by Coast Guard regulations to carry AIS equipment. Conflict over the frequencies used for transmitting AIS signals in the United States has been developing for several years. In 1998, to promote flexibility in the use of maritime radio frequencies and to encourage development of competitive new services, FCC created and auctioned licenses to the remaining unassigned U.S. radio frequencies in the very high frequency (VHF) band reserved for maritime public correspondence communications. For approximately $7 million, MariTEL won the bid for these licenses. The announcements for the auction stated that potential bidders should be aware of international agreements and other issues that might affect the ability to use the licenses on the two specific internationally designated AIS frequencies, known as channels 87B and 88B. Issues that could affect the licenses were not explicitly laid out in the announcements, but potential bidders were directed to a prior FCC document and specific federal regulations for assistance in evaluating the degree to which such issues may affect spectrum availability. Different interpretations of issues such as these may have contributed to the conflict that continues to exist between MariTEL and the Coast Guard. This conflict extends to the use of both frequencies. FCC regulations required the winning bidder to negotiate with the Coast Guard for the use of frequencies for AIS but did not specify any particular frequency. In March 2001, in response to FCC’s auction requirements, MariTEL and the Coast Guard signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) that allowed the use of channel 87B for AIS in U.S. waters. MariTEL terminated the MOA in May 2003, however, after disagreements arose over interpretations of the MOA’s provisions, including technical properties of the frequencies that the Coast Guard could use for AIS. After termination of the MOA, MariTEL asserted that the Coast Guard had no authority to use channel 87B for AIS, but the Coast Guard maintains that an FCC announcement still gives it that authority. With respect to channel 88B, MariTEL asserts, in general, that it obtained through the FCC auction the exclusive rights to channel 88B in certain areas within approximately 75 miles of the U.S.-Canadian border, and it has petitioned FCC for a declaratory ruling to that effect. The Coast Guard, NTIA, and the Department of Transportation disagree and assert, in general, that channel 88B has already been allocated on a primary basis to the federal government. The total cost and time frame for the development of a nationwide AIS remain uncertain. As of June 2004, the Coast Guard’s efforts to install AIS equipment nationwide had followed two tracks: first, installing AIS quickly in the 10 VTS areas and, second, launching a widespread planning effort for the rest of the nation’s navigable waters. Having taken advantage of existing facilities, electronic systems, and plans for AIS development to enhance safety in the 10 VTS areas, the Coast Guard plans to complete AIS implementation in those areas by December 2004. At the same time, the Coast Guard has begun to plan for U.S. waters outside the VTS areas, defining the goals, technical requirements, and waterways and vessels to be covered under a nationwide AIS. The Coast Guard expects planning for the technical requirements to be completed between December 2004 and February 2005. The Coast Guard also estimates that the nationwide system could cost between $62 million and $165 million. According to the Coast Guard, the cost estimate is preliminary, because geographic and other factors are expected to significantly affect the cost of installation at different locations, and the impacts are yet to be determined. The first effort in the Coast Guard’s two-track AIS development has involved installing, testing, and operating AIS equipment in the 10 VTS areas. To enable monitoring of vessels carrying AIS, the Coast Guard accelerated onshore AIS installation under way in its navigation safety program. A combination of existing facilities, equipment, plans, and funding has allowed rapid establishment of AIS in the VTS areas. Since much of the AIS infrastructure for conventional safety monitoring (e.g., to avert collisions) is the same for security monitoring (e.g., to avert acts of terrorism), bringing AIS into service involved primarily adapting and modifying existing systems to accommodate their additional security purpose. AIS facilities are completely operational at Berwick Bay, Louisiana; Los Angeles–Long Beach, California; Prince William Sound, Alaska; and St. Marys River, Michigan. AIS is being tested along the lower Mississippi River in Louisiana, and it is partially operational at Houston- Galveston, Texas, and New York, New York. The facilities at Port Arthur, Texas; Puget Sound, Washington; and San Francisco, California, are under construction. The Coast Guard expects AIS installations at the VTS areas to be completed by December 2004. To enhance safety and efficiency at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the Marine Exchange of Southern California, a nonprofit corporation formed to provide vessel arrival and departure information to the local maritime industry, took the initiative to install and pay for AIS on its own. The total cost to the Coast Guard for the installation of AIS equipment at the other 9 VTS areas comes to approximately $20.5 million. Bringing AIS into service in the 10 VTS areas should improve vessel- monitoring capability at these locations. Before AIS, VTS facilities relied on such means as radar, closed-circuit television, ship-to-shore voice communications via radio, and people with binoculars. Signals and other information from the monitoring equipment went to a central vessel traffic center (VTC), where the information was collated and where staff tracked ships’ movements. With AIS, for a vessel equipped with a properly operating AIS transceiver, VTC staff have access to so-called static information, which rarely changes, such as dimensions, vessel name, and identification number; dynamic information, which changes continuously, such as course and speed; and voyage-specific information such as cargo type, destination, and estimated time of arrival (see fig. 3). This detail allows VTC staff to immediately identify any transmitting ship, particularly if it is on a collision course with another ship or if it is headed toward a hazardous or restricted area. In some VTS areas, AIS also extends monitoring coverage over a wider radius than originally covered by VTS. On the lower Mississippi River, for example, AIS will cover more than 240 miles along the river—from its mouth to Baton Rouge, Louisiana—rather than the 8 miles around New Orleans covered by the original VTS system. In New York, AIS equipment will allow vessels to be monitored farther out to sea than possible with radar monitoring. From installing AIS shore facilities in the VTS areas, the Coast Guard has learned that the two primary drivers of installation cost are port geography and vessel traffic. Specifically, because AIS radio signals transmit in straight lines, installation can be complicated by the amount of water to be covered, as well as by terrain features such as islands, bays, and peninsulas.