Teaming public safety with a commercial operator
in the D Block poses challenges but offers opportunities.

Ever since the tragedy of 9/11, and particularly after the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, a lot of attention has focused on the problem of first responders from different public safety organizations being unable to communicate with one another. It has widely been accepted that the solution would be a nationwide public safety spectrum allocation with standardized communication technologies and protocols.

Finally, with the re-allocation of 700 MHz spectrum, this long-awaited national public safety network appears to be moving toward realization. Politically, giving the public safety community the spectrum its needs to protect all Americans would seem to be a no-brainer. However, in the world of government regulation, things are never quite that simple. The FCC was under a lot of pressure from industry lobbyists to make virtually the entire block of re-allocated 700 MHz spectrum available for auctioning to commercial interests. In the end, the plan the FCC came up with is, if nothing else, completely unprecedented. It includes a 10 MHz allocation for a nationwide public safety broadband network to be licensed to an as yet to be designated “Public Safety Broadband Licensee,” presumably an organization representing all of the nation’s public safety players. But the plan also calls for auctioning a 12 MHz block of spectrum adjacent to the public safety broadband allocation with the proviso that this “D block” be used for networks operated in conjunction with, and in fact in partnership with, the public safety broadband network.

LITANY OF ISSUES
To make things even more interesting, the D block will be awarded as a single nationwide license. Thus, the FCC is intending to act as a matchmaker between two network operators, one public and one private, with completely different sets of interests. The concept certainly raises a litany of issues, the biggest of which is, can it possibly work?

First, consider the nationwide D block license. The FCC has never before offered a nationwide license for terrestrial common-carrier wireless services. The so-called national carriers such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint are products of years of mergers and acquisitions among regional players, and even now nobody has a truly nationwide network footprint. Nationwide service requires a complex and costly matrix of roaming agreements and patchworks of different channel blocks on multiple frequency bands. But whoever wins the D block auction will from day one have the right to extend a network, on a single channel block, over every square mile of the United States.

Along with the right to build out a truly nationwide network, the D block operator will probably be saddled with an obligation to do so – and fairly quickly. One of the FCC requirements is that the public safety and private D block networks will be built and operated under rules to be hammered out between the parties involved. You can bet that the public safety side will insist upon getting network coverage up as fast and as far-reaching as possible.

CAPITALIZING ON THE OPPORTUNITY
From a commercial standpoint, it might be acceptable to have some coverage gaps in less populated areas, but fire and police personnel need to be able to communicate everywhere. And public safety will, or at least should, insist that its network be far more reliable and disaster-tolerant than the ones that currently serve commercial customers. Even with the coverage advantages of 700 MHz, providing ubiquitous nationwide service with bulletproof reliability will cost many billions of dollars. Who will provide the required capital? Most state and local governments have been fiscally strained for years, and it will be politically difficult to secure federal funding for a network that also will serve commercial customers in competition with purely private operators.

It is reasonable to expect that the public safety community will pay top dollar to use a network built to its specifications. But even if it serves the entire public safety mobile communications needs, it is doubtful that a privately funded network could be financially successful without attracting a healthy dose of commercial business as well.

One likely advantage to the public/private partnership will be in efficiency of spectrum utilization. In normal circumstances, public safety communications requirements are quite modest compared to the private sector, so the combined public safety and D block spectrum can be used to serve both, effectively giving the commercial operator 22 MHz rather than 12. When disaster strikes, access to the public safety spectrum, and perhaps even to some of the D block, would be limited to government agencies.

This spectrum sharing should work quite well as long as there is compatibility in the air interface, and that might be something of a sticking point. If an existing major or regional carrier secures the D block license, it may insist on using its established technology, most likely either CDMA-2000 or W-CDMA. But the nationwide opportunity afforded by the D block license may attract a deep-pocketed newcomer that has other ideas, perhaps including WiMAX. For its part, the Public Safety Broadband licensee may insist upon using a well-proven technology, but will have much less concern about compatibility with existing commercial networks.

In my view, the opportunity afforded by a nationwide license and the mandate for cooperation with the public safety sector will make the D block the most interesting aspect of the upcoming 700 MHz auction. But since the bidding will be anonymous – another FCC innovation for this auction – we may not know how it is playing out until it’s over. All part of the fun!

Drucker is president of Drucker Associates.
He may be contacted at edrucker@drucker-associates.com