For years, the nation’s emergency officers have been plagued by the lack of interoperability between their networks, which are scattered across several different frequency bands.
The FCC’s latest attempt at solving the public safety network problem can be found buried on pages 311 to 329 of its official Broadband Plan.
Unlike in 2008, when the D-Block was offered up for public safety use only, the FCC now wants to open the spectrum for commercial use – with a caveat that users of the spectrum would have to allow roaming from public safety.
This is exactly the wrong approach, says industry veteran Andrew Seybold.
“They are not getting enough spectrum. They’re just not,” Seybold says, citing the 10 MHz of D-Block spectrum the FCC hopes to auction off as part of its public safety network plans. “If the D-Block goes out to auction, there’s no requirement for them to do anything with public safety other than to provide roaming… possibly the most important 3 million people in this country just got shortchanged again.”
Seybold says the public safety community is in an “interoperability crisis” – a problem that goes largely unsolved by the FCC’s broadband plan. Seybold says the agency’s plan to set up an Emergency Response Interoperability Center to coordinate standards for devices is a step in the right direction, but doesn’t address the underlying problems faced by first responders today: fragmented and inadequate spectrum.
PRTM analyst Dan Hays places blame not only on the FCC but on local officials who have failed to agree on technology standards for public safety communications.
Currently, no one standards body has governance rights over public safety communications and the issue has been handled by local bodies. Hays says local control over technology standards used for public safety communications has complicated matters.
“Today they use a wide array of disparate communications technologies,” he says. “… What you’ve seen already is the public safety community rising up for local control of their communications.”
Unlike Seybold, Hays believes the auctioning of the D-Block could have a positive impact on public safety. “It could go a long way towards achieving interoperability,” he says.
Still, he says the implementation of the plan depends on government agencies outside of the FCC’s control – particularly the Department of Homeland Security.
“The public safety part [of the broadband plan] needs to be driven by the Department of Homeland Security… That’s a red flag for how difficult it will be to implement the plan,” he says.
Wireless industry consultant Mark Lowenstein says that while the FCC may be underestimating the amount of spectrum needed by public safety, he is hopeful that the agency’s recommendations will receive funding.
“There is an appetite for some way to fund this: Last time the FCC left it up to market forces,” Lowenstein said of the 2008 auction. “I think it’s likelier that it gets done this time than last time.”
The FCC’s plan calls for the allocation of $6.5 billion over the next 10 years for the deployment of a nationwide, interoperable mobile broadband network based on LTE technology. The agency says funding for its ERIC service and other auxiliary programs will bring the total bill to between $12 billion and $16 billion over the next decade.
The FCC’s plan is vague on who will build and fund the public safety network, but emphasized public-private partnerships.
There already has been some action on the legislative side to fund the broadband network. During a House subcommittee hearing on the plan, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), chairman of the House subcommittee on communications, technology and the Internet, said he wanted to use proceeds from the D-Block auction to help pay for the public safety network.
“The proceeds from the auction should be applied to helping first responders purchase and install the equipment needed to bring to fire, police and rescue agencies nationwide a truly interoperable communications capability,” he said. “It is essential that when they converge from different localities at the scene of a disaster, fire, police and rescue be able to communicate with one another.”
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House energy and commerce committee, echoed his comments, saying he had directed his staff to draft legislation that would begin implementing the FCC’s public safety recommendations.
“Significant funding will be needed to effectuate the concepts outlined in the plan,” Waxman said in his opening statements before the subcommittee last week. “But I believe that we must find a way to move forward on a bipartisan basis to meet the needs of the public safety community.”
Neither representative touched on the technical issues surrounding pubic safety interoperability.
Despite the legislative movement on the funding side, Seybold remains pessimistic about the plan. “This whole thing is going to turn into a national disaster, and it’s going to take another 911 or Katrina to realize they’ve made a mistake,” he says. “…Once again, public safety is going to take it on the chin.”
For its part, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International (APCO) wants Congress to pass legislation directing the FCC to remove any auction requirements for the D Block and to allocate it directly to public safety.
In a statement, the association said it was “very concerned” that the broadband plan looked to auction off the D-Block spectrum.
“In order for any public safety broadband plan to be successful, Congress must act quickly to enact legislation that will allocate the D Block spectrum for public safety use,” the association said in a statement. “Without sufficient spectrum, public safety will not be able to meet the mission critical needs of our first responders, which will place the public’s safety and the safety of our first responders at risk.”