WASHINGTON-Northrop Grumman Corp. and the Federal Communications Commission are at loggerheads over the global defense giant’s push for a public-safety spectrum carve-out that could undermine agency efforts to free up valuable broadcast frequencies for new technologies and that complicates an auction report due to Congress later this month.
Northrop Grumman last Tuesday said it petitioned the FCC to allocate an additional 10 megahertz in the 700 MHz band for advanced broadband wireless applications needed by first responders who lack communications interoperability. The petition for rulemaking was filed with the FCC on April 21. Why Grumman’s IT unit waited a month to issue a press release is unclear.
What is less uncertain is that before the petition was submitted to federal regulators, according to sources, private conversations between Grumman representatives and FCC officials did not go particularly well. In the post-9/11 world, Grumman has the kind of political clout to sway congressional leaders to free up spectrum for homeland security in a way that other, smaller companies lack. However, Grumman could face fierce opposition from GOP lawmakers who may be reluctant to forego potential auction revenue they may need to pay for President Bush’s $350 billion tax cut.
“I can’t comment on conversations staff may have had with a party. We have the filing and it is under review,” said an FCC spokesperson.
For the FCC, the timing and substance of the Grumman petition could not have been worse.
The agency must send Congress a report by June 19 on timelines for rescheduled 700 MHz auctions and on progress made to date to get digital-bound broadcasters off frequencies regulators want freed up for advanced mobile communications services. The report is mandated by the 2002 auction reform act, aggressively sought by the cellular industry to eliminate deadlines for auctioning spectrum being vacated by TV licensees.
The 10 megahertz sought by Grumman resides within the 36 megahertz at 700 MHz Congress earmarked in 1997 for commercial wireless services. But that does not necessarily bother the mobile-phone industry, even if it irks the FCC.
While wireless carriers have been clamoring for more spectrum to support third-generation wireless systems, the 700 MHz band is down on the list of preferred frequencies. In fact, Grumman’s petition actually supports previously unsuccessful efforts by industry to move public safety into the 700 MHz band as a way to protect the communications of police, firefighters and medics from harmful interference.
There are no indications the wireless industry is working with Grumman to further the interests of mobile-phone carriers in a separate, 800 MHz public-safety interference proceeding. However, when Grumman and Flarion announced last August they were working together on a homeland security wireless network, Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association President Thomas Wheeler offered lavish praise for the partnership in a press release jointly issued by the two companies.
Congress also set aside 24 megahertz for public safety in 1997. But Grumman is not interested in those radio channels or the 50 megahertz at 4.9 MHz the FCC designated for public safety earlier this year. Moreover, Grumman-a $25 billion company with $17 billion in net sales last year-apparently is not keen on any suggestion that it simply bid for 700 MHz licenses like everyone else.
The FCC, it turns out, is not necessarily in the best position to help Grumman. The spectrum desired by the Los Angeles-based defense contractor cannot be accomplished by an FCC rule change. Legislation is needed. That is not what Grumman wanted to hear.
“Any new allocation of public-safety spectrum in the 700 MHz band must enable use of advanced, next-generation broadband technologies that are available today that Congress may not have envisioned when it allocated public-safety spectrum in 1997,” said Mike Grady, chief technology officer of Northrop Grumman IT. The IT unit is headquartered in Herndon, Va.
Elsewhere on the homeland security front, an industry group advising the FCC on emergency public warnings last Wednesday urged the use of new technologies to deliver critical homeland security information to U.S. citizens. FCC Chairman Michael Powell liked what he heard.
“Increasingly, I see media companies that are pushing news to pagers, Web devices, cell devices and personally held digital systems. To the extent that you can extend the reach of broadcasting to the individual on a personal level, [it] will be an enormous advantage,” said Powell.
Media Security and Reliability Council members will vote by June 18 on working group initial recommendations, which could be rolled into a final report later this year.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said a public-private partnership would produce the best results. On a related front, the White House last week said DHS would open up a slot for a cyber security expert, but the position is not as senior as desired by the high-tech industry.
Partnership for Public Warning, a nonprofit group of private sector, academia and government representatives, also called for new technologies-including wireless devices-in its May 16 national strategy report on reforming the existing Emergency Alert System.
MSRC has a decidedly broadcast bent. PPW and others have different views on how best to improve public warning capability.
Other recommendations being voted on by the MSRC are:
c A single federal entity should be responsible for public warning and all-hazard risk communication.
c Effective emergency communications should be achieved through a public/private partnership.
c Local and state governments should coordinate with media to create, review and update emergency communications procedures.
c Local media should form emergency jurisdiction/market cooperatives to assure coordinated delivery of local emergency messages to all constituencies.
c The Emergency Alert System should be periodically tested, upgraded as necessary and implemented and maintained at local, state and national levels.
c Research into development of alternative, redundant and/or supplemental means of communicating emergency information to the public should be accelerated.
c Local jurisdiction/market cooperatives should share their locally developed best practices for coordination, delivering risk communications and continuity planning under crisis conditions.
c National media companies should reassess their vulnerabilities and take appropriate measures to prevent loss of service and expedite rapid recovery.
c News media should consider agreements to allow flexibility in local use and retransmission of content under government-declared emergencies.
c Local media facilities should conduct vulnerability assessments and have disaster recovery plans that are periodically reviewed, updated and practiced.
c Local media outlets should assess their collective vulnerabilities and develop cooperative agreements and plans to ensure some media remains in service under extreme conditions.
c Government should coordinate the creation of a Media Common Alert Protocol to deliver emergency messages via digital networks.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, for its part, said engineers have developed a new “ad hoc wireless network” for emergency communications, a breakthrough in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that addresses interoperability problems for first responders.
NIST said the architecture consists of PDAs equipped with wireless local area network cards.
Small video screens can display the names of workers and their roles, and in buildings equipped with radios at reference locations, the
network would determine the locations of first responders and track their movements, NIST said. In addition, according to the agency, the wir
eless devices could receive information from smoke, heat or vibration sensors embedded in smart buildings that could be transmitted by wireless.
