WASHINGTON-With each significant manmade or natural disaster, the problem of public-safety communications networks not being able to interact with each other is underscored. Indeed, even as the public-safety community was fighting to gain access to 24 megahertz of spectrum it had been promised, the rhetoric revolved around interoperability obstacles.
Now that it appears the public-safety users are going to get that spectrum, will interoperability problems be solved?
No.
“More spectrum is not the answer,” FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said earlier this year. “More spectrum does not do things like integrate hospitals into our emergency communications network. There is a lot of room for creativity.”
Interoperability between public-safety networks has been around even longer than you might guess. In 1935, J. Edgar Hoover, the infamous founding chief of the FBI, sent a representative to St. Louis for the inaugural meeting of what is now called the Association of Public-safety Communications Officials to address inter-city communications.
The Federal Communications Commission also sent a representative, and before the end of the meeting, APCO had passed a resolution listing 10 objectives to improve inter-city communications.
Much has changed since 1935, but some issues remain the same.
“One of the biggest problems with interoperability isn’t spectrum-it is governance,” said Robert Gurss, APCO’s Washington counsel.
Another public-safety advocate agreed. “Simply adding spectrum does little to facilitate interoperability. If we always do what we have always done, we will get what we have always got,” said Joe Hanna, a public-safety consultant.
APCO President Wanda McCarley was a little more guarded in her assessment of spectrum’s role in solving interoperability issues. “I am careful to say spectrum is not a fix, but it’s important.”
Getting access to spectrum has not been easy for public-safety officials.
In 1997, Congress said that by 2007 broadcasters would have to return an extra 6 megahertz of spectrum they were given to facilitate the DTV transition. However, TV broadcasters could keep the spectrum if more than 15 percent of the homes in their viewing areas could not receive digital signals. Once the spectrum becomes available-and is combined with additional spectrum-24 megahertz is set to go to public safety and the rest to commercial uses. Some of the commercial spectrum already has been auctioned.
It quickly became clear that the 15-percent loophole was humongous and it appeared broadcasters would be able to keep the spectrum much longer than Congress anticipated. The public-safety and commercial wireless industries started pressuring Congress to set a hard date to end the DTV transition. Earlier this year, President Bush signed legislation that set the hard date at Feb. 18, 2009. The spectrum is set to be available the next day.
Now the public-safety industry must address two other areas that hinder interoperability: turf and funding.
McCarley said APCO is training people to talk to each other, and Gurss agreed. “A lot of the old attitudes are dying away,” he said.
Funding remains a significant hurdle, however.
Since each district, whether it is the local police department, the regional fire district or the state patrol, buys its own communications systems. These separate entities do not always buy the compatible equipment, nor are they ready to upgrade their disparate networks simultaneously. Also, each entity receives funding separately.
On the federal level, funding for public safety is hard to come by too, even with increased attention to the issue.
“There are aspects of this budget I find troubling. The mission of the Department of Homeland Security cannot be successfully accomplished from Washington alone. The Homeland-Security Department must rely on a partnership with state and local governments. Yet, the administration cuts grants to states and local governments, to police, firefighters and other first responders,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate Homeland-Security Committee, told DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff last month when he appeared to defend the DHS budget request.
“These grants help train and equip our first responders, including providing them with interoperable telecommunications equipment. As we have seen time and again-from the Sept. 11 attacks to Hurricane Katrina-this training and equipment are essential to an effective front-line response to catastrophes. … A budget is primarily about money, but it is about more than money. It is about priorities. As we review a budget that will carry DHS into its fourth year, we must ensure that the priorities will truly advance the goal of a stronger, safer America.”
Collins later successfully convinced the Senate to increase the money for the DHS grant programs.
