Every time someone tries to fix interoperability problems for first responders, it seems the first response is to throw more spectrum at the problem.
So Morgan O’Brien comes up with a company-Cyren Call Communications Inc.-and a plan-to use the 700 MHz spectrum that today is set aside for commercial use and offer it to public-safety. A middleman, which Cyren Call aims to be, would mediate use of the network between public safety and commercial carriers.
That proposal spilled over to several other plans, each with a slight twist that not surprisingly would benefit the company proposing the plan. The Verizon Wireless “suggestion” (since it’s never been submitted to the Federal Communications Commission) would use existing 700 MHz spectrum, keeping the new 700 MHz spectrum set aside for commercial purposes. The guard-band plan would allow the two guard-band licensees to use that spectrum for public safety as well as commercial offerings.
While each of these proposals likely has merit, there are some gaping holes that must be addressed before any plan can be adopted. The public-safety community already has access to a lot of spectrum. But first responders in different jurisdictions serving the same people don’t agree on how to best implement communications technology.
Take New York State and New York City, for example. New York City is using IP Wireless technology managed by Northrop Grumman to build a new broadband public-safety wireless network under a $500 million contract using new spectrum at 4.9 GHz. The 4.9 GHz spectrum was quickly set aside for public safety/homeland security efforts following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks amid the horror and realization that first responders couldn’t communicate with each other. Sounds good, right?
Except New York State is building a public-safety wireless network at 700 MHz and 800 MHz. There are no plans to use 4.9 GHz in the New York State contract. These different agencies need to share the same vision, if not the same technology and/or solutions.
And when public-safety networks do talk to each other, it’s not because they’ve been given new, clean spectrum. It’s because of technology advances.
When a man held six school girls hostage in Bailey Colo., late last month, first responders from a number of agencies responded to the call. According to a report in the Rocky Mountain News, the Metro Area Communications vehicle was sent to the scene. Technology in the $500,000 truck, purchased by the Department of Justice, allows different radio systems to be patched together to create one large radio system. It worked.
There are solutions out there. But until different public-safety entities come up with a cohesive vision, there will continue to be problems, no matter how much spectrum they have available.
