WASHINGTON—GSM proponents including 3G Americas and Cingular Wireless L.L.C. joined the 700 MHz public-safety craze with a technology demonstration aimed at convincing police, firefighters and others to use the GSM family of technology for their wireless communication needs.
“The development of mobile broadband wireless standards will provide exciting opportunities for public safety. Public-safety agencies, and the people they protect, will benefit from the GSM-technology family, with its open standards and cost-effective, off-the-shelf equipment that will support emergency and homeland-security applications,” said 3G Americas President Chris Pearson.
In its technology demonstration, 3G Americas was careful to not endorse any of these plans or to outright say it wanted in on the action. “The concepts here are more looking at the commercial applications that can be used by public safety as opposed to any infrastructure sharing and network sharing,” Kristin Rinne, chairman of the 3G Americas Board of Governors and chief technology officer of Cingular, told RCR Wireless News.
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell encouraged public-safety attendees to think about how they could capitalize on commercial technologies. “I’d like to encourage the public-safety community and the commercial-wireless industry to continue to talk about partnerships. While commercial-wireless technologies may not be appropriate for every type of public-safety communication, public-safety agencies may find it useful to employ commercial systems or to partner with commercial entities to fulfill their critical role in securing the homeland. Such dialogue is all the more important when we consider that public safety and commercial entities will be neighbors by the end of the DTV transition.”
However, some expressed doubts over using commercial technologies for public-safety applications. Dick Mirgon, second vice president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials and director of Douglas County, Nev., asked when commercial vendors will consider public-safety needs when they’re developing new offerings. Specifically, Mirgon asked about public safety’s need for near-perfect call completion—questioning whether commercial applications would work in a crisis.
Keith Shank, director of end-user services for L.M. Ericsson, said current technologies already do what Mirgon needs. “The networks monitor everything.”
Ericsson demonstrated how, using off-the-shelf technologies, public safety could have access to live video, push-to-talk services, building plans and other features simultaneously.
The 3G Americas demonstration comes as policymakers grapple with how to use the 700 MHz band that, due to the transition to digital TV, is soon going to be available to the nation’s public-safety agencies.
Congress has told the Federal Communications Commission to set aside 24 megahertz in the 700 MHz for public safety, and to auction the rest. The move sparked a number of competing proposals for what to do with the public-safety spectrum.
Cyren Call Communications Inc. is pushing a plan to set aside the 30 megahertz of spectrum to be auctioned for a public-safety network that the wireless industry would build and share with first responders. The plan would require congressional approval. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told lawmakers last month he expects to put the Cyren Call petition out for public comment shortly.
Verizon Wireless, which uses CDMA technology, has been floating an alternative solution that would use 12 of the 24 megahertz set aside at 700 MHz for a public-safety network that would utilize Verizon Wireless’ infrastructure.
CTIA also is examining whether it can develop a plan for commercial/public-safety sharing.
Finally, IPWireless Inc. recently issued a press release trumpeting the benefits of its UMTS TD-CDMA technology for public-safety applications.
