WHILE FRONTLINE WIRELESS L.L.C., Congress and the mobile-phone industry sound off in the final throes of a testy, high-profile 700 MHz debate, the steady, low-key diplomacy of the public-safety community could prove decisive in determining whether the Federal Communications Commission approves for auction a commercial-first responder wireless license.
It has escaped the headlines, but the FCC staff has been highly engaged with public-safety representatives as the agency moves closer to issuing 700 MHz auction and service rules and as fireworks continue unabated among key stakeholders. A Public Safety Spectrum Trust has been incorporated in the District of Columbia. First responders-bound by history and circumstance to a locally based communications regime unsuited for a post-9/11 era demanding interoperability and broadband connectivity-are ready to break with tradition. They are now asking federal regulators to boldly do the same, arguing funding, local/state politics and other factors conspire against public-safety communications making the kind of great leap forward sought by the Bush administration, Congress and first responders.
Public safety is firmly behind a novel licensing concept-initially broached by Cyren Call Communications Corp. and later by Frontline-whereby commercial and public-safety spectrum would be combined in a shared network supported by propagation-friendly 700 MHz frequencies. Police, firefighters and medics would have priority access on an affordable, leased basis to a state-of-the-art wireless broadband network. The commercial service provider would effectively have a reliable, long-term public-safety anchor tenant. And the FCC and the public could witness the emergence of a new, viable competitor to the cable TV-Bell telephone broadband duopoly.
FCC ponders not if, but how
As such, it may no longer be a matter of whether the FCC embraces a 700 MHz commercial-public safety license. But rather how the agency makes it happen. The FCC is expected to rule later this month, giving prospective bidders six months to prepare for the auction of 60 megahertz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band. Bidding could bring $15 billion into the U.S. Treasury.
The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council offered the FCC guidance last Friday in a surprise position paper that could end up being one the most influential documents among the tens of thousands filed in the controversial 700 MHz rulemaking. The umbrella first-responder organization’s blueprint for a national commercial-public safety broadband system contains elements of the Frontline plan, which would have a commercial 10-megahertz spectrum block joined with half of public safety’s 24-megahertz of spectrum allotment within a wholesale-open access framework-with a major exception.
“NPSTC does not believe that ‘open access’ should be a requirement for the E block, partly due to the absence of a commonly agreed upon definition of what open access means,” the public safety group told the FCC. “NPSTC would like the NPSL (national public safety licensee) to be able to negotiate with the E-block auction winner regarding issues related to open access, some of which we may agree to and some of which we may not.”
Open-access debate
NPSTC’s position could prove damaging to Frontline’s open-access proposal, one of the “poison pills” decried by the mobile-phone industry and some lawmakers. At the same time, the NPSTC paper could shore up any wavering support at the FCC for an untested public-private licensing approach whose merits have been vehemently debated by warring economists hired by Frontline and Verizon Communications Inc.
Frontline and the public-safety community have struggled over network control, one factor that has kept first responders from fully endorsing Frontline.
“The FCC rules should define in reasonable specificity certain aspects of the shared-network requirements, including, but not limited to, the E-block licensee’s coverage buildout obligations, both in terms of geographic scope and service levels consistent with public safety on street and in-building needs, to ensure responsible bidding in that auction and the NPSL’s reasonable right to select network technology at initial deployment and throughout the life of the network,” said the NPSTC. “The FCC should also mandate protections against potential business failure of the E-block licensee.”
Public safety wants the FCC to settle network-sharing disputes between the E-block auction winner and the first responders’ representative. Cyren Call might play that role.
“Although the public-safety community recognizes that the type of public/private partnership contemplated herein presents certain novel regulatory issues, encumbering a portion of the commercial 700 MHz spectrum with obligations to provide public safety with needed critical broadband communications capabilities, and permitting public safety and a commercial network operator to combine certain portions of their licensed spectrum holdings in a shared network, represents the only currently realistic potential alternative to deliver a viable, affordable, self-sustaining route to meet the 21st century communications of public safety,” the NPSTC stated.
Despite refusing to back mandated open access or the startup itself, Frontline said it saw more good than bad in the NPSTC paper.
“NPSTC today issued a statement clarifying its positions on the impending 700 MHz proceeding at the FCC, including the need for a 10 MHz E block and a single, shared, nationwide, broadband, interoperable 4G network,” Frontline stated. “Frontline has worked closely with public safety on these important issues and welcomes NPSTC’s endorsement of the basic E Block framework proposed in the FCC’s further notice of proposed rulemaking. The statement underscores that public safety supports a ‘national new build’ network funded by the E Block licensee. That means way more than a cosmetic tweak of Verizon’s network. It means a real facilities-based alternative. That’s good for consumers and public safety: two sides of same coin.”
It is unclear how Frontline’s bidding strategy and overall business model would be impacted if the FCC nixes open access and other controversial aspects of its proposal, while retaining the plan’s broad outlines. Such an outcome could entice AT&T Inc. and Verizon-parent companies of the two largest mobile-phone carriers and harsh critics of Frontline’s plan-to pursue a partnership with public safety in the 700 MHz band.
