WASHINGTON-Morgan O’Brien, the industry pioneer who built Nextel Communications Inc. into a multibillion-dollar national wireless force, is joining a start-up firm seeking to leverage a patented geographic location-based technology for targeted emergency alerts and commercial mobile marketing.
O’Brien will be chairman of the advisory board at northern Virginia-based SquareLoop Inc. SquareLoop is headed by former wireless association executive-turned-entrepreneur Tom Stroup.
O’Brien’s move to SquareLoop follows his departure from the board of directors of Nextel in 2005, when it was sold for $35 billion to Sprint Corp. O’Brien enters the emergency alert space at a time when the Department of Homeland Security, Congress and Federal Communications Commission continue to struggle in their attempts to modernize the Cold War-era national emergency warning system more than four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.
The debate over reforming the nation’s emergency warning regime is as much about how the new system would be administered as about which technology works best for wireless distribution.
SquareLoop, which to date largely has steered clear of the policy debate in favor of raising capital and briefing wireless carriers about its technology, believes it has a solution capable of targeting small clusters of wireless consumers without compromising their privacy. The privacy component could be highly attractive, given current events. Congress and privacy groups have raised concerns about the Bush administration’s secret eavesdropping program and the sale of cell phone records by third-party brokers.
O’Brien, who helped bring competition to a one-time cellular duopoly and made a blue collar push-to-talk technology a mainstay in the wireless industry, could be another big selling point for SquareLoop’s location-based service. SquareLoop said O’Brien will help shape company strategy and build new partnerships as the firm introduces its location-based solution to the market.
“Our system doesn’t allow the network to track. The handset makes all the decisions and preserves anonymity,” said O’Brien.
O’Brien said the wireless industry’s reception to SquareLoop’s technology has been “quite good.”
SquareLoop, currently attempting to raise between $3 million and $5 million, has patent rights to the wireless location technology developed by Mitre Corp., a federally funded nonprofit research resource for the Department of Defense and other federal agencies. Indeed, the technology previously has been used by the Pentagon.
“What we are providing is the enabling technology,” said Stroup, former president of the Personal Communications Industry Association.
Stroup said the firm will be demonstrating the technology soon in the Washington, D.C. area. He said the SquareLoop technology can be downloaded over the air to mobile phones.
The technology uses wireless receiver intelligence to filter messages based on the device’s current or prior location as well as on factors such as velocity, direction of travel or time of day. And unlike other location-based services available from wireless carriers, SquareLoop said its technology is flexible enough to work on any of the wireless transmission technologies used by network carriers. As such, the SquareLoop solution does not require changes to the wireless network infrastructure.
“We’re thrilled that Morgan has agreed to share his invaluable strategic insight with our team at SquareLoop and to introduce our technology to his extensive network of wireless industry contacts,” said Stroup. “I look forward to working closely with Morgan as we prepare to launch SquareLoop’s unique approach to location-based services in the marketplace.”
From most indications, the private sector is moving far faster than Washington in trying to improve emergency alerts, whose public-safety value has only been heightened further since 9/11 by massive death and destruction from the December 2004 Indonesian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina last year in the Gulf region. Emergency alerts also can be valuable in smaller-scale emergencies, such as when chemical spills or serious traffic accidents occur.
The wireless industry and U.S. government has yet to give its nod to a specific wireless emergency alert technology. Cellular phones can carry text alerts through short message service, but the industry and others say SMS has limitations.
Another technology, cell broadcast, is gaining attention in the United States and overseas. Einstein PCS, a mobile carrier owned by Airadigm Communications, has successfully tested cell broadcast emergency warning service in Appleton, Wis.
A week ago, Westlin Corp. and CellCast L.L.C. announced a joint venture to deploy a cell broadcast emergency alert system. The system would enable federal and state agencies in the Gulf Coast to provide instantaneous notification to groups of people via their cell phones.
Westlin is a Houston-based Internet firm specializing in disaster and recovery. CellCast is a private firm responsible for global deployment of cell broadcast under license from the Cellular Emergency Alert Association.
Technology is one piece of the emergency alert puzzle. There are many other issues too, some identified in emergency warning legislation championed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).
The FCC is examining a broad range of issues in considering how to improve the current emergency alert system.
CTIA flagged a number of issues it believes warrant close attention by the FCC.
The association recommended formation of a government/industry partnership to develop emergency alert system requirements enabling manufacturers to build to specific requirements; full liability protection for wireless carrier distribution of emergency alerts on par with that currently accorded broadcasters; designation of authorities for development of and operation of emergency alert service; development of a process to authenticate and secure emergency alert messages; and funding support for research, development and implementation of a new national emergency warning system.
Meantime, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a unit of DHS, is moving into the next phase of a pilot project to develop a national digital platform for emergency alert distribution. Top mobile-phone carriers, public TV stations and others are working with DHS on the initiative.
