New York Likely to Opt Out of National 700 MHz Network

“Any large entity like that… would in effect become a monopoly,” without the “responsiveness to the needs of public safety, to the level of redundancy that we would require,” Deputy Police Chief Charles Dowd said of a national network. “I just don’t see us utilizing it.” Fire Chief Salvatore Cassano agreed. Dowd said first responders will expect the reliability and redundancy in a wireless broadband network that they have now.

Dowd’s department favors regional 700 MHz networks rather than a national network, he said. “Geography, population density and building construction all vary between regions,” he said. “As a result, public safety broadband network standards based on local requirements are far more appropriate than struggling to adapt to a single nationwide standard. Existing regional or local public safety broadband networks such as those in use in Washington, D.C., and New York City should be allowed to grow and thrive.” These networks could be combined to form a “network of networks” offering national interoperability, he said.

After the hearing, an FCC source said support appears to growing for regional licensing, though national public safety groups oppose that approach. “It’s very difficult. There’s a lot of blame to go around… and there’s so little consensus,” the source said. “One thing that did come up is, a regional [approach] might have some traction.”

Martin indicated during the hearing that he believes the FCC is required to hold an auction and cannot award spectrum in a request for proposals, as Verizon Wireless and AT&T have recommended. Martin and Commissioner Robert McDowell both asked if the FCC has the authority to release an RFP, rather than hold an auction. “Did I hear AT&T and Verizon correctly, at least the witnesses, you don’t know if we've got the statutory authority?” McDowell said. “Yet you're making this proposal?”

“What Verizon is saying is that, in order to solve this problem, in the best interest of public safety, Congress should step in and do that,” replied Don Brittingham, an assistant vice president at Verizon. “There should be legislation to give you the authority to reallocate the spectrum.”

“At least at this point you have to auction the spectrum,” said Larry Krevor, vice president at Sprint Nextel. “Certainly with the election and a new Congress and the new committee assignments, et cetera, the Hill will probably not act as quickly as you may like.”

Much of Wednesday’s testimony by business and from other public safety groups urged the FCC to consider licensing the D-block on a regional rather than national basis. John Farmer, a former attorney general of New Jersey and counsel to the 9-11 Commission, said the FCC should study how emergencies play out, not focus on “considerations of bureaucratic hierarchy” in deciding the new network’s structure.

“When we look at the major emergencies of recent years, principally 9/11 and Katrina, but also hurricanes like Isabelle and Floyd, and cases like the D.C. sniper… common elements stand out,” Farmer said. “First, for purposes of responding to them, emergencies are, at least in the first instance, local and regional before they are national. They are, in other words, lived from the bottom up, not from the top down. Second, communications between the bottom and the top within departments, and across agencies, will become strained and unreliable, and may fail entirely.”

Regional networks make more sense, Farmer said. “There is nothing wrong, per se, with the goal of nationwide interoperability,” he said. “The way that emergencies actually happen, however, suggests that the best way to achieve interoperability nationwide is by first building it locally and regionally, and then interconnecting the regional interoperable networks.”

Ted Carlson, U.S. Cellular chairman, said his company probably will bid to run part of the network, provided licenses are offered in small units, for example in each of the 55 NPSPAC regions.

“A regional licensing approach would provide greater flexibility and would likely be more effective in addressing public safety’s local communications needs,” Brittingham said. “Because these needs are likely to be significantly greater in dense metropolitan areas, the spectrum required for public safety use in those areas would also be greater.”

FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate asked industry witnesses if regional networks can be built more quickly than a national network. Most replied that they can, though Sprint’s Krevor said there are too many unknowns to make predictions.

Regional networks may leave rural areas without service, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said. “There’s an inherent tension between a national system and one that is regional or local,” he said. Adelstein noted that, according to witnesses, cities like New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., are building out broadband public safety networks and support a regional approach. “These are areas that have the resources… to effectively manage that,” he said. “Would it leave rural areas behind?”

Bob Gurss, counsel to APCO, said his group continues to support a single, national network. “A national broadband network would ensure that all public safety agencies, regardless of their size, location, expertise, or financial resources, would have the same opportunities to take advantage of the new world of broadband communications,” he said. “Absent a national network, only those few agencies with substantial resources and expertise will be able to provide their first responders with state-of-the-art broadband communications. The result would be islands of robust, and probably incompatible, public safety broadband networks, surrounded by vast unserved areas “ But Gurss also observed that, even with the network, conventional public- safety radio networks will remain critical. “The voice component of the broadband network will probably eliminate the need of some public safety personnel to carry both a cellphone and a land mobile radio,” he said. “However, land mobile radio will likely remain the principal means of providing mission-critical communications.”

The hearing didn’t address what some observers at the FCC and in industry view as a growing rift between APCO and the Public Safety Spectrum Trust. Neither Gurss nor trust chairman Harlin McEwen discussed in his testimony how the groups are getting along.

Public safety groups must work together, Commissioner Michael Copps said. “I am concerned that the public safety community is of many different minds -- too many -- when it comes to approaching this great challenge,” he said. “I am concerned that too many of the people involved in this entire process are spending too much time jockeying for position and placing blame, with too little spent doing the hard work of information gathering, analysis, reaching out, compromise, and developing new ideas… I am impugning no one’s good faith. There is a lot of dedication and commitment here today, and I salute that. It’s just that the goal here is so daunting and the level of cooperation required so extraordinary.”

The FCC has no chief technology officer, because Martin hasn’t filled the job, Copps said. “A good argument could be made that we need a hardening of the FCC infrastructure in order to deal with the many questions,” he said.