Broadband Network Won’t Solve All of Public Safety’s Communications Woes, DHS Officials Warn

"While issues like broadband take center stage … we must continue to support public safety in strengthening its emergency communications capabilities by providing it with the resources and tools that it needs,” said Chris Essid, director of DHS’s Office of Emergency Communications. “Broadband has a lot of promise … but there is no one tool that will do everything. … Let’s not forget about all the other tools."

Legacy public safety radio systems will remain critical for public safety for decades, said Robert Griffin, director of DHS’s First Responder Programs Office for Interoperability & Compatibility. “As we look forward we cannot lose sight of our responsibility to do no harm to that capacity,” Griffin said. “We need to find ways to extend the life cycles of existing systems, take pressure off of first responder budgets that are already hard pressed."

As the U.S. moves forward on a national public safety broadband network policymakers must focus on the many “unsexy issues” that must be resolved, Griffin said. “We need to spend more time on the pipes and less on the faucets,” he said: “Unfortunately, the pipes are far less sexy than the faucets. It’s hard to get excited about the pipes. … We must spend as much time and effort on the issues of what the use, loading and architecture of the precious D-block spectrum will look like” as on “who will control it."

With the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks approaching, more must be done, Verveer said. “Unfortunately, despite the experience of the terrorist attack another 10 years have passed without a widely available solution of the evident needs for improved public safety communications,” he said. “That clearly is not for lack of trying.”

Verveer noted that President Barack Obama called for billions of dollars to be dedicated to nationwide wireless public safety network in a February speech in Marquette, Mich. (CD Feb. 11 p1). “It’s not only personal with you and personal with me, it’s personal with the president as well,” he said. But, he noted, the plan depends on Congress approving authority for the FCC to conduct voluntary incentive auctions. “Many of you here provided your expertise and counsel to the White House,” he said. “I want to thank all of you for what you've done and will continue to do.”

Verveer also said the U.S. appreciates the willingness of Canada and Mexico to work with it on cross border spectrum issues. Negotiations can take a long time, he conceded, with the FCC “for historic reasons” usually taking the lead on negotiations with Canada and the State Department those with Mexico. “All three of the governments have very skilled and dedicated professionals working on the cross border issues on a regular basis,” he said.

Verveer said he has fielded many questions about why negotiations take so long. He said the details are often “arcane” and that spectrum issues are commonly resolved through nonbinding agreements. “The inclusion of nonbinding language as an addendum to a binding agreement is very bad practice and should be avoided,” he said. The three governments also must consult with public and private parties as negotiations continue, which also takes time, he said. “Patience is required all around,” he said. “We're working on it.”

Verveer said negotiations with Canada can proceed more quickly at times because of a common language and common legal system. “Arrangements with Mexico, on the other hand, understandably have to be documented in both English and Spanish and have to accommodate the differing aspects of our legal systems,” he said.

Eighty percent of Canada’s population lives within 75 miles of the U.S. border and interoperable communications are critical, said Jean-Philippe Linteau, Canadian counselor to the U.S. “That means about a $1 million of good and services crossing the border every minute,” Linteau said. “For every dollar that China buys of U.S. goods, Canada buys almost $3 from you. … What does that tell you about the importance of keeping the border functioning very efficiently?"

The FCC is taking the steps it can to push forward on the launch of a national broadband network, said Jennifer Manner, deputy chief of the Public Safety Bureau. Among them, the FCC has launched Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC) and last week approved the 22nd waiver allowing the early buildout of a network in 700 MHz spectrum, approving an application by the state of Texas, Manner said. The agency’s main focus at this point is on developing the framework for a network, she said. The FCC is also exploring how public safety can use 50 MHz of dedicated spectrum in the 4.9 GHz band, which “could be a nice compliment to the 700 MHz broadband,” she said. The FCC will have more to say on the 4.9 GHz band this summer or fall, she said.

APCO Also Holds Summit

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is partnering with the industry on public safety areas like software applications, antennas and devices through a collaborative research program, said Dereck Orr, program manager at NIST’s Office of Law Enforcement Standards at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International (APCO)’s broadband summit, also in Washington Monday.

Alcatel-Lucent was the first vendor to formally join the research program, Orr said. Several other vendors are preparing for equipment and testing, he said. Meanwhile, everyone needs to look beyond LTE and think about what standards are available for future public safety, he said. There are various standards that have to be developed by the industry, he said. It’s key to maintain economics of scale while maintaining public safety capabilities, he said.

There’s no question that the delivery of public safety services will change significantly in the next five years, said Bernard Melekian, director of Community Oriented Policing Services at the Justice Department. Regionalization and consolidation would be part of the change that’s led by LTE standards, he said. Meanwhile, local public safety communities are feeling the lingering effects of a slumping economy and their ability to pay for the infrastructure and the transition could be a challenge, he noted.

Interoperability has always been a challenge, said Greg Schaffer, DHS assistant secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications. Progress has been made but “we can do a lot better,” he said. The network should be based on open standards and should allow public safety agencies across jurisdictions to access the network without much reprogramming, he said. Much of the complexity can be handled by technology, he said. The network would be a multi-vendor network, he said. A testing process that enables devices to roam seamlessly is critical, said NIST’s Orr, urging public safety communities to leverage existing commercial testing process. There’s no need to create new testing process from the ground up, he said.