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Public safety needs to avoid making a deal with the devil
(Urgent Communications Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) We are fast approaching the sixth anniversary of Morgan
O’Brien’s pronouncement made during his keynote
address at IWCE that not only should a wireless broadband
network for first responders be deployed, it also was feasible.
There were a great many skeptics at the time who poised a slew of
legitimate questions. Chief among them: Where would the money be
found? Where would the spectrum be found? Would the public-safety
sector be able to put aside its petty differences and work together
for the common good?
Today, it appears that we are on the cusp of
O’Brien’s vision coming to fruition. Seemingly there is
consensus on Capitol Hill that such a network is needed. Perhaps
more important, Congress seems to be willing to provide the 700 MHz
D Block spectrum for this network and some level of federal funding
to ensure that it is built. This is a monumental achievement, and
the entire public-safety sector deserves to take a bow,
particularly the tireless leaders who have walked the floors of the
Capitol, knocking on doors, for months. If public safety
hadn’t come together with a unified voice, the idea of this
network would have died quickly.
But there appears to be a quid pro quo isn’t there
always when one is dealing with lawmakers and policymakers?
that I fear might be a deal with the devil. In order to justify
ceding the
D Block to public safety, some on Capitol Hill are insisting that
public safety gives back some of its existing spectrum. The
airwaves talked about most often are those that public safety uses
for narrowband operations in the 700 MHz band.
Making that deal would be a mistake. There is little question
that the wireless broadband network being contemplated would take
public-safety communications into a bright new future. The mind
boggles at the possibilities. Video is the application most often
held up as the shining example of what’s possible, but as a
fire chief I am more interested in biometric technologies that will
alert incident commanders when a firefighter’s health is
about to be compromised. Only through broadband will such real-time
monitoring be possible.
However, there also is little question that the wireless
broadband network isn’t going to reach everybody, as John
Powell of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council
(NPSTC) pointed out in a column published by
Urgent Communications a
couple of weeks ago. Moreover, I have seen no scientific evidence
that Long-Term Evolution signals will be capable of adequately
penetrating buildings particularly into sublevels such as
basements and underground parking garages something that is
vital for first responders. In addition, we have seen no scientific
evidence that LTE networks will be able to operate at the wattage
levels we need, and we have no idea whether LTE devices will be
able to operate off-network, which would be extremely important to
the fire service. And let’s not forget that it will be years,
perhaps decades, before the LTE network will be capable of
providing mission-critical voice.
For all of these reasons, public safety would do well to proceed
with caution regarding any spectrum giveback, especially those that
involve its 700 MHz narrowband spectrum. Right now, we don’t
have enough spectrum for our operations, and for many agencies this
still will be the case even after the broadband network is
deployed.
Charles Werner is chief of the
Charlottesville
(Va.) Fire Department, a member of SAFECOM’s executive committee, and a member of
UC’s editorial advisory council.
© 2012 Penton Media
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