Public Safety Groups Urge Rejection of RFP Plan for Public Safety Broadband Network

“Verizon and AT&T suggest again that the federal government provide the necessary funding to permit the [Public Safety Broadband Licensee] to enter into network contracts with commercial entities,” APCO said. “APCO would be thrilled to see such federal funding made available. However, any casual observer of Congress and the federal budget would have to acknowledge that there is little potential for such federal funding anytime soon.”

While it “would have been wise” for Congress to devote most of the $19 billion received from the first 700 MHz auction to a national public safety “that did not occur, and the revenue for the yet-to-be-auctioned D block will be far too little” to fund such a network, APCO said. While revenue from other future auctions, for example the TV white spaces, could be dedicated to a public safety network, “that too would require legislation and difficult federal budgetary decisions,” it said.

The Public Safety Spectrum Trust made similar arguments and questioned the motives of carriers in asking the FCC to change its approach on the D block. “Despite the overwhelming support for the Public/Private Partnership, a few parties claim that the FCC’s proposed partnership between commercial and public safety interests cannot succeed,” the PSST said. “These parties -- primarily commercial wireless operators -- would prefer that the D Block be reauctioned without public safety obligations. While their interest in acquiring additional spectrum is clear, the Commission should discount this argument in light of the wide-ranging endorsements for the Public/Private Partnership and the dire need for a nationwide, interoperable” public safety network.

The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council said most commenters support a partnership and disputed arguments made by Verizon Wireless for an RFP. “Underlying its advocacy is that it is not convinced that the case has been made for a nationwide broadband network capable of serving public safety,” NPSTC said. “Interests that would commit the remaining 700 MHz segment to other uses abandon the goal that the nationwide broadband network encompasses. Committing the remaining 700 MHz solely to private interests, or that the network only reflect commercial requirements, or to simply assign the spectrum to local agencies, succumbs to the parochial to the detriment of the national interest.” The International Association of Chiefs of Police and the National Sheriffs’ Association called a public-private partnership “the path to enhanced law enforcement communications.”

But AT&T said even the International Association of Fire Fighters and New York City Police Department expressed skepticism about whether the proposal for a public-private partnership will meet public safety’s needs. “A diverse selection of commenters -- including public safety groups, wireless industry participants, and individual commenters well-versed in communications law and policy -- question whether a simple reauction of the spectrum, even with clarifications, will ensure the success of the Public/Private Partnership,” AT&T said.

Verizon Wireless said it remains convinced that the public-private partnership model is illogical. “The D Block concept is based on flawed economic assumptions that do not conform to commercial reality,” the carrier said. “The comments identify a large chasm between what the D Block approach was expected to deliver and what is now understood to be economically feasible. The basic flaw of the D Block concept is that the cost of building a nationwide broadband network for public safety exceeds the value of the remaining 700 MHz spectrum that was intended to finance it.”

Cyren Call, meanwhile, filed a vigorous defense of the role it filled as advisor to the PSST. Cyren, founded by Morgan O'Brien, said the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition, made up of major public interest groups, and Verizon Wireless, its primary critics, make “strange bedfellows.” It said criticisms by both are “so misleading, whether intentionally or negligently, that they cannot be permitted to stand uncorrected.”

Cyren disputed claims it was secretive on its role and intentions as advisor to the PSST. “Cyren Call could not have picked a more open and more visible venue in which to conceive, publicize and tirelessly promote the [public safety] network concept,” it said. “Cyren Call made no secret that it was a for-profit corporation or that it hoped to be engaged by the PSST in a long-term role that would enable it to assist the PSST in carrying out its obligations and responsibilities.”

Cyren also reassured the FCC it “does not and cannot ‘control'” the PSST. Cyren said it has only two agreements with the PSST: “The first is an agreement whereby Cyren Call provides defined services to the PSST for agreed upon fees, which agreement is terminable (other than for identified causes) on thirty days notice -- hardly the hallmark of an adhesion contract… The second is a package of loan documents containing the terms and conditions applicable to advances of funds from Cyren Call to the PSST, which are modeled on normal, arm’s-length terms found in typical commercial loan transactions.”

Also of note in the public safety filings, APCO, the PSST and NPSTC disputed arguments by other public safety groups, including the New York Police Department (CD June 23 p7), that regional networks would be preferable to a single network with a national licensee.

APCO said its members are employed by local and state governments and it considered carefully whether it should promote a regional rather than national approach. “APCO continues to believe that a national public safety broadband license is the most expedient approach to provide for effective and comprehensive broadband public safety communications capability,” the group said. “While some accommodation for certain local deployments in the context of a national license is necessary, the Commission must avoid creating yet another situation consisting of multiple islands of robust, but incompatible, public safety networks, with vast unserved areas in-between.”

NPSTC said a regional approach would undermine national interoperability and would mean some areas of the country would fall behind others in network build out. “NPSTC’s concern is that the regional model replicates all too much the deployment of commercial cellular service, where investment varied considerably across the nation,” the group said. “It is not too far in the past where large areas of the nation, many with significant population centers, far more that many public safety service areas, had no or extremely limited service that was often unreliable.” The PSST said “the Commission determined correctly that this network must be a single nationwide system if it is to fulfill a primary objective of facilitating interoperability among emergency responders.”