Sprint, T-Mobile Ready for Battle Over Details on Public Safety Plan
Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile urged lawmakers to focus on “substance” when deciding how best to build a national wireless broadband network for public safety. In a Monday briefing, the No. 3 and 4 carriers previewed a new white paper showing how spectrum sharing would meet public safety’s needs if the government auctions the 700 MHz D-block. The carriers say they would buy the spectrum and negotiate sharing arrangements with public safety. The companies’ effort met a setback earlier this month when President Barack Obama endorsed a direct reallocation of the D-block to public safety.
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The Senate Commerce Committee has targeted Feb. 16 for a hearing on the public safety issue, industry officials said. A Senate aide said only the hearing may be held as early as next week. The committee’s chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., has a bill to reallocate the D-block to public safety. Reallocation is supported by Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass. Sprint and T-Mobile plan to release their study mid-month, the companies’ executives said at the Monday briefing.
The House Commerce Committee last year supported auction of the D-block, but this year has largely held back from weighing in. Since the Obama announcement, a few Republican committee members reaffirmed their support for an auction (CD Jan 31 p2). But others have kept mum, including the Democratic and Republican leaders of the full committee and the Communications Subcommittee. Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., declined to comment Monday. Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and the leaders of the full committee didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Sprint and T-Mobile “certainly are hopeful that [the committee members] are supportive,” said T-Mobile Vice President Kathleen Ham. The companies are “trying to bring some substance to the debate” and show that an auction combined with spectrum sharing makes the most sense for public safety, she said. Lawmakers should “take a deep breath” and make a “rational” rather than an “emotional” decision, she said.
The Obama reallocation endorsement was only the “end of the beginning” of the debate, said Larry Krevor, Sprint vice president for spectrum. The White House hasn’t provided details on the plan. Key questions remain unanswered on governance and funding of the public safety network, Krevor said. There’s still “a lot of work to be done before this plan is fully baked, however it comes out."
The new white paper follows up on a previous report supporting auctions that was filed by T-Mobile over the summer. Both papers were prepared by former Motorola Chief Technology Officer Dennis Roberson. The new report provides more evidence that there are no technical obstacles to giving public safety priority access to a shared network with commercial carriers, Roberson said Monday. Advantages of the sharing approach for public safety include more geographic coverage, faster network deployment, lower operational costs and more capacity, he said.
Public safety could maintain complete control in a spectrum-sharing situation, at least from a technical standpoint, Roberson said. They would have complete control of their existing spectrum, as well as a preset portion of the commercial network, he said. Public safety has raised concerns that carriers might elect not to give public safety control of any part of their network. With four carriers potentially competing for public safety’s business, each will have to give public safety control to win their business, Krevor said. That competition will be to public safety’s benefit, he said.