It has always been the vision of the Public Safety Community to work with commercial wireless network operators to provide off-loading of non-emergency traffic onto commercial networks when needed, and to further work with commercial network operators with cell site sharing and even network backhaul
Introduction The D Block, (758-763 MHz and 788-793 MHz) is the 10 MHz of spectrum (5MHz X 5 MHz) that sits next to the Public Safety 10 MHz of spectrum…
Ten years after 9/11, there is no excuse for not providing the Public Safety community with the tools it needs to better serve all of us. This becomes even more important when the Public Safety community has seen layoffs at a local level because of a lack of funding. Doing more with less takes the right tools, and in this case the right tool is a robust Public Safety-only broadband network that has 20 MHz of spectrum available.
Do not ignore continued investment in existing mission-critical analog and P25 voice systems because you believe voice over LTE broadband that is mission-critical is just around the corner. Many elected officials in federal, state, and local agencies seem to believe this so continued investment in existing channelized voice systems is not needed
IF LTE broadband can meet both the voice and the data requirements of the first responder community, a single device could be deployed that would provide not only data/video interoperability, but voice interoperability as well. This would be an ideal situation and one that is worth pursing. However, existing narrowband spectrum should not be reallocated for other uses until such time as LTE broadband can and does meet all of the requirements for Public Safety mission critical voice as well as data and video services.
On March 18, 2011, the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which is a part of the Library of Congress, submitted a memorandum that has been used by some in the House…
Another lesson from these tests is that when the network was overloaded, that is, we tried to push more data and video over the system than it could handle, not only was the last data or video unusable, it also rendered existing data and video transmissions that were already in use unusable or at least unstable.
However, it is my contention, and that of many others, that while the FCC does need to impose some rules that will help ensure nationwide interoperability, many of the items in the FNPRM should remain the purview of the various standards bodies that are working on the LTE and subsequent air-interface standards and that many other items should be determined by a Nationwide Network Governance Entity (NNGE).
I am still very optimistic that Public Safety will prevail, especially during the year of the tenth anniversary of the tragic 9/11 attack in New York when the lack of Public Safety communications interoperability first came to the attention of the general public
2011 is a pivotal year for Public Safety communications. It is a year when, I am confident, Congress will vote to reallocate the D Block to Public Safety, the narrowband 700-MHz channels will remain as they are, and some of the organizations that obtained waivers to build out their 700-MHz broadband systems will bring them online.
The solution is for you, as members of Congress, to remove the 10 MHz of spectrum known as the D Block that is adjacent to the existing Public Safety spectrum from the auction pool and reallocate it directly to Public Safety for its use
Next year will be the turning point for Public Safety—I know it and I think those in Congress who are opposed to the reallocation of the D Block are becoming aware of it
Since Connect Public Safety Now believes that commercial broadband is more important than a Public Safety nationwide broadband network, I have taken to calling it “Connect Public Safety—NOT!”
The goal of the PSHSB should be to provide public safety with a roadmap for BOTH nationwide interoperable voice and data services. To that end, the narrowband spectrum must be reserved for narrowband voice services and the broadband portion of the public safety spectrum reserved for fully interoperable broadband services.
The recent T-Mobile white paper on capacity that was submitted in an attempt to prove that 10 MHz of spectrum is enough for Public Safety, the authors used a spectral efficiency of 2.0 Bps/Hz. I stated in my response that this was too high and that 1.3 bps/Hz should have been used. The FCC itself validates my position that the T-Mobile white paper was based on inaccurate information.