WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Lawmakers on the Senate Commerce Committee were in agreement Thursday for the need to improve the ability of the country's emergency services to better communicate with each other.
At a hearing debating how best to improve communications among the different divisions of emergency services and among those at the local, state and federal levels, senators heard evidence from experts from the emergency services and the telecommunications industry.
In his opening statement, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the committee, said that he was in favor of taking action.
"This is a matter of continuing importance to our nation, and to the men and women who risk their lives daily to provide Americans with emergency assistance," he said.
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, vice chairman of the committee, agreed with his colleague's assessment, saying there was a need to create a national broadband network for emergency services.
At issue is whether spectrum, which is being freed up by the transition among television broadcasters to a digital signal from analog, should be used for the creation of this national network.
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, where emergency services struggled to communicate effectively, the shortcomings in emergency services' interoperability has become a hotly debated issue.
Of the spectrum that will become available, 60 megahertz is on the block to be auctioned off to private-sector telecommunications companies.
Senators heard from Morgan O'Brien, founder and former chief executive of wireless company Nextel, now part of Sprint Nextel, how half of that spectrum should be placed instead in a trust to be used for the construction of an emergency-services network.
"I urge Congress to embrace ... a public-private partnership that will deliver wireless broadband service to all of the American public and provide safety with the telecommunications capabilities needed to protect the safety of our citizenry," O'Brien said in his opening statement.
O'Brien is now chairman of an organization called Cyren Call, which is leading the lobbying efforts for the creation of a new broadband network. Were half the available spectrum to be made available for this network, Cyren Call would then put in a bid to lead the project.
It would require Congress to pass legislation in order for the Cyren Call proposal to go forward.
Stevens voiced support for the proposal in his opening remarks, saying it "looks good in concept."
Later in the hearing, however, Stevens aggressively questioned O'Brien about whether it was logical for the federal government to give up the revenue that would be raised through the auction of the spectrum.
He said it would be "impossible" for fiscal and for public policy reasons to give half the spectrum to a trust.
O'Brien responded that the trust would raise money off the capital markets in order to pay for the spectrum, albeit for a lower price than would be raised through a commercial auction.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., expressed reservations for the scheme, asking whether it wasn't just an opportunity for the private sector to profit from public safety.
Senators also heard from representatives of the police and firefighting communities, both of which endorsed the need for a national broadband network.
"We urge members of this committee to take the first action to create this public safety broadband trust by promptly reporting legislation to take 30 megahertz from the pending auction and direct the (Federal Communications Commission) to reallocate it to public safety," said Charles L. Werner, chief of the Charlottesville, Va., fire department and a member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
The proposal, however, is not without controversy.
Several groups have argued that emergency services don't require any further allocation of spectrum but instead just need assistance in using their existing spectrum more efficiently.
According to the CTIA-the Wireless Association, emergency services currently have 49.7 megahertz, which is more than they would require to build a national broadband network.
"Commercial operators, using the same 50 megahertz of spectrum, can provide voice and data service to 60 million Americans," said Steve Largent, CTIA president, who was also testifying at the hearing. "The commercial wireless industry provides interoperable voice and data services to 20 times the number of customers as are served by public safety. This is not about spectrum."
In total there is 108 megahertz of spectrum being freed up by the shift to digital television. Last year Congress already earmarked 24 megahertz of that spectrum for public safety purposes. It also said that $1 billion from the revenue raised through the private-sector auction should be spent on enhancing public-sector interoperability.
An act passed last year sets the FCC a deadline of next January to complete the auction of the spectrum. This pending deadline places added pressure on Congress to decide whether more of it should be split off for public safety purposes.
Commercial wireless operators such as Verizon Wireless, a unit of Verizon Communications, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, part of Deutsche Telekom, and AT&T's wireless unit are all known to be interested in acquiring some of the spectrum.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, asked whether or not part of the 24 megahertz couldn't be used to build the broadband network.
Harlin R. McEwan, chairman of the communications committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, responded that half of that spectrum could be used for broadband purposes, but that there were questions over whether it was enough to build a national broadband network.
Largent said that he believed that 12 megahertz would be sufficient, reiterating his organization's opposition to the Cyren Call proposal.
In January, Inouye and Stevens jointly introduced a bill that aims to improve interoperability of emergency communications, following a failed effort in the last Congress.
Their bill would provide more guidance on the award of $1 billion in grants to police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel.
O'Brien faces a tough challenge in convincing lawmakers to pass legislation to grant the splitting of the available spectrum before the auction takes place.
Few senators in Thursday's hearing expressed support for the proposal.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has announced plans to introduce a bill that would effectively provide the legislative underpinning for a Cyren Call trust.
McCain is a member of the Commerce Committee but wasn't at the hearing.
Given the possibility that McCain may be the Republican presidential candidate in the 2008 election, there are few in the commercial world willing to publicly criticize the Cyren Call proposition.
- By Corey Boles, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6637; corey.boles@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires"
Posted to the site on 8th February 2007
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