Posted by Barlow Keener

Last week at David Isenberg’s excellent Freedom to Connect Conference,  former FCC Commissioner Reed Hundt announced the proposal of his company, Frontline Wireless, to solve the problem faced by public safety.  The proposal, the Public Safety Broadband Deployment Plan, calls for establishing a nationwide public safety “network” build by private companies.  The under the plan, the FCC would auction the old UHF 700MHz television spectrum and require the successful winners to build a network for public safety on portions of the spectrum.  Frontline has an impressive team including Haynes Griffin, founding CEO of Vanguard Cellular (later acquired by AT&T Wireless), Janice Obuchowski, former head of the NTIA, and Reed Hundt.

Today, Jerry Brito, responded to Frontline’s proposal in the WSJ editorial section.   Mr. Brito is a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.  His suggestion is to auction out spectrum already dedicated to public safety, rather than selling off the 700MHz spectrum on a “diluted” basis, and have the successful bidders build a public safety network using part of the available public safety spectrum for commercial use.

I have two thoughts about this issues.  First, public safety as been given 50Mhz of 4.9GHz spectrum and has been slow to develop it.  The reasons are multiple but boil down to the fact that there are a limited number of vendors selling tested 4.9GHz base stations and working mobile 4.9GHz radios.  Because the equipment is just now rolling out, public safety agencies have held back from putting in their orders.  Who wants to purchase the first radio produced.  In addtion, local public safety agencies have not been given the Home Land Security funding at the same rate provided to federal agencies. In other words, there is no money to build out a nationwide communication system for public safety agencies because the federal government has not deemed it a priority.   I know these first hand having participated in my own town’s WiFi committee of which a component was public safety’s request that the successful WiFi ISP install the 4.9GHz system.  After more than 18 months of talking and planning, the town now has one Strix WiFi radio outside town hall.

The second issue is one I have long thought about but not seen much written about.  It is no coincidence that the former Bell companies own the major cellular companies and dominate the auctions because of their expertise and available capital.   Back in the early 1980’s it was determined by the FCC and AT&T(the old A&T) that the new cellular service was too expensive and that no more than 1,000,000 users would ever take the service nationwide.   Because cellular service determined by the FCC to be “sideline” business, each of the Bell operating companies was given, at no cost and no auction, a license covering their territories.  A second license was given away to another dulopy provider.  The result in the US is that there are few providers of cell service and that all new spectrum auctions are dominated by these original license holders.  However, much of the innovation in wireless has been in the unlicensed spectrum areas of 2.4GHz or WiFi.   One needs to look no further than to the WiFi under the home desk, at Starbucks, and on the new WiFi mesh networks to see what capitalism can do when freed up. 

My recommendation to solve the public safety problem is to have Congress allocate sufficient funding to the 50,000 public safety agencies across the country to purchase radios and base stations to use the 4.9Ghz spectrum.    In addition, the FCC should take the available 700Mhz spectrum and offer in area by area on a non-interference channel by channel basis similar to 2.4GHz or WiFi.  Givening 700Mz away would spur innovation and make efficient use of the spectrum.  

New innovation, with inventors working in garages, will in the long run, like lowering taxes, create a new economy and result in more tax dollars than an auction.