Key Part of the Wireless Spectrum Goes Unused

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In 2005, a first responder was still searching for survivors in New Orleans — fourteen days after Hurricane Katrina hit.

Despite $19 billion in bids at a wireless spectrum auction this week, there was no winning bid for the spectrum set aside to build a nationwide network for public safety operators. Technology writer Glen Bischoff says it is prohibitive costs — not a lack of FCC urgency or interest — that contribute to the continued lack of a first responder system.

Bischoff, the editor of Mobile Radio Technology Magazine, says the spectrum in question, Block D and offered this week for a reserve price of $1.3 billion, would represent an unprecedented partnership between the commercial community and the public safety community. "There's always going to be little bit of hesitancy, of leaping off the pier when it's never been done before."

The problem is that the network has to be built to public safety specifications, which commercial operators are unaccustomed to building and that cost much more.

"It has to work the first time, every time," he says. "We're running out of a burning building and the first responders are running in, they need to know their devices are going to work."

Another factor making it difficult for commercial operators is a 10 percent penalty that Bischoff says the FCC can impose if the commercial operator's efforts don't meet certain standards. "If the reserve price is $1.3 billion, you're talking about a penalty where they will be writing a check to the government for $130 million."

As for concerns the FCC is dragging its feet, Bischoff disagrees. "I think the FCC is very committed to this." He recalled a recent conference at which a senior FCC chief reiterated the commission's belief in the network.

Even as the spectrum remains in limbo, Bischoff takes pains to dispute the idea that the nation lacks an interoperable network of any kind. He says that though existing public safety networks are built in a patchwork fashion, there are devices that patch together radios that operate on different frequencies. "There are also channels that have been designated within a region or even on a statewide or nationwide level that when an event occurs, public safety knows they exist," he says.

"The problem with these systems is that, in the case of the patching systems, it takes some time to set them up, and of course when there's an event happening, you want to be up and running as fast as possible."