Public Safety Groups Concerned About Priority Access Provisions in Broadband Plan

The FCC Public Safety Bureau faced tough questions from public safety groups Wednesday on a key element of its proposal for a 700 MHz wireless broadband network serving first responders: How public safety would get “priority access” to public safety networks. FCC officials said Wednesday that research done for the National Broadband Plan found that a fee of less that $1 a month, similar to the E-911 surcharge, if imposed on broadband subscriber bills, would be enough to pay for the operating cost of this public safety network. The agency hosted a technical panel Wednesday on the proposal for a 700 MHz Nationwide Interoperable Public Safety Wireless Broadband Network, a day after the release of the broadband plan (CD March 17 p1).

Under the plan, the 700 MHz D-block would be sold at auction and not given to public safety to build their own networks. The plan also proposes that public safety users would be able to make use of much of the entire 700 MHz band through roaming and priority access arrangements with carriers.

"Let’s make an assumption that all of the sharing, priority access capabilities are there and are proven to be operational,” said Robert Gurss, APCO director of legal and government affairs. “A concern that still is there is if I'm a carrier, even though I may get compensated on some sort of best-customer basis, why would I want a situation where I have to on a moment’s notice give up access, give up capacity on my network for public safety?"

Demand will be significant, Gurss said. “If you give these toys, these devices to public safety they will use them and they will use them a lot,” he predicted. “Every time there’s a significant fire, every time there’s a snowstorm in D.C., every time there’s some major event, there’s going to be a tremendous spectrum demand.” Chairman Harlin McEwen of the Public Safety Spectrum Trust said too many questions remain about how first responders would share commercial networks. “If we don’t get the D-block and have the ability to enter into public-private partnerships with people to do that sharing, then there needs to be a more sure mechanism as to how we have access to other spectrum,” he said. “There isn’t a clear path for that at the moment. That’s something that really concerns us."

Public safety is being told different things about how much throughput they would have on the new network, McEwen added. Estimates range from 30 Mbps using LTE technology, to 256 kbps at the “cell edge,” he said. “There’s a hell of a gap between 256 kbps and 30 Mbps."

"Obviously we have to get out there and get experience with what demand will really be,” said Stagg Newman, chief technologist to the FCC’s broadband team. “But I think we start off the first few years in a good situation."

Newman said Verizon Wireless has 80-90 MHz of capacity per market, which translates to capacity of one hertz per user. There are about 1 million first responders, including volunteer firefighters, Newman said. Since public safety already has 10 MHz of capacity at 700 MHz, it starts with a base of 10 hertz per user without having to make use of commercial networks. “Technically, we've got some headroom,” he said. FCC Chief Technologist Jon Peha said the agency guarantees uplink speeds on the new network at a minimum 256 kbps per device at the furthest point from the cell site. In many cases, speeds will be much faster, he said. “We guarantee each of you a foot and half by a foot and a half to sit on when you come in the auditorium,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that’s all [the space] we have in the auditorium."

Public safety groups must keep in mind how first responders tend to use spectrum, Peha said. “Average usage looks very low because utilization for very long periods of time is very low, and then it spikes tremendously.” The 10 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum public safety has following the DTV transition “gives you a lot to spike into.” Newman also explained the math behind the numbers in the broadband plan, which asks Congress to allocate $6.5 billion for the buildout of a system, plus an additional $6 billion-$10 billion for operating costs, to be paid via user fees.

Among the costs would be $4.1 billion to pay the costs of upgrading 41,000 commercial cellsites nationwide to handle public safety communications at $100,000 per site, Newman explained. Another $1.5 billion would pay for cellsite “hardening” to meet public safety’s unique needs. The plan proposes $800 million to pay for technology upgrades or in some cases construction of 3,000 towers in rural areas without LTE infrastructure. A final $200 million is for a fleet of vehicles in rural areas that would serve as relay stations.

"We're pretty confident that our numbers are good numbers that we have put into our request to Congress,” Newman said. The broadband plan does not request money to pay for devices that will be used by first responders, he said. “The program does not include funding for the devices, but using LTE infrastructure and the components and guts of commercial devices we think the device cost can be driven down from several thousand dollars today to several hundred dollars."

"We are confident that the recommendations in the National Broadband Plan provide a framework to ensure that there is a nationwide interoperable wireless broadband network for America’s first responders,” a Public Safety Bureau spokesman said. “It is vitally important that we create a broadband network for public safety that enables them to respond to emergencies rapidly and cohesively.”