In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Cyren Call Chairman Morgan O’Brien and Frontline Wireless Chairman Janice Obuchowski each had a letter to the editor responding to my March 13th op-ed about first responder communications. I’d like to take up just a few sentences to respond.
O’Brien writes that I “audaciously misrepresent[ed]” Cyren Call’s proposal, but does not point out what that misrepresentation was. So, I can’t answer. Obuchoski, on the other hand, does point out a misstatement about Frontline’s plan. She writes,
[Brito] misstates that the plan would build “an interoperable network over spectrum purchased at auction; but Frontline wants the FCC to restrict that spectrum to public safety use.” Frontline will offer commercial service in the spectrum won at auction and provide public safety with pre-emptible access during emergencies to this commercial spectrum to provide additional capacity during peak periods of crisis when first responders’ communications requirements spike. This spectrum would remain in commercial use at all other times.
The thing is, I have always fully understood that the Frontline proposal would share he spectrum with public safety and commercial users. The error was introduced by a WSJ edit made after the last version of the op-ed that I approved the evening before it was published. (I don’t blame the WSJ; they were probably just editing for length or style.)
The version of the quoted sentence that I submitted was: “But Frontline Wireless wants the FCC to restrict that spectrum to a public safety network.” The WSJ changed “public safety network” to “public safety use,” and there is a big difference. A public safety network, such as the one Frontline proposes to build, can include commercial users–even to the extent that commercial users are the majority of users and are the primary users of the network. That’s one part of the Frontline (and Cyren Call) plan that I think is great.
Readers of this blog will know that I think that allowing private parties to build networks over public safety spectrum and then sharing those networks with commercial users is the key to solving the interoperability problem and to making more efficient use of public safety spectrum. Both the Cyren Call and Frontline Wireless plans are giant leaps in the right direction as far as that goes and I applaud their leadership.
What I don’t like about their plans (and what I tried to express in my op-ed), is that they use spectrum now slated for auction. I simply believe that commercial development of public safety networks can take place on existing public safety spectrum without new spectrum being allocated for the purpose. Additionally, I believe that to the extent that policy-makers decide that spectrum now slated for commercial auction must be used, they should identify a comparable amount of existing public safety spectrum that can be auctioned commercially once the new public safety networks are built. Finally, I’m uncomfortable with allowing just one commercial public safety network. I’d rather see competing (but interoperable) national networks as we see today in the wireless phone market.
Th letters didn’t exactly address those policy arguments, although O’Brien does write,
Any viable solution for our nation’s public safety communications problem must be certain of one thing — public safety must have control over any network that is designed for them and they should have an absolute right to hire and fire any commercial partners. An auction to the highest bidder won’t achieve this. … Who would want to be the person trapped in a burning building or under a pile of rubble with a bean-counter from a hedge fund in control instead of a first responder?
Well, if you have competing networks like I’m suggesting, individual public safety agencies will be able to hire and fire until they find the one they like. Consumers do this all the time with their cell phone carriers. Under Cyren Call’s plan, however, there would only be one choice for first responders. Sure, a national board of first responder and other government representatives will be able to choose commercial partners to build and run the network, but there will still be just one network managed by a bureaucracy. I’d rather give first responders the greater choice and freedom that comes with competing products in an open market.
As for being stuck in a fire with a bean-counter, first responders don’t build their own squad cars. They buy them in a competitive market and hopefully they purchase them from a commercial supplier that provides what they need at the best price. I certainly wouldn’t want first responders to be in the business of designing and managing the production of cars or guns. However, that’s exactly the case in first responder communications right now and is at root the cause of the interoperability problem. Bean-counters who efficiently supply the products that first responders demand can do a lot to solve that problem.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
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