Frontline Wireless L.L.C. has emerged as another private entity that wants to leverage 700 MHz spectrum, both the already-allocated public safety portions, and at least part of the remainder that is intended for commercial auction to the highest bidders by January, 2008, to build a nationwide "Public -Safety-First-Responders-have-priority" network.
Frontline joins Cyren Call in positing that the best and highest use of the remaining 700 MHz spectrum is a privately constructed and operated nationwide network that offers priority for public safety first responders, with "excess capacity" available for commercial use.
Both plans address some key issues in new generations of public safety networks:
- Realistically, having a single nationwide provider is one of the only ways that true interoperability can be assured. If the traditional "piecemeal" approach of building new Public Safety networks on an area-by-area or even region-by-region basis, choosing different vendors and systems makes interoperability problematic at best.
- How to fun these new networks is a huge issue... we're well past the post-911 giddiness of imagining that the federal government will be able to fund anythng more than a very small number of demonstration systems, and having a private entity be willing to build such a network, backed by investment capital that sees potential profits from being able to sell excess capacity seems feasible.
- In any nationwide system, there has to be some provision for subsidy to insure that rural areas are covered and a system that generates commercial profits, part of which can be reinvested in the system, is one way to insure that rural area buildouts are funded.
One unanswered question in my mind is how to insure that such systems are actually built to "Public Safety" standards instead of the more lax (and less reliable) "commercial" standards?
One effect these proposals may have is that companies like Verizon may renew their calls that the only practical, cost-effective way for any national Public Safety Network to be built as an overlay/extension to the existing wireless telephony (cellular) infrastructure.
Background:
Frontline Wireless L.L.C. Press Release
Daily Wireless.ORG has a good writeup.
RCR Wireless News story
By Steve Stroh
This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh
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