Public Safety Bureau Building Case for 700 MHz Plan

LAS VEGAS -- The FCC is still contacting public safety groups and others in the wireless world to explain the National Broadband Plan’s proposal for the 700 MHz band, said Jennifer Manner, the Deputy Public Safety Bureau’s deputy chief, at the CTIA convention. Questions about the plan, which has faced a firestorm of criticism from public safety groups, followed FCC officials to Las Vegas.

"If you look at the broadband plan, every part has to be understood by constituents and this part is no different,” Manner said during an interview. “Really what we're trying to do now is spend our time ensuring that people understand what the plan is. We do think it’s a very solid plan. It does achieve a nationwide public safety interoperable network that’s across the country, that’s cost effective, that’s technically feasible.” Several industry sources said the bureau hadn’t seem to expect the amount of opposition that major public safety groups have put up. “I think they were caught off-guard,” a carrier source said.

Concerns about the FCC proposal “are very, very broad,” said Harlin McEwen, chairman of the Public Safety Spectrum Trust, at the CTIA event. “The people who are really the leaders in this whole thing, who are engaged and understand that this is the future for public safety communications, they're very concerned.” McEwen and other public safety officials still support reallocating the 700 MHz D-block to public safety agencies, giving them a contiguous 20 MHz band to build a national interoperable network in. “We haven’t changed our position at all,” he said. “We believe that public safety needs and deserves 20 megahertz of spectrum at the 700 megahertz, and to be efficient that’s what we have to have."

The FCC seems to understand the objections, McEwen said. “But for whatever reason they seem to disagree,” he said. “A lot of industry is supporting us: Motorola, Harris, Northrop Grumman, Alcatel-Lucent. … They say we need that much spectrum to be efficient and to the job. I find it hard to believe that there is even this debate."

Manner said the bureau will continue to reach out to explain the plan. “We had the technical forum last week,” she said. “We've done some meetings with public safety in smaller groups to answer more questions. We're meeting with the carriers and the equipment people, all the folks who are interested in it. … It was complex for us to get to where we got to, and there was a lot of analysis, and the cost model is something that people have to understand."

The future of the 700 MHz D-block has been a hot topic at the meeting. The broadband plan proposes that a new effort be made to auction it and that rule changes allow use of the spectrum for an interoperable public safety network in cooperation with one or more wireless carriers. “The D block has been much debated and it will continue to be much debated,” said Joan Marsh, AT&T’s vice president of federal regulatory affairs. “AT&T has supported the reallocation of the D-block for public safety. … The D-block, obviously, is uniquely situated right next to the public safety spectrum. It provides perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for public safety to put together 20 MHz contiguous. … Large contiguous blocks are really important for efficient spectrum use.” AT&T and Verizon Wireless, the dominant holders of 700 MHz spectrum, might be barred from bidding for the D-block. “I would hate to see any exclusion of any participants at that auction,” Marsh said. “Some folks have called for that. We think that’s inappropriate."

"We think what the commission has proposed for the D-block is an excellent plan,” said Tom Sugrue, a T-Mobile vice president. “It’s comprehensive. It addresses in a very systematic way the various needs of public safety, including not only spectrum but funding and planning and access to devices and technology.” T-Mobile is interested in the D-block, he said. “We don’t have any lower band spectrum and this is very valuable spectrum. … Most of the other carriers below AT&T and Verizon have endorsed the approach of auctioning the D-block off."

T-Mobile hasn’t taken a position on whether the FCC should limit which carriers can buy the D-block. “There will be time enough to debate that,” Sugrue said. “The FCC hasn’t even asked that question yet, and when they do we'll consider it and address it.” But a D-block other than AT&T or Verizon would be good for competition and give public safety an additional group of carriers for building an interoperable network, Sugrue said. “A duopoly is not a great sort of buying experience."

On a different panel, Philip Verveer, deputy assistant secretary of State, explained remarks he made last week at the Media Institute expressing qualms about the government’s position on net neutrality. “The United States has traditionally taken a view and continues to take a view that we think the Internet generally should be left free of intergovernmental regulation or of any significant regulation,” Verveer said at CTIA. “It is our own view that it has developed and grown and continues to grow very, very well under the present set of arrangements. … It is very clear that whatever the FCC does with respect to net neutrality some governments will use the occasion to basically say, ‘This is further evidence that the United States regulates the Internet. This is something that ought not be in the hands of the United States.'” He acknowledged that his statements have been contentious.

Verveer told us he doesn’t mean to influence any FCC order on net neutrality. “I'm certainly not urging that the government not take up net neutrality, and I'm certainly not urging what the government should do on net neutrality,” he said. “But is it inevitably the case that given the interest in Internet governance -- which is something that is an important subject in other countries, including many that we're friendly with, who don’t quite share our perspective on how the Internet continues -- that net neutrality is something they focus on very closely, and whatever it is that we end up deciding we'll need to explain it … It surprises me that that’s regarded as a controversial statement."

Deputy federal Chief Technology Officer Scott Deutchman noted that President Barack Obama is a net neutrality supporter. “The president is a believer in network neutrality” and “said so most recently in a YouTube video just last month.” Deutchman said, “The details are complicated and the FCC is the expert agency and is really taking a look at that, really drilling down into these complexities.”