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Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for inviting me to testify today on the critical problems facing
public safety communications in the United States. I commend the Committee for
giving attention to these issues, and I am grateful for this opportunity to
present my views on a topic so vital to the security and welfare of this Nation.
As President and Chief Executive Officer of Nextel, I am well acquainted with
the problems confronting public safety radio networks all across the United
States. Many local and state public safety radio systems today operate in a
portion of the 800 MHz radio spectrum band that is also home to a substantial
proportion of Nextel's commercial mobile operations. In fact, a wide variety of
other commercial mobile carriers and internal company and business radio systems
also operate in this part of the 800 MHz band. As I discuss further below, this
volatile radio mix has resulted in an increasing level of harmful interference
to public safety communications all over the country. At the same time, the
public safety community is still grappling with a long-term spectrum shortage
that the FCC has been attempting to address, with mixed results, for the better
part of the last decade.
An obvious question to ask is, "How could this interference develop in a
radio band that is home to the most important, safety-of-life communications in
the United States?" As I discuss further below, the short answer is that
this mix of uses made sense thirty years ago during a dramatically different era
of wireless communications. An much more important question, though, is what is
the FCC going to do now to resolve these problems and give the first responders
of this country the radio systems they need and deserve.
As one of the largest commercial wireless provider in this portion of the
spectrum, Nextel has an important stake in any effort to resolve these public
safety communications issues. Nextel and a broad cross-section of private radio
and public safety licensees (including the Association of Public-Safety
Communications Officials, International; the International Association of Fire
Chiefs; the International Association of Chiefs of Police; the Major Cities
Chiefs Association; the National Sheriffs Association; and the Major County
Sheriff's Association) have developed a fundamental, long-term solution to these
problems, in the form of the "Consensus Plan" for realigning the 800
MHz band. I urge this Committee to do whatever it can to expedite the Federal
Communication Commission's ("FCC") adoption of this Plan.
The Importance of Public Safety Communications in the U.S.
There are few challenges as complex and as important as protecting the
Nation's Homeland Security. First responders such as local police, fire
fighters, and other emergency and safety-of-life personnel must have the best
tools available to them. This includes the most advanced, reliable and robust
public safety communications system possible.
Nextel is proud of its role in public safety communications. Nextel's iDENâ
network has for many years supplemented public safety communications networks
throughout the United States. Nextel has even developed an "Emergency
Response Team" to coordinate and manage its resources to meet the needs of
public safety organizations and personnel. In emergency situations, Nextel has
provided and continues to offer technical expertise and rapid, reliable, and
secure communications to city, state, and federal emergency workers,
disaster-relief agencies such as the American Red Cross, utilities, and other
first-responder organizations.
Through its iDENâ network, Nextel offers its public safety customers a unique
variety of cellular, short messaging, Internet access, data transmission, and
Direct Connect services. In particular, Nextel Direct Connect,â Nextel's
two-way walkie-talkie feature, has become an invaluable tool for local, state,
and federal public safety officials. Enhanced features such as "Emergency
Group Connect" and "Priority Connect" have been integrated with
Direct Connectâ to meet disaster management and law enforcement needs.
In the last couple of years, Nextel has provided critical services to public
safety agencies through a number of significant events and emergencies,
including the following:
· September 11, 2001. Nextel provided more than 8,000 phones to emergency
workers in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. When other cellular and
traditional phone networks became inoperable due to technological and congestion
problems, Nextel's Direct Connectâ service emerged as the single viable means
of communication for public safety responders.
· Sniper Task Force - October 2002. Nextel provided more than 550 handsets to
public safety officials - local, state and federal law enforcement, command
centers, and community school systems - supporting the Joint Sniper Task Force
during its investigation.
· Arizona Rodeo-Chediski Wildfires - June 2002. Nextel provided 175 phones to
emergency workers battling the largest wildfire in Arizona history, including
the U.S. Forest Service, Arizona Fire Management Division, Gila (AZ) County
Sheriff's Department and the Forest Service Law Enforcement Group.
· The 2002 Olympic Winter Games. The Utah Olympic Public Safety Command
partnered with Nextel to ensure reliable and interoperable communications among
15,000 local, state, and federal public safety personnel from ninety agencies
involved in the Games.
Two Problems Facing Public Safety Communications
Nextel's experience in public safety communications has made us keenly aware of
two serious problems confronting the public safety community in the United
States.
Spectrum shortage. First, there is not enough spectrum available for public
safety use. Public safety agencies still lack sufficient spectrum to develop the
robust, redundant, and seamless radio networks necessary to protect the public.
Too often, first responders don't have enough radio channels to have
"interoperable" radios, and in many cases they cannot communicate with
each other in the first critical moments following a disaster. This problem has
been particularly severe in large metropolitan areas. Public safety operators
also need more spectrum to support the advanced video and multimedia services
that are indispensable in today's data-driven world.
Not only is it critical that the FCC provide public safety agencies with more
spectrum, it's also important that such spectrum be in the right frequency band.
With much of today's public safety communications falling in the 800 MHz band,
the allocation of additional spectrum there will promote economies of scale and
radio interoperability that can be used almost immediately, while equipment is
developed and spectrum cleared for public safety communications services in
other spectrum bands, such as 700 MHz.
As the Members of this Subcommittee no doubt know, the FCC has been working in
recent years to provide public safety with more spectrum, but these efforts have
been frustrated by a variety of factors. As I describe further below, the
Consensus Plan provides the FCC with a fresh opportunity to address the shortage
of public safety spectrum.
Interference. The second critical problem facing the public safety community is
the unanticipated and disruptive growth of interference to public safety
communications in the 800 MHz band. In 1999, Nextel and public safety agencies
first observed significant interference in the 800 MHz band to public safety
radios. This interference often occurs when public safety radios are used near
towers operated by Nextel and other commercial wireless operators such as
Cingular, AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless. Police, firefighters, and
other first responders are experiencing garbled, fuzzy, or blocked calls,
jeopardizing the lives of these emergency personnel as well as the public they
serve.
This interference is occurring more and more frequently. Public safety
interference in the 800 MHz band has been reported in nearly 800 locations and
in more than 25 major cities spread throughout the country, including in Denver,
Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, and Seattle.
Nextel's data shows that at least 10% of public safety radio systems in the 800
MHz band have been affected by interference - many at numerous locations. This
year, public safety interference has reached its highest level, with 51
individual public safety agencies reporting interference at 117 different
locations through April 30. If this trend continues, public safety agencies will
experience interference at more than 350 locations this year - the highest
single-year total to date. In the face of this alarming trend, the Subcommittee
should bear in mind one key point: this interference is occurring despite the
fact that all wireless carriers in this band are operating in full compliance
with the FCC's rules.
Interference to public safety communications promises to get worse, as
commercial wireless and public safety traffic continues to grow. Without
decisive action from the FCC, the threat to first responders attempting to
communicate in emergency situations will only become more acute.
The Cause of Interference to Public Safety Communications
To figure out what to do about these public safety problems, it helps to take
a step back and explore a key spectrum management principle discussed by the
FCC's Spectrum Policy Task Force in its November 2002 Report. The Spectrum
Policy Task Force Report is one of FCC Chairman Michael Powell's leading
initiatives, and it sets forth several groundbreaking principles for spectrum
management. In particular, the Task Force Report highlighted the principle that
certain wireless systems and devices make "good neighbors" for each
other in the radio spectrum; some others do not. To illustrate this point, I
rely on a simple analogy: just as it doesn't make sense for a zoning board to
allow a skyscraper to be built in a quiet residential neighborhood, it doesn't
make sense for the FCC to locate incompatible radio systems next to each other
in the radio spectrum. In the skyscraper example, residents may suffer from
street congestion, excess noise, and a blocked view of the sky; in the spectrum
context, one or both of the radio systems may experience harmful interference.
Accordingly, to protect and improve public safety communications in the U.S.,
the FCC must ensure that the public safety community has appropriate spectrum
neighbors. Unfortunately, today's commercial mobile systems operated by Nextel
and the other cellular carriers are fundamentally incompatible neighbors for
public safety systems. This incompatibility results from the different
"architecture" of these systems. Most public safety radio networks
cover large geographic areas with signals from only one or a few transmitter
towers. This design suits tight public safety budgets and accommodates typically
sporadic levels of public safety traffic, but yields a relatively weak signal in
areas distant from the transmitter or those areas "shaded" by
buildings, terrain and other obstacles. In contrast, commercial cellular
carriers rely on numerous low-power, low-site transmitter towers throughout
their service areas. This architecture enables frequency reuse to achieve the
capacity needed to serve much larger numbers of users; it also generates locally
stronger signals in the immediate vicinity of cellular transmitters than the
signals from distant public safety towers. In geographic areas where public
safety systems and commercial mobile networks are licensed on neighboring
spectrum, this difference in signal strength makes public safety radios highly
susceptible to interference.
Unfortunately, under the FCC's thirty-year-old band plan, the 800 MHz radio
environment nationwide is truly a terrible neighborhood. The stage was set in
1974, when the FCC allocated this portion of the 800 MHz band to a broad mix of
wireless communications services, including public safety communications,
private radio communications for internal use by businesses and industrial
facilities, and the commercial mobile services that ultimately gave rise to
Nextel's iDEN® system and other commercial wireless networks. These different
services were spread and mixed almost randomly throughout this band. The result
is a spectrum hodgepodge that makes bad neighbors of everyone, with incompatible
public safety and commercial wireless networks assigned to adjacent radio
channels throughout the band. This is akin to a town in which skyscrapers and
single-family homes alternate block-by-block, or even building-by-building.
The FCC's hopelessly obsolete hodgepodge 800 MHz band plan is the fundamental
cause of public safety interference. As a result of this spectrum hodgepodge,
public safety operators are experiencing interference as a by-product of the
fully FCC-compliant operations of Nextel and the nearby cellular A and B block
carriers -- Alltel, AT&T Wireless, Cingular, and Verizon Wireless - as they
provide ongoing service to their own customers.
Initial Efforts to Address Interference
Since interference first appeared in 1999, Nextel has been committed to
mitigating this problem. In 2000, Nextel joined with representatives of public
safety agencies, cellular carriers, and wireless equipment manufacturers to
examine different strategies for addressing this issue. These parties agreed to
attempt to manage public safety interference on an interim case-by-case basis
through a variety of short-term measures, including coordinated channel usage,
tower site adjustments, and equipment modifications. For its part, Nextel has
made extensive efforts to mitigate interference by voluntarily reducing signal
strength, reorienting its antennas, limiting channel usage at certain sites, and
other measures. Nextel understands how important it is to safeguard the
reliability of public safety communications, and thus the safety of emergency
response personnel and the public they protect, even if the FCC's rules don't
require these technical changes.
While case-by-case engineering has helped somewhat to manage the most acute
interference, it is not a permanent solution. Unfortunately, I understand that
the FCC is considering alternative plans for solving the 800 MHz public safety
interference problem that rely heavily on these case-by-case "best
practices" to respond to interference. The FCC should reject this
inadequate approach. These makeshift practices reduce the efficiency of both
commercial mobile and public safety communications and chronically drain
resources that could be devoted to product innovation and improved services.
Case-by-case measures also require that significant amounts of 800 MHz spectrum
lie fallow or operate far below optimum efficiency, contrary to basic spectrum
management principles. These case-by-case measures are "band-aids;"
they can only help so much before required operational constraints prevent the
cellular carrier, the public safety system operator, or both from providing
reliable communications to their respective users. This is because case-by-case
"fixes" cannot correct the mix of fundamentally incompatible neighbors
that is the proximate cause of this interference.
More importantly, these stopgap measures react to interference only
after-the-fact, an unacceptable approach for emergency communications. Any
partial, piecemeal or reactive solution leaves first responders in constant
jeopardy, since a single case of interference to a policeman or firefighter's
radio can jeopardize the lives of these first responders and the citizens they
serve. The death of even one of them - as a result of communications
interference that could have been prevented -- is unacceptable. At the very
least, our nation's first responders - who put their lives on the line every day
- deserve a comprehensive, long-term, proactive solution that eliminates this
interference before it can cause further harm.
The fact is short-term measures have failed to stem and cannot stem the rising
tide of public safety interference; despite these patchwork efforts, the risk to
first responders continues to grow. In response to this threat, the FCC in March
2002 issued its Notice of Proposed Rule Making on these issues. The FCC
identified three main objectives: (1) to eliminate public safety interference,
(2) to provide sufficient spectrum for critical public safety needs, and (3) to
minimize disruption to existing services.
Development of the Consensus Plan
Given the demonstrated inadequacies of the case-by-case approach, the FCC
must adopt a fundamental, long-term solution that reorganizes the 800 MHz band
to separate incompatible services while providing the public safety community
with urgently needed spectrum. To this end, Nextel has worked closely with the
public safety and private wireless communities to develop a consensus solution
that realizes these vital goals. The resulting Consensus Plan for realigning the
800 MHz band was filed with the FCC on August 7, 2002, and the "Consensus
Parties" have worked further to refine this proposal over the last ten
months.
The Consensus Plan strikes a balance among the broad cross-section of interests
and existing licensees in the 800 MHz band. The Consensus Plan enjoys extensive
backing, including support from the leading national public safety organizations
and most of the leading national private wireless associations. In total, the
Consensus Parties or their members represent every category of licensee
operating in the 800 MHz Land Mobile Radio band and over 90% of the licensees
affected by public safety interference in this band.
The Consensus Plan provides the only detailed, practical, and sustainable means
of achieving the FCC's public interest objectives in the 800 MHz band. The
Consensus Plan will solve the interference problem and provide more spectrum to
public safety, all without imposing costs on public safety or other licensees in
the band and without requiring legislation or taxpayer funding. In doing so, the
Plan will help police, firefighters, and other first responders meet the
unprecedented challenges they now face in protecting this Nation's security.
Unlike alternative proposals that rely on stopgap, case-by-case measures, the
Consensus Plan addresses the fundamental cause of public safety interference by
restructuring the 800 MHz "neighborhood." The Plan will realign the
band, shifting commercial mobile providers and public safety systems into
separate, contiguous blocks of spectrum. Just as homeowners stand to benefit if
developers are prevented from building skyscrapers in a residential
neighborhood, public safety licensees will benefit greatly from the relocation
of stronger commercial mobile signals to a different portion of the 800 MHz
band.
The Consensus Plan will also give public safety operators access to additional
700 MHz and 800 MHz spectrum, thereby meeting the FCC's second objective in its
proceeding. The additional spectrum in the 800 MHz band is particularly
significant, since all recent development and implementation of new public
safety communications systems have taken place in that band. For example, a
number of states are implementing new, statewide public safety communications
systems at 800 MHz. The FCC can build on these recent investments by providing
additional 800 MHz channels for interoperability, enhanced services, and
expanded public safety capacity.
The Consensus Plan will also minimize disruption to incumbent licensees. No 800
MHz incumbent (except Nextel) will lose spectrum at 800 MHz as a result of the
Consensus Plan realignment, and less than 30 percent of private radio licensees
will have to retune a limited number of channels. The Consensus Plan can be
implemented expeditiously, in three to four years, without any need for new
legislation or budget appropriations.
If the Consensus Plan is adopted, Nextel has agreed to contribute up to a total
of $850 million toward the relocation of all 800 MHz incumbents. Nextel and the
other Consensus Parties have worked hard to "drill down" on the
involved costs and expect that this amount will cover these incumbents'
reasonable relocation costs. As part of the Consensus Plan, Nextel will also
contribute 10 MHz of spectrum in the 700, 800, and 900 MHz bands to facilitate
licensee relocations and provide public safety with critically needed additional
spectrum. In addition, Nextel will incur the largest costs of any incumbent
licensee required to relocate under the Plan - and it will do so twice -- at its
own expense. To make Nextel whole for its contributions to the Consensus Plan,
it would receive 10 MHz of replacement spectrum in the 1.9 GHz band.
The Subcommittee should also note that the Consensus Plan is consistent with a
number of recommendations contained in the FCC's 2002 Spectrum Task Force
Report. Among other things, the Spectrum Task Force recommended that the FCC (1)
maximize flexibility of spectrum use to permit the most efficient use of scarce
spectrum resources, (2) provide clear and exhaustive definition of spectrum
rights and responsibilities, and, as described above, (3) group technically
compatible systems and devices in close spectrum proximity where possible.
In adopting the Consensus Plan, the FCC will abide by each of these Spectrum
Task Force recommendations. By turning away from stopgap "command and
control," case-by-case interference mitigation measures that constrain
commercial and public safety wireless operations and leave spectrum
underutilized, the FCC will encourage efficient use of the spectrum. The
Consensus Plan also offers a set of clear, objective rules that define
licensees' rights and responsibilities in a reorganized 800 MHz band. Finally,
as I've described, the FCC would separate incompatible "neighbors,"
moving commercial wireless licensees into one portion of the 800 MHz band and
interference-sensitive public safety and private wireless systems into another
part of the band.
Mr. Chairman, the FCC has a clear path to improving public safety communications
in the 800 MHz band, providing additional spectrum at both 700 and 800 MHz, and
providing critical assistance to the police, firefighters, and other first
responders who are so crucial to protecting this Nation's Homeland Security.
Robust, secure, and interoperable public safety communications will save lives.
I thank the Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to address these
important issues, and I urge you to request that the FCC expeditiously resolve
the issues facing the public safety community and adopt the Consensus Plan in
full.
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