By Jim Bogner, Iowa Statewide Interoperability Coordinator and Vice-Chair, Public Safety Spectrum Trust Operator Advisory Committee

Public safety has been operating on push-to-talk radios for more than 50 years. Over the decades, there have been incremental improvements, but all have built upon previous models. As the public safety community looks to build a nationwide broadband network, however, there are no previous models to study. To use some clichéd phrases: we are starting from scratch, plowing new ground, charting a new course. Whichever expression you choose, it’s a daunting task.

Iowa and the 20 other jurisdictions across the country that received 700MHz broadband waivers from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have been meeting regularly as the Operator Advisory Committee (OAC) of the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST). These ‘Waiver Jurisdictions’ have also been meeting regularly with Federal agencies such as the US Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Emergency Communications (OEC), the Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Group of the US Department of Commerce, and the National Institute of Science and Technology. In addition, we have been interacting with several national public safety organizations that are involved in efforts to learn more about this emerging technology. This collaboration is designed to educate waiver recipients, public safety communities, and our elected officials, as well as to test technology and explore system designs with industry, review potential standards and rules, and discuss the many issues that arise as this groundbreaking effort moves forward.

The issues being explored are important, not only for the pioneer waiver recipients, but also for any jurisdiction studying, considering, or already moving toward broadband. There are 32 other jurisdictions that have filed similar waiver requests with the FCC, which are pending as the FCC works with the current waiver recipients to develop the rules, procedures, and network designs that all early builders will follow to ensure true interoperability is achieved. At weekly meetings, we work diligently on these issues to get it right the first time. As one broadband training offering recently announced, it is not ‘if’ public safety broadband is coming, it is how soon.

Creating a Statewide System that Incorporates Broadband
In 2007, the Iowa legislature created the Iowa Statewide Interoperable Communications System Board (ISICSB). The State then began exploring the creation of a statewide interoperable radio system that would unite its many disparate VHF, UHF, and 800MHz systems. In 2009, a contracted engineering firm presented Iowa with a statewide 700MHz plan. That plan, which focused primarily on a statewide land mobile radio (LMR) network also reported on a survey that identified the increasing need for data, as well as next generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1).

In that same year, after meeting with public safety leaders and holding workshops and hearings, the FCC issued Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan, which included a goal to create a nationwide interoperable public safety wireless broadband communications network. Following the plan’s release, the FCC allowed jurisdictions to petition for waivers to use 10MHz of the 700MHz spectrum for broadband system implementation. In May 2010, Iowa received one of those waivers to become an early builder along with seven other states, four counties, and nine cities. That waiver gave Iowa the opportunity to build a statewide network with both LMR and broadband components in the same 700MHz spectrum.

To present Iowa’s legislature with the most accurate picture of the costs involved in such a dual component build-out, the ISICSB issued a Request for Information (RFI), soliciting proposals for building out these two components and exploring efficiencies in the process, to include the possibility of a public-private partnership. Iowa is currently assessing the responses to this RFI. Other early builders are similarly pursuing RFIs and requests for proposals (RFP) for their broadband build-outs.

To gather the best factual planning information possible, the ISICSB has also teamed with the State’s E9-1-1 Council and is conducting a comprehensive study of the 119 public safety answering points (PSAP) currently in operation in Iowa. In other words, Iowa is planning for improved interoperability not with just one communications component, but comprehensively with LMR, broadband, and NG9-1-1. Each component may not have the same build-out timetable, but it will be coordinated with the other components.

Broadband has the potential to bring enormous benefits to public safety nationwide. With awareness, information, collaboration, and thoughtful planning and governance it can deliver on that potential; but we must get it right the first time and avoid the mistakes of past public safety communication systems.

Reprinted from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s OEC Communications Forum e-newsletter, Jan. 31, 2012, Vol. 8, January 2012, with the permission of the Office of Emergency Communications.