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Private Fix for Radio Woes?
Cyren Call Chairman Morgan O'Brien proposes that private firms build a wireless network for emergency personnel.
(By Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post)
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"It's extremely audacious," said Michael Calabrese, who studies spectrum issues at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit public policy group. "I suspect it's a political non-starter."
Although many politicians have called for improving first-responder communications, there is no easy way to meet the challenge of raising the vast sum needed to build a national network and of persuading thousands of municipalities to agree on standards so their radios can talk to one another.
Furthermore, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who chairs the House subcommittee on telecommunications, said that Congress has already set aside 24 megahertz of spectrum for emergency use and $1 billion to pay for new public safety radios. "The Cyren Call proposal threatens to undermine that equation, and for this reason, I oppose it," he said.
There are also commercial interests -- notably the major mobile phone companies -- who may feel threatened by a new national network being built with government support.
Steve Largent, president of CTIA The Wireless Association, the trade group for the mobile phone companies, said opening up "a new debate would arrest the progress Congress has made" in providing spectrum for public safety and might actually delay the development of new networks.
Despite what might seem a herculean task, Blair Levin, a regulatory analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co., said it is impossible to dismiss O'Brien's idea given his history of building Nextel -- now part of Sprint Nextel Corp. -- from nothing.
"The odds of this particular proposal being adopted by the FCC or Congress are pretty small, but the odds of Morgan O'Brien having figured out a way, by pushing this proposal, to move the ball forward -- whether on money or on public safety -- do not dismiss that," he said.
Asked if he was doing it for the money, O'Brien spluttered out a "No."
"You know what I am doing this for? This is in lieu of actually going into public service, which I don't have the guts for," he said. "This is quasi-public service."
