In a guest blog post, Bill Schrier, Washington State Single Point of Contact (SPOC), talks about how the deployment of a nationwide public safety broadband network is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform emergency communications. “We are engaged in the 2010’s equivalent of the 1960’s moon-landing effort.”
During a visit to the NASA space center in 1962, President Kennedy noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and said, “Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?”
“Well, Mr. President” the janitor responded, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”
The anecdote is unverifiable and probably not true, but it highlights NASA’s culture and motivation in the 1960s. That powerful culture produced an amazing result – the first moon landing in 1969, which inspired the entire nation. That accomplishment gave the United States a heady dose of self-esteem in the midst of the divisive Vietnam War and following the nation’s failure to be first in space with a satellite and then a human into earth orbit.
Today everyone involved in the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) effort should have the same motivation: “I’m helping to build the first nationwide wireless public safety broadband network.”
To some extent, FirstNet is not building anything new. FirstNet will be built using Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology. LTE is an international standard. Over 140 commercial telecommunication companies have LTE networks today, and hundreds more are in design or under construction. The technology is well-known. This is the appeal of FirstNet – by using commercial LTE technology it should be much less expensive than traditional public safety wireless networks.
On the other hand, no nationwide, multi-government, public safety network has ever existed in the United States. The FCC has allocated various pieces and parts of spectrum for use by responder agencies, and individual cities and counties and regions and states have each licensed individual, usually incompatible, chunks of spectrum for their wireless networks.
When I was advocating for the allocation of the 700 MHz broadband “D” Block spectrum to a single nationwide entity, I used to bring my $5,000 handheld radio, programmed for Seattle Police, Fire and Public Utilities, to Washington D.C. As I spoke to a group about the issue, I’d turn it on, and all you’d hear is … static. This powerful device, so useful in downtown Seattle, was a useless brick in “the other” Washington, or, indeed, just a scant 50 miles from Seattle in the Cascade Mountains.
As I speak to public safety groups across Washington State, I find many, if not most, of them already use high-speed wireless data, and usually it is a commercial LTE network. They use these networks for computer-aided dispatch and running license plates and seeing the status of their fire apparatus. Sheriff John Turner’s deputies in Walla Walla County have real-time access to video feeds from inside schools. Sheriff Tom Jones deputies in Grant County pull up jail booking photos to identify suspects in the field and to conduct virtual line-ups for victims.
Despite the usefulness of these commercial networks, however, very few apps are available statewide and virtually none nationwide. We don’t have secure access so an EMT treating me for a shattered elbow obtained while bicycling central Iowa can get to my healthcare records here in Washington State. We don’t have video applications so all responders can easily find video from inside schools and shopping malls and other public locations. Electric crews from multiple utilities responding to widespread outages after Superstorm Sandy don’t have easy mobile access to network diagrams for coordinating efforts.
And when that magnitude 9 earthquake hits Western Washington, this region will be flooded with responders from around the nation. But will commercial LTE networks still be operable? If so, they’ll be totally overloaded by tens of thousands of citizens calling for help and also sending photos and videos and texts. Indeed, even during a simple, planned-in-advance, event like the Seahawks 2014 Superbowl Victory Parade the commercial networks were totally overwhelmed.
And responders – especially first responders – have no priority on those networks.
We are engaged in the 2010’s equivalent of the 1960’s moon-landing effort: an all-out effort by a dedicated group of federal, state and local officials to do something never before accomplished.
I’m helping to build the first nationwide wireless public safety broadband network.
