M/A-COM Pushes NINDR as Cheapest Path to Interoperable Communications
M/A-COM, one of 2 firms dominating the U.S. market for police radio, wants a National Interoperability Network for Disaster Recovery (NINDR). The firms calls the $1 billion implementation cost considerably less than other proposed alternatives. M/A-COM wants NTIA, working with the Dept. of Homeland Security, to use $1 billion in 700 MHz auction proceeds due NTIA to fund a public safety interoperability grant program to use NINDR rather than pay for 700 MHz radios.
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“There’s a pressing need to solve the problem of interoperability,” John Vaughan, gen. mgr. at M/A-COM told us: “But we don’t need any new spectrum, we don’t need anything new. We can literally just light up the mutual aid channels that are out there and if there’s someplace where they're not assigned, go ahead and assign them… Step 2 is to connect them all together… It should be an IP-based system. It should be public safety grade robust and it should connect all those channels together.”
Vaughan said in emergencies like Hurricane Katrina, local and federal agencies easily could communicate using NINDR and existing radio systems. “If the local guy has a VHF system he’s operating on and a federal guy shows up with a UHF radio… the 2 of them can talk,” he said: “Fundamentally what we are saying is, if you create such a network we can solve the interoperability problem.”
One advantage for first responders is that NINDR avoids the need to buy new radios, Vaughan said. “We cannot afford $40 billion or $60 billion to buy the infrastructure and radios for everybody in the country,” he said. “Everybody knows that. If that’s your answer, it’s no answer. We're saying rather than throw radios at the program let’s put in a network that all the radios can talk to.”
M/A-COM is trying to persuade the FCC, NTIA, Congress and the White House that $1 billion of public safety grant monies in the DTV transition bill should go to NINDR, Vaughan said. The company wants to meet with FCC Chmn. Martin. “We're checking off all the boxes on the way there,” Vaughan said.
“If you spend the money on 700 MHz radios, you're going to make the interoperability problem worse, because there are no 700 MHz radios to talk to,” he added. “If you're going to buy 700 MHz radios, there’s no infrastructure to talk to yet. Before we go down that road of new radios and new frequency, let’s use this funding to light up the mutual aid channels… And by the way, when 700 MHz systems are installed, they'll have someone to talk to.”