APCO Board Eyes Endorsement of Cyren Call Proposal
ORLANDO -- An endorsement of a proposal to have the FCC dedicate 30 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum for use by public safety to create a broadband network -- rather than sell it at auction -- is getting strong consideration by the Assn. of Public Safety Communications Officials, sources said Tues. The idea came from Nextel co-founder Morgan O'Brien, who met Mon. with the APCO board to outline it. O'Brien has been meeting with others at the conference here on the plan. The APCO board could act as early as this week.
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O'Brien will air his proposal on a panel today (Wed.), squaring off against former Wireless Bureau Chief John Muleta. He’s making an alternative proposal through his company, M2Z Networks.
“What we're trying to sort out is whether we should aggressively support it and whether it has a reasonable chance of success,” a public safety official said of Nextel’s Cyren Call proposal: “I've heard nothing but fairly favorable responses. The public safety people can’t see anything but a win here.” The M2Z proposal, less well understood by public safety, doesn’t appear to be getting as much support, the source said.
Public safety on its own couldn’t build the kind of network proposed by O'Brien, the source said: “We don’t have the money and we'll never build out a national broadband network. We're never going to tie all these disparate systems together.” In May, APCO and law enforcement groups said the proposal was worthy of consideration, but stopped short of endorsing it (CD May 15 p6).
“The most significant thing coming out of this week is that we're seeing so much evidence of public safety realizing that the clock is ticking and that more spectrum and a better business case for public safety is urgent,” John Melcher, Cyren Call exec. vp, told us Tues.: “The FCC and the Congress truly need a clear and precise understanding of the state of public safety communications and its need for broadband.”
Robert LeGrande, deputy CTO for D.C., hopes the FCC will seek comment on the Cyren Call proposal, he said. He also wants to learn more about the M2Z plan, he said: “I'm going into it with a very open mind. Let’s look at it. Get it out on the street.” LeGrande said the public safety community is working to understand the proposals: “A lot of people right now really don’t know, and it’s very complex… There are a lot of questions… Some of the push-back from the public safety community is probably based on limited understanding and the fact that this is at the proposal level.”
Public safety reaction to Cyren Call has been mixed, said Sheryl Contois, an official in Palo Alto, Cal. It’s helping set up a regional public safety wireless broadband system in Silicon Valley. “There’s some skepticism,” she said: “We've not a had a huge success with our local interests being handled at the national level.” Still, Contois is open-minded, she said: “We're certainly watching what they're doing. We're excited about the fact they're generating a lot of momentum and discussion. I think what we and they are proposing to do complement each other. They don’t necessarily replace each other… But we can’t wait for them. We're ready to go today.”
An industry source who opposes the proposal said it’s no surprise Cyren Call is gaining support at APCO, especially considering the amount of outreach to APCO and other groups. “The public safety community is pretty fractured and I don’t know whether APCO necessarily reflects the sentiments of all of public safety anyway,” the source said: “Our basic concern is that Congress has already spoken here, and there’s no doubt that wireless carriers need spectrum.”