Public Safety Broadband Network Pushed as Part of Obama Stimulus Package
The Public Safety Spectrum Trust asked President-elect Barack Obama to include $15 billion for a national public- safety broadband network in the economic stimulus package. Trust Chairman Harlin McEwen made the request by letter as the FCC remains stalled on the 700 MHz D block. Commission members of both parties have repeatedly said government money for a public-safety network would be better than a public- private partnership without federal money.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
“There’s a three-win opportunity here for both Congress and the president-elect,” McEwen said Monday in an interview. “The first is it would create jobs, the second is it would bring Internet to the rural areas that don’t have it, and third it would build a public safety national network.”
McEwen said he is seeking support from the Hill and the FCC. “The problem is, we're competing with many other people, and the questions is whether [the administration] will look at this in the way we think they ought to,” he said. “It’s unique in that it gives them three wins with one investment.”
“As Chairman of the PSST, a nonprofit corporation that represents 15 national public safety organizations, I am extremely interested in discussing these issues with your staff,” McEwen wrote Obama. “Building a nationwide wireless broadband network would provide economic and public safety benefits comparable to the economic and national defense benefits that building the Interstate Highway System brought to our country 50 years ago.” But urgent action is needed “to assure both potentially interested commercial partners and other commercial sources of financing that the long- debated nationwide wireless broadband network plan will obtain the critical capital needed to overcome concerns on how to raise money for the network during the current credit crisis and recession,” the letter said.
FCC sources said Monday they have heard nothing from the chairman’s office since he declined to circulate an order on the D block for the Dec. 18 meeting, which ended up canceled. Martin told reporters he saw “no consensus or willingness” from his colleagues to move forward on an item (CD Dec 4 p1).
“We were very concerned that if it didn’t get on the agenda and move before the end of the year, it would wait for the next administration and that would take sometime to get together,” McEwen said of an FCC vote on a D-block auction. “We have had no indication from the commissioners that there was any reluctance to move this forward.”
Obama promised during the campaign and on his transition web page to make better communications among first responders a priority. He supports “efforts to provide greater technical assistance to local and state first responders and dramatically increase funding for reliable, interoperable communications systems,” according to Change.gov, the transition website.
Morgan O'Brien, adviser to PSST and chairman of Cyren Call, Monday endorsed calls to include money for the network in the stimulus package. “For years the lack of public funding has stymied the development of such a network,” he said. “Now Congress and the incoming Obama administration may have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to assist private partners willing to construct and operate this vital public resource.”