Sprint Proposes Emergency Network as Part of Stimulus Package
Sprint Nextel asked the Obama administration to start an emergency communications program built around 100 satellite- based cell-on-light-trucks, known as SatCOLTS. They would be available within hours of an emergency such as Hurricane Katrina, providing immediate communications on the ground, the carrier told the presidential transition team. Sprint estimated at $2 billion the cost of creating the program and running it five years. It could be in place years before a new wireless broadband network using the 700 MHz D-block could get off the ground, Sprint said.
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“Establishing a comprehensive, interoperable broadband public safety communications solution will take years and cost tens of billions of dollars,” Sprint said. “But public safety emergencies - floods, wildfires, earthquakes, ice storms or terrorist events - can’t wait for the communications solutions necessary to safeguard lives and property.”
“It would be ready in four hours on the ground -- whatever capabilities you need to provide communications and make sure public safety officials can talk to each other, can exchange information, can coordinate recovery,” a Sprint representative said Friday. “Then, when it’s done, you can roll it back and be prepared for the next event.” The Sprint official said of a proposal to build a network using the D block: “It’s bogged down at the moment. It’s complicated. It’s going to cost a lot of money. It’s going to take a long time.”
The SatCOLTS network would provide voice communications and some data. The trucks would be staged around the country, to be driven or air-lifted into an emergency area. The government would also stage 100,000 or more fully charged handsets at more than 40 locations, for first responders. The system would provide interoperability with current push- to-talk land mobile communications networks, satellite-based backhaul, interconnection with the PSTN and the ability to interconnect with federal communications networks. Sprint emphasized that the plan would be good for the economy, since 400 or more people would be needed to oversee the program, and it also would provide jobs at the companies that build the equipment.
A representative said Sprint isn’t proposing that it build the new network -- though the company has the experience needed. “We didn’t talk about company or technology,” the official said. “This could be done on a different technology or by a different company or by a consortium.”
Separately, Sprint asked that the Obama administration tell the FCC to act by Sept. 30 on reducing special access rates. The cut could spur $14.5 billion worth of economic growth and create 132,000 jobs, the carrier said. Completion of the FCC’s four-year-old special-access proceeding would help Sprint invest in wireless infrastructure, increasing broadband competition, it said. Special access costs account for about one-third of Sprint’s cost of operating a cell site, it said. “Lower operating expenses would make new cell site construction viable at locations where it previously would not have been economic to do so,” the carrier said. The plan would require no money from taxpayers, it added.
Verizon and AT&T control 92 percent of the special access market, a Sprint executive told reporters Friday. AT&T makes 138 percent profit and Verizon 62 percent on special access, the official said. The companies’ rates exceed their costs by almost $23 million a day, Sprint said in the proposal. Sprint’s numbers are based on Automated Reporting Management Information System reports filed by Verizon and AT&T, a Sprint official said. The FCC ruled last year that the big carriers no longer need to file the ARMIS reports. Sprint has asked the FCC to reconsider.
Under a Democratic FCC, Sprint may have a better shot at overhauling special access. Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein have been publicly “sympathetic” to special access concerns, a Sprint official said. And President-elect Barack Obama has recognized the importance of competition, the official said. But it isn’t clear how Julius Genachowski, who’s expected to become the FCC’s chairman, views the matter, the official said.