Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Radio daze

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 16:36:25 -0500

Radio daze

By John DeWitt

American City & County, Nov 1, 2003

A sheriff's deputy in Anne Arundel County, Md., responds to a garbled distress
call from another officer at the scene of a house
fire. The deputy is forced by a radio dead spot to drive several blocks away —
while his colleague battles the blaze with a garden
hose — before he can contact the fire department.

Across the country, in Portland, Ore., police pursue a carjacker into a wooded
area and attempt to set up a security perimeter
around the assailant. However, they discover their radios cannot talk to each
other, even in close proximity, because their signal is
overpowered by a nearby cellular transmission site.

Unfortunately, those types of hair-raising events are becoming more common among
public safety workers who find themselves
in crisis situations without functioning communications equipment. Public safety
agencies in at least 27 states have reported
multiple instances of significant radio interference involving what, in theory,
are supposed to be separate, distinct public and
private radio systems such as cellular phone towers and emergency medical
services (EMS) walkie-talkies. Though a number of
ideas on how to solve the problem have been proposed, resolving the interference
issue (much less implementing its solution) is no
simple matter — technically, economically or politically.

A crowded spectrum

Driven by the exponential proliferation of wireless devices, demand for prime
radio spectrum “real estate” is outstripping supply,
according to the Washington, D.C.-based Cellular Telecommunications and Internet
Association (CTIA). Symptomatic of the
overcrowded airwaves are widespread reports of cellular telephone interference
with public safety communications, especially
involving several thousand local police, fire and emergency agencies whose
radios use frequencies within the 800 megahertz
(MHz) portion of the radio spectrum. Hundreds of public safety agencies have
filed formal complaints of interference with the
Washington, D.C.-based Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Daytona
Beach, Fla.-based Association of
Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO), connecting the local dots into a
nationwide pattern of disrupted public safety
communications.

Telecommunications technology experts are trying to understand how different
types of radio systems operating in close
proximity along the radio spectrum are colliding. The unanticipated interference
occurs even though public safety radios are
“high-site, high-power” systems while cellular systems operate using low-site,
low-power transmitters. And, by most accounts,
cellular phone companies are operating in full compliance with their licenses.

To date, no deaths or disasters have been linked to such interference, but a
rising chorus of public safety officials and
telecommunications experts say it is only a matter of time until calamity
strikes. There is widespread agreement that interference
is a growing crisis threatening the safety of residents and public safety
officers in the field.

“Anybody who has an 800 MHz radio system is subject to interference from cell
phones and other radio communications.
Nobody thought it would happen, but it's a fact of life now,” says Alan
Caldwell, director of government relations for the Fairfax,
Va.,-based International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). “Fire chiefs are
saying ‘We cannot have interference. It endangers
firefighters and other public safety personnel, and it endangers the public.”’

FCC tackles interference

Recently, the concerns of public safety officials have found excellent reception
at the FCC. Its chairman, Michael Powell, says
finding a comprehensive solution to interference is one of the agency's foremost
priorities. The stakes are high — small slices of
the radio spectrum could be sold to licensees for billions of dollars. So
diverse competing interests are jockeying to ensure their
viewpoints are considered before the FCC, which is expected to issue a
definitive ruling by early 2004.

The agency has received extensive commentary and research data from local
governments and public safety organizations,
cellular service and radio technology providers, and others in business and
industry. Though numerous approaches for mitigating
interference have been proposed, opinion has coalesced around two particular
positions.

The approach favored by most public safety organizations advocates wholesale
rebanding of the various radio licensees within
the 800 MHz spectrum. That rebanding would concentrate public safety
communications and other non-cellular radio systems
exclusively in one block of frequencies in the lower part of the 800 MHz
spectrum. Cellular carriers then would operate a safe
distance away in the higher 800 MHz frequencies or, in the case of one provider,
Nextel, would entirely vacate the 800 MHz
portion of the radio spectrum.

The alternative approach favored by the CTIA and most of Nextel's competitors —
as well as by a few local governments, most
prominently Baltimore — advocates relying on “best practices” and a so-called
“toolbox” of technical fixes that can be used to
solve interference when and where it occurs. Consensual swaps of radio spectrum
would also be encouraged, but the approach
does not include a comprehensive rebanding of the 800 MHz licenses. (However, in
some variants of the approach, public safety
communications would be moved to the 700 MHz spectrum, home to UHF television
channels.)

Sorting through solutions

FCC decision makers apparently are still deeply divided over the best course of
action. For example, John Muleta, chief of the
FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, is leaning toward a rebanding
solution. On the other hand, Edmund Thomas, chief
of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology, says that the commission
should opt for a technical solution.

Most players agree that rebanding represents the most comprehensive means to
mitigating interference. However, notes Roger
Entner, a telecom industry analyst for the Boston-based Yankee Group, “while
it's probably the right solution, [rebanding is] quite
a radical approach. Moving spectrum doesn't happen that often,” he says.

The high price tag of retuning public safety radio equipment to use new
frequencies is a major concern — which is why Nextel
has offered to chip in up to $850 million, which it estimates is the total cost
to convert affected public safety licensees' radio
systems.

Nextel's offer to pay for rebanding without taxpayer dollars has garnered
support from an estimated 90 percent of 800 MHz
licensees, including most of the officials representing cash-strapped local
public safety organizations that use 800 MHz
frequencies. However, Nextel's competitors and other critics assail the
rebanding approach on several interrelated points.

The costs of rebanding could exceed $850 million. “We're concerned that Nextel's
proposal doesn't contain enough
money,” says Peter Roy, deputy chief technology officer for Washington, D.C.
“It's very expensive to retune the
equipment, and what happens if we get into the middle of rebanding and the $850
million disappears?”

Nextel counters that “retuning has been done many times, so we have a good
handle on the costs,” says Christopher
Doherty, senior director for public affairs for the Reston, Va.-based company.
With $8.7 billion in revenues last year,
Nextel “can easily come up with the money,” according to Entner. However, “what
goes into the treasury from Nextel is
not necessarily what goes out of the treasury to pay for this,” he cautions.

Nextel is being rewarded for a problem it helped create. For Nextel's
competitors, the biggest hitch with the rebanding plan
is how Nextel proposes to be compensated for the radio spectrum it will give up.
In return for vacating its frequency
licenses in the 700 MHz, 800 MHz and 900 MHz portions of the radio spectrum —
for which Doherty says the company
paid $2 billion on the open market — Nextel has requested licenses to use 10 MHz
of radio frequencies located in what
Entner calls “really plum spectrum” in the 1.9 gigahertz (GHz) band.

“If [Nextel] went to auction, [the 10 MHz section of the 1.9 GHz band] would be
worth a lot more than the $850 million
they've offered,” Entner explains. “Cingular just paid $1.4 billion for
significantly less spectrum in 50 or so local markets.”

Less radical, less costly alternatives exist. Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola —
whose wireless equipment is used almost
exclusively by both Nextel and most public safety organizations — has not taken
sides. “We're not opposing rebanding,
and we filed a rebanding proposal” with the FCC, says Motorola spokesperson
Steve Gorecki. “Rebanding is a policy issue
that the FCC and our customers must decide for the long term.”

However, Motorola's input into the FCC's decision-making process has buttressed
the arguments of rebanding's opponents. In
response to the FCC's request for technical advice, Gorecki says that Motorola
filed a letter with the commission in May in which
it described the company's new receiver advances combined with best practices to
form what it called a “technical toolbox” to
mitigate interference.

“It's a complex issue involving different types of interference,” Gorecki
acknowledges. “But we believe a technical toolbox of
solutions can be implemented depending on the type and severity of interference.
Think of it as a really dense tree that blocks the
sun, [and] you can use these tools to prune branches and let the sun come
through while maintaining a healthy tree.”

Some specific “best practices” recommended by Motorola include voluntary
frequency swaps, additional filtering on carriers'
transmitters, changes in carriers' antennas, and, if needed, adding public
safety antenna sites.

Rebanding supporters do not dismiss Motorola's recommendations. They argue
instead that the technical fixes do not eliminate
the need for comprehensive rebanding. Motorola's suggested improvements, “while
significant and beneficial, are not a
‘technological silver bullet’ that would solve the 800 MHz interference,” argued
a May 16 statement to the FCC from several
organizations including APCO, IAFC and two Alexandria, Va.-based associations,
the International Association of Chiefs of
Police (IACP) and the National Sheriffs Association (NSA). “We work very closely
with Motorola on a variety of
communications issues [but] we disagree on this issue,” says IAFC's Caldwell, a
former volunteer fire chief in Fairfax County,
Va.

Impact on local government

All indications are that the FCC will issue a ruling by early next year. Though
the outcome is far from certain, most observers still
anticipate the agency will opt for comprehensive rebanding of the 800 MHz
spectrum. However, the final decision may also
include elements of the technical solutions described by Motorola.

If the FCC decides to shuffle the 800 MHz spectrum, the complex rebanding
process would take an estimated three years or
more to implement nationwide. In the meantime, local public safety organizations
will continue to grapple with radio interference
issues. Certainly, communities purchasing new radio equipment will seek units
that have the technology to cope with interference
and that can be retuned easily if and when a comprehensive frequency swap is
implemented.

The experience of Washington, D.C., may be instructive for other municipalities,
Roy says. The district's government recently
used part of its $150 million in federal emergency funding to upgrade its radio
communications systems, most of which operate
within the 800 MHz spectrum. (D.C.'s police use 460 MHz radios, which are
unaffected by cellular systems.)

“We had four signal towers in the district, and we've upgraded to 10, but even
though we now have very strong on-street signal
here, it doesn't necessarily penetrate the old buildings,” Roy explains. “So one
innovation we've made is our vehicle repeater
system. [This is] a vehicle equipped with a radio signal repeater [that] pulls
up outside and blasts a building with the signal,
ensuring we can send and receive even very weak signals.”

In contrast to the tens of millions of dollars spent on new towers, D.C.'s
vehicle repeater system, which has been installed on 63
vehicles so far, “is very cost-effective,” Roy says. “Communities that don't
have much money should look into this” as a possible
technical solution to radio signal interference.

John DeWitt is writer based in Cape Cod, Mass.

SORTING OUT THE INTERFERENCE SOLUTIONS
The proposed solution
Rebanding
Technical fixes
Key features
•High-site, high-power radio systems and
low-site, low-tower cellular systems are
separated and grouped into two distinct
blocks within the 800 MHz portion of the
radio spectrum•Nextel vacates all of its
700 MHz, 800 MHz and 900 MHz
frequency licenses, eliminating its phone
system as a cause of interference,
making room for the rebanding, and
freeing up additional spectrum for future
public safety wireless systems•Nextel
provides $850 million to cover the costs
for retuning or converting radio
equipment
•Limited rebanding consisting of voluntary
frequency swaps by licensees that cause
or are impacted by
interference•Additional filtering on
carriers' transmitters and other changes in
carriers' antennas to reduce
interference•Building additional public
safety antenna sites when needed to
boost signal strength•Other new
technologies under development and
testing by Motorola•Motorola commits to
offering its “technical toolbox” of fixes
with “no incremental increase in the cost
of radios” and “minimized cost of
retrofitting existing radios”
Major proponents
•A reported 90 percent of 800 MHz
spectrum licensees, including Nextel,
private wireless entities and public safety
communicators•Most organizations
representing public safety communicators
•Motorola•The National Association of
Manufacturers and prominent users of
private radio systems•The Cellular
Telecommunications and Internet
Association (CTIA)
What proponents say
•“It's the only plan that's funded, and it's
the only approach that virtually eliminates
the interference problem.” (Alan
Caldwell, IAFC)•“As a result of the
‘consensus plan,’ public safety will … get
more radio spectrum that they
desperately need in a faster timeframe
than with any other proposal in front of
the FCC.” (Christopher Doherty, Nextel)
•“We believe a ‘technical toolbox’ of
solutions can be implemented depending
on the type and severity of interference.”
(Steve Gorecki, Motorola)•“As a less
radical solution than rebanding, I would
say whatever works and is cheaper and
doesn't give special favors to one
company.” (Roger Entner, Yankee Group
analyst)
What critics say
•“We're concerned that Nextel's proposal
doesn't contain enough money. It's very
expensive to retune the equipment … and
what happens if we get into the middle of
rebanding and the $850 million
disappears?” (Peter Roy, deputy chief
technology officer, District of Columbia)
•“These improvements, while significant
and beneficial, are not a ‘technological
silver bullet’ that would solve the 800
MHz interference.” (May 16 statement to
the FCC from several organizations
representing public service officials)

http://americancityandcounty.com/ar/government_radio_daze/index.htm

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