New Group Aims to Update PSWAC Report
November 04, 2009
With a deadline of December 2010, a working group under the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) has begun to identify public-safety user communications requirements and technology and wireless spectrum needs through 2020. The working group, Assessment of Future Spectrum and Technology (AFST), was created to update the 1996 report written by the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee (PSWAC). The 1996 report highlighted areas that needed improvement and set goals for the next 10 years with regard to public-safety communications.
PSWAC’s final report concluded that unless immediate measures were taken to alleviate spectrum shortfalls and promote interoperability, public-safety agencies wouldn’t be able to adequately meet their obligations to protect life and property in a safe, efficient and cost-effective manner. The report eventually led to the public-safety spectrum assignments in the 700 MHz and 4.9 GHz bands, NPSTC officials said.
While some spectrum assignments were allocated, not all of public safety’s needs addressed in PSWAC were met, said AFST’s chair Joe Ross, partner with consulting firm Televate. “By articulating our long-term needs, public safety will better enable our policymakers, the public-safety vendor community and standardization bodies to allocate resources to address those needs and to focus those resources toward meeting the collective public-safety communications needs,” Ross said. “The FCC, Congress and others often ask questions regarding public safety’s needs, and we need definitive and well thought out responses to those questions.”
AFST began work in August. Ross said he envisions creating user needs questionnaires to solicit public-safety input, but is open to alternative data collection methodologies. The group plans to coordinate with NPSTC’s spectrum committee to develop updated spectrum needs models. Subgroups have been created and are in the process of assigning leads to each group, which Ross said will be their initial task.
The group is on pace to develop its first draft of the report by July 2010 and have the report finalized by December 2010. The finalized plan will be available in white paper and presentation form.
Two of the challenges identified in the PSWAC report, spectrum needs and funding, will most likely be included in the new report because not all the original goals were met. The 1996 report stated that 97.5 megahertz of new public-safety spectrum was needed by 2010, including 25 megahertz within five years.
The FCC allocated 24 megahertz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band and created the Public Safety National Coordinating Committee (NCC) to recommend rules for use, although it came after the initial five-year deadline. In 2003, the NCC reported that half of the spectrum (12 megahertz) should be designated for public-safety narrowband voice channels and the remaining 12 megahertz be used for wideband data channels. Due to new technology advances, the FCC modified the wideband data channels to broadband data channels. With the modified broadband rule, many of the initial goals outlined in the PSWAC report were superseded.
Funding was another major requirement to attain interoperability noted in the initial report and is still being addressed. In a report to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), NPSTC officials stated that some progress had been made due to “allocation of spectrum, dedication of funding based on state interoperability plans and availability of interoperable technology.” The GAO report stressed that continued funding is still critical and needed throughout the country.
After the D block failed to sell in the auction last year, funding for a nationwide network has remained stalled. Debates over a public-private partnership and network requirements are ongoing. And members of a House subcommittee recently
acknowledged the need for some general funds to help build the network.
AFST is looking for volunteers to participate from each public-safety discipline, as well as technology and spectrum experts. A volunteer sheet can be found
here.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for public safety to articulate its needs,” Ross said. “But we’ll only be successful with good input from the public-safety community.” Ross encourages users who can’t volunteer to e-mail input to
AFSTInput@npstc.org. E-mail addresses from anyone who submits an e-mail will be kept in the group’s database so they will be included in the distribution when questionnaires are released.
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