The Justice Department today picked General Dynamics to deploy a national Integrated Wireless Network (IWN) to be shared by three federal agencies, the departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Treasury. The contract should net $5 billion for the contractors, but some private analysts say IWN’s tab could run closer to $30 billion.
IWN partners, including Verizon, IBM and MA/Com, are expected to achieve interoperability among 80,000 federal agents, as well as between federal agencies and state and local agencies. IWN will install thousands of 700 MHz towers throughout the nation and tie them together though the Internet Protocol and Project 25 radios. IWN architecture may require some 37,000 disaster-proof 700 MHz radio sites be built across the United States over the next decade.
“A key principle of the IWN (integrated wireless network) program is flexibility to evolve and account for changes and operational requirements of the partner agencies,” said Vance Hitch, chief information officer for the DoJ.
The Falls Church, Va.-based General Dynamics Corp. beat out competitor Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin for the final phase of the Integrated Wireless Network deal.
The DoJ press release says the network will be capable of supporting voice, data and multimedia applications — if you define 10Kbps as multi-media.
The IWN contract may give the infrastructure advantage to Verizon (General Dynamics), in this fall’s commercial 700 MHz auction. Sprint (teamed with Lockheed Martin), recently said it’s not going to bid on 700 MHz frequencies.
But Verizon certainly will. Verizon is said to have largely formulated the FCC’s Ninth Report and Order (which stipulates that 12 MHz of the 24 MHz dedicated to public service, be designated for shared public/private broadband, and that a single licensee should be awarded this spectrum).
With — in effect — a subsidized infrastructure using thousands of 700 MHz towers from the IWN project, Verizon may have a significant advantage over its chief rival, Frontline Wireless.
Frontline would need to build their infrastructure from scratch. Would General Dynamics/Verizon provide competitors with “at-cost” access to their towers? Not unless they had to. The FCC will announce the 700 MHz auction rules in a week or so, but tower access rules may be in the fine print.
Frontline promises a more “open” approach rather than the “walled prison”, preferred by cellular operators like Verizon. Frontline would add another 10 MHz to the 12 Mhz already proposed to provide shared broadband. The 22MHz of 700 MHz spectrum would then be shared between consumers and public safety users (with emergency priority access for first responders). End users would be free to buy other devices (such as an iPhone or Treo) to access their services, or use competing commercial applications (like Skype).
The federal government has spent $195 million on IWN, reports the Washington Post. But the 700 MHz public service radio network, designed to deliver interoperability for the nation’s law enforcement agencies, is at “high risk of failure,” the Justice Department’s Inspector General reported last month pdf (below).
DHS has distributed $2.15 billion since 9/11, encouraging state and local agencies to use the federal funding to purchase Project 25 radios for interoperability, the GAO said. But the effectiveness of those standards in making systems more interoperable has not been proven, according to the GAO.
“Ambiguities in the standards have led to incompatibilities among products made by different vendors, and no compliance testing has been conducted to determine if those products are interoperable,” the GAO said.
The feds talk up interoperability — but they don’t walk the talk. Washingon DC’s incompatible 700 Mhz safety nets include one using EVDO (Lucent’s safety network) and one using incompatible Flarion technology (WARN). New York City has their $500M, city-wide network (at 2.5 GHz using IP Wireless), while New York State has a $2B public safety network using 700 Mhz, Project 25 radios. None of those networks are interoperable.
Maybe they could hire SAIC to fix it . . . Not!
Related DailyWireless articles include; AT&T, Verizon & Qwest Share $50B Contract, Networx: $50B Phone Contract Due, Consumers to FCC: 700MHz Democracy Now!, Civil War in 4G, Nextwave Buys IP-Wireless, FCC Firming Up 700MHz Rules?, Verizon’s $6B Smackdown, Alcatel Does EVDO in DC 700 MHz Net, Frontline’s 700MHz Pitch: Sharing is Good, Tom Ridge: Answer Cyren Call, Verizon Makes its Move for Universal Service Fund, National Broadband: Fee & Free, Senate Testimony on 700MHz Sharing, FCC to Rural Users: 700MHz is the Ticket, State-wide Wireless Broadband Access, Joint Commecial/Muni Proposed for 700Mhz and Oregon’s $500 Million Statewide Wireless Network.
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