The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials, the world’s largest organization dedicated to public safety communications, held their annual APCO Conference last week in Kansas City, Kansas (Exhibitor List and Program schedule).
The mission of their statewide chapters involves 911 emergency communications services and a variety of spectrum issues such as interoperability using Project 25 radios, Rebanding the Nextel 800MHz band and frequency coordination among other things.
Urgent Communications Magazine covers this beat and has a variety of articles.
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A panel discussing the future of the 911 system and emergency communications spoke of wondrous new capabilities, some of which first responders “haven’t even dreamed of yet.” The U.S. Department of Transportation’s NG 911 Project is developing a migration plan for an IP-based, digital 911 network. “There are decisions that police, fire and EMS will have to make,” said Laurie Flaherty, co-manager of the project. “Now that we’ve enabled this IP system, what do you want? What kind of data is going to make a difference in terms of helping you do your jobs better? More is not necessarily better.” Some fear new features, such as the ability to text 911 will unleash a torrent of calls that could overwhelm PSAPs, or Public Safety Answering Points.
- Already more than one month beyond the scheduled completion date for 800 MHz rebanding, public-safety users are expected to substantially complete the transition during the next year, FCC representatives said at the APCO conference. “Sprint [Nextel, the wireless carrier paying for rebanding] wants to get this finished. I think a lot of the burden will fall on public safety to get this done,” Derek Poarch, chief of the FCC’s public safety and homeland security bureau (PSHSB), said on Monday.
- Push-to-talk interoperability between most cell phones, PDAs and LMR radios is now available to public-safety agencies with access to broadband networks, as shown during a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) demonstration. In its the Radio Over Wireless Broadband (ROW-B) project, DHS leverages the cellular push-to-talk capabilities of Clarity Communications—a subsidiary of ISCO International—and the recently created bridging systems interface (BSI) protocol to enable widespread push-to-talk capability via broadband wireless networks.
- Challenges surrounding the proposed 700 MHz public-private partnership model were discussed, but leaders within APCO remain supportive of the notion, reports Urgentcomm. To create a greater financial incentive for a commercial operator to bid on the 10 MHz D Block—to be coupled with public safety’s 10 MHz swath of broadband spectrum to provide the foundation of the network—APCO suggests that public-safety users have pre-emptive rights on no more than 50% of the network’s capacity instead of the 100% proposed. “This may seem like a concession,” Sean O’Hara of Syracuse Research said during the panel discussion. “But, if this [network] is not built, we’re not going to get to use more than that 10 MHz anyway.”
