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Prepared Witness Testimony The House Committee on Energy and Commerce
The Spectrum Needs of Our Nation's First Responders.
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
Mr. Gregory Q. Brown
Good morning, Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Markey and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Greg Brown, and I am the President and CEO of Motorola's Commercial Government and Industrial Solutions Sector. I want to express my appreciation to you, Mr. Chairman, for scheduling this hearing, and for taking time to visit our high-speed date project, the Greenhouse Project. It is obvious that you have put a high priority on identifying and meeting public safety needs. I also want to thank other members of this committee who were able to visit the project earlier this week, including Congressmen Rush, Bass and Terry. This committee understands the challenges facing public safety and has taken the lead in exploring ways to address these needs, including the 700 MHz proposals of Chairman Tauzin, Ranking Member Dingell, Congresswoman Harman, and Congressman Weldon and the funding proposals by Congressmen Markey, Stupak, Fossella and Engel, among others. I am pleased to be with you today to support your efforts to achieve our shared goal of meeting public safety needs. Motorola's Commercial, Government and Industrial Solutions Sector (CGISS) is a leading provider of communications and information solutions, with more than 65 years of experience in meeting the mission-critical needs of our public safety customers. We offer an extensive portfolio of solutions specifically designed to meet the rapidly evolving safety and security needs of these customers. Our solutions include interoperable mission-critical radio systems; command and control solutions; identification and tracking solutions; information management for criminal justice and civil needs; and physical security and monitoring solutions. In 2002, CGISS received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation's premier award for performance excellence and quality achievement, and Motorola was pleased to be here in Washington last month to receive the award from Vice President Cheney and Commerce Secretary Evans. Motorola works very closely with our customers to ensure their ability to effectively respond to both every-day mission critical needs and catastrophic events. Our goal is to help them provide superior information at the point of decision and to improve interoperability among multiple agencies and levels of government. Interoperable wireless communication capability allows two or more parties to exchange information directly. In every disaster scenario, emergency responders recognize wireless system interoperability as a key factor in effective response and regional coordination. With interoperability, on-scene personnel can quickly access each other to coordinate needed rescue and emergency activities. Motorola has installed or upgraded hundreds of digital systems for local and state jurisdictions. For example, Motorola supplied the leading edge interoperable digital system for the State of Michigan, as well as the Integration Framework technology in Kalamazoo County that will connect the multiple justice information systems for new efficiencies in criminal enforcement and homeland security. In addition, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is operating an interoperable, multi-agency statewide network that serves as a platform for interoperability among many State and local agencies and is planning for future expansion. Our experience has confirmed that interoperability is an important priority, and in achieving this capability, like meeting other mission imperatives, the approach must fit the system in question and the customer's needs and circumstances. There is no one-size-fits-all because of the wide differences among existing systems and operations. We believe that nationwide interoperability can be achieved by the end of this decade if we set that goal as a national priority. Despite the differences among systems, we have learned that the common, and key, requirements to achieving interoperability include spectrum, standards and money. To that end Congress has taken many steps to make spectrum available to public safety, including setting aside 24 MHz in the 700 MHz band. Congress now should clear this spectrum by the end of 2006 so public safety can begin to use it for wide area high-speed data communications as well as expanded voice communications. Interoperability standards that meet public safety needs and are open to all manufacturers have been established for voice and data communication and soon will be affirmed for wideband services. And finally, the Administration and the Congress have begun to fund the various grant programs administered by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and to set interoperability as a high priority for these funds. However, the level of funding in general and the amounts set aside for interoperable equipment purchases must be increased significantly. ACCESS TO SPECTRUM ALLOCATED TO PUBLIC SAFETY IS CRITICAL. Wireless communications is a critical tool for our nation's public safety agencies, especially given today's heightened homeland security concerns. It is the mechanism for providing our first responders with the right information at the right time and in the right place, whether that information is transferred via voice, data, or images. Spectrum designated for exclusive use by public safety is the lifeline to their emergency response, detection and prevention capabilities. Simply put, without access to adequate spectrum, wireless communications cannot take place, effectively and ubiquitously. Recognizing the urgent and rapidly growing need for additional spectrum, especially in our metropolitan population centers, the public safety community through the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee (PSWAC), issued a report on September 11, 1996 that identified the need for almost 100 MHz of additional spectrum to meet its communications needs through 2010. The greatest amount of spectrum is needed for emerging wireless wide area and broadband technologies, adapted for mission critical public safety applications. These applications include high-speed data, intranet access, imaging and video transfers and on-scene multi-media mobile command communications. In 1997 Congress reallocated 24 MHz in the 746-806 MHz band (700 MHz band) to support mission critical public safety communications. The FCC has implemented this directive and issued authorizations and technical rules for public safety use. However, this spectrum is currently used by television channels 63, 64, 68 and 69, and they are expected to vacate this spectrum as part of the HDTV transition. These channels are critical to public safety for two reasons: (1) Together, the new 700 MHz and current 800 MHz bands provide the best opportunity to integrate interoperable communications. The 700 MHz band's proximity to the 800 MHz band allows public safety agencies to expand their current 800 MHz narrowband voice and data systems for interoperability and regional coordination on an "intra" as well as "inter" agency basis. Equipment operating in these combined frequency bands on the FCC endorsed Project 25 interoperability standard is commercially available today. Further, the FCC last year granted each state a license to operate such narrowband communications in the 700 MHz band. (2) 700 MHz is the only dedicated spectrum allocation where public safety can implement advanced mobile wide area systems that bring high-speed access to databases, the intranet, imaging and video to first responders in the field. This technology offers a whole new level of mobile communications capabilities, which is far beyond today's voice and low speed data applications. For example: a. An officer or agent could transmit video of a potential bomb, or biological weapon and get real time counsel from an expert in another location. b. Local or state police could instantly send or receive a photograph of a missing or abducted child. c. Crime scene investigators can transmit live video of footprints, fingerprints and evidence to speed analysis and apprehension of perpetrators. d. Firefighters can access building blueprints, hydrant locations hazardous material data and other critical information. e. Paramedics can transmit live video of the patient to doctors at the hospital that would help save lives. Motorola and Pinellas County, Florida, conducted a successful trial of technology that can provide all of the above capabilities as part of what we refer to as the Greenhouse Project. Operating under an experimental license from the FCC, we are conducting trials in the City of Chicago. The capabilities being demonstrated are the emerging powerful multi-media applications that will bring public safety communications into the Twenty-First Century. Public safety users are currently finalizing the wideband interoperability standard through the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). Right now, actual product development could proceed as soon as we know with certainty that this spectrum will be available nationwide to the public safety community. Unfortunately, most metropolitan area public safety operations cannot use this spectrum today, nor can they predict with any certainty when they might have access to these frequencies. Therefore, they cannot deploy, or plan for the deployment of, the interoperability and advanced technology that will improve their effectiveness and safety. Under current law, while TV incumbents are required to vacate this spectrum at the end of 2006, they can receive an unlimited extension of this deadline based on the state of the transition in their particular market. Many experts seem to accept that the 2006 date is not likely to be met in any television market. Nor is there any effort to prioritize clearing the stations that impede use of the public safety allocation. So, in reality, there is no "hard date" when the transition will end for public safety users, a situation which leaves the public safety community and those who support its efforts and needs in a terrible situation. We commend and encourage this committee's efforts on legislation to set this hard date. In order for any public safety agency to use the spectrum it has been assigned in the 700 MHz band, any TV stations operating on those transmit and receive frequencies (referred to as the co-TV channels) must have ceased operations. In addition, any TV stations in that market that are operating one TV channel up or down from the co-TV channel (referred to as the adjacent TV channels) also must have ceased operations. In effect, as many as seven TV channels (62-65 and 67-69) must be cleared before first responders in that market will be able to access the 24 MHz of new spectrum and deploy the equipment that uses this spectrum. Based on current FCC licenses, we have developed maps that identify the locations of the TV broadcasters that are operating today on the public safety co-channels and adjacent channels throughout the country. The maps include Canadian TV broadcasters that are bordering the U.S and that would impact public safety operations in the bands. Because public safety systems operate in a pairing of transmit and receive channels, they will operate in previous TV channels 63 and 68, and 64 and 69. In addition adjacent channels would impact their operations. Each of the two maps below shows the implications of existing operations on one of the two pairings. The shaded circles indicate current areas blocked by TV incumbents on the co-channels and on the adjacent channels and they include the Canadian TV stations operations.
It is no surprise that these blocked areas are in our nation's densest population centers, where public safety urgently needs access to the spectrum. The reality is that 5% of this country's TV stations are blocking improved public safety communications for 84% of the population in the largest cities, those over 200,000. Of that 84%, more than two-thirds have no access to the spectrum, while the remaining third have only limited access. When we look at all areas of the country, rural as well as urban, 54% of our country's population is totally blocked by this small number of TV stations from receiving any benefits of public safety communications in this new band. To allow public safety agencies to implement this vitally needed new wideband technology, as well as expand and interoperate with their existing 800 MHz systems, public safety must be allowed to access the 700 MHz spectrum throughout the country. Congressional action is required to mandate a date certain by which all TV incumbents must vacate this critically needed spectrum, without exceptions. This firm date must be no later than 2006. We are not unmindful of the other considerations that are involved in making this date a reality. It will not be an easy task, but we believe it can be achieved while mitigating the adverse effects. We urge the Committee not to be deterred from setting this goal because it may be hard to achieve. Rather, once it has been set, the affected parties, including the public safety community, the FCC and NTIA, the involved broadcasters and other affected parties, including our company, should be called upon to devote our energies to making it happen. INCREASED RECOGNITION OF INTEROPERABILITY IS IMPERATIVE. Motorola was the first company to put radio equipment in a police car. This landmark event took place approximately 65 years ago. From that day forward to the present, technology to meet first responder needs has steadily evolved. As the technology made it possible to move into higher and higher frequency bands, and as the lower frequencies reached user capacity, the FCC allocated additional spectrum to public safety users on an incremental basis, going from the VHF Low Band, located in the area of 30 MHz, to the VHF High Band in the area of 150 MHZ, and the UHF Band at 450 MHZ, and then going to the 800 MHz Band and now to the 700 MHz spectrum. As this Committee appreciates, public safety equipment must be capable of many years of use, because local municipal budgets need to squeeze as much use out of equipment as is possible. Thus, there has been no set order in which municipalities expanded into new spectrum bands. A city would buy new equipment, perhaps in a new band, when they needed new or expanded communications, a replacement for their existing equipment, or as existing channels hit capacity usage levels. This patchwork quilt approach to spectrum allocation and adoption by users for public safety by myriad independent political entities resulted in the interoperability challenges we are facing today. Regional coordination to enable interoperability was not considered to be a high priority, at least not until a local disaster exposed a problem. For example, more than 20 years ago, the public safety community in metropolitan Washington, D.C., learned firsthand how a lack of interoperability among agencies can contribute to the chaos of a disaster and may impede effective response. On January 13, 1982, the crash of Air Florida flight 90 into the 14th Street Bridge revealed that many of the police, fire and rescue agencies from all levels of government, who responded to this large disaster, could not talk to one another. From this experience emerged a consensus that something had to be done. And action was taken, including years of planning and collaboration by the Washington Metropolitan Area Council of Governments to design proactively an interoperable radio communications solution and mutual aid agreement among the area jurisdictions and response agencies. On September 11, 2001, the local public safety organizations in the Washington, D.C. area were prepared, and with the flip of a switch, they were able to communicate seamlessly at the site of the terrorist attack on the Pentagon. There were still some coordination issues with the federal responders who also arrived on the scene, because they had not chosen to be part of the planning efforts of the local jurisdictions, and their radios operated on separate federal frequency bands. But both the benefits of interoperability and some ways in which it can be achieved were aptly demonstrated that day. This experience demonstrated that while meeting day to day operational requirements, interoperability can be achieved when there is a willingness to cooperate, sufficient compatible spectrum, funding, common technology and equally important, adequate training and planning. PROJECT 25 IS THE U.S. INTEROPERABILITY STANDARD. In addition to spectrum access, standards are critically important to achieving interoperability. Fortunately, the standards for interoperability have been developed, and they have been accepted around the world, with systems now operating in 49 countries. The standards were developed by the public safety users in the United States, with cooperation from multiple equipment manufacturers. Public safety users adopted the Project 25 (or "P25") standard in order to implement an open standard that promotes interoperability and system migration, and enables more competitive procurements for digital radio systems, thereby eliminating their dependence on vendor proprietary systems. P25 is actually a full suite of standards that, when built into communications equipment, provides the basis for interoperable digital radio voice and low-speed data communications among multiple public safety users, departments and agencies. These standards were developed under the auspices of, and are published by, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Public safety users have the option to choose Project 25 products from multiple vendors. The Project 25 web page lists 15 manufacturers serving the public safety and defense markets, who offer P25 compliant radios and/or P25 radio system products (http://www.project25.org/pages/manufacturers.htm). Unlike many other communications standards and technologies in the broader wireless industry, the unique mission critical requirements of public safety users drove the development of the P25 suite of standards. High priority was given to public safety's operational and tactical requirements. For reasons of cost effectiveness, the Project 25 standards permit a graceful migration path from aging analog to new digital systems. These standards promote improved spectral efficiency, and, as intended, allow for multi-vendor equipment offerings. Radios that meet the P25 standards incorporate backward compatibility with conventional analog systems. Project 25 radios communicate in analog mode to analog radios, and either digital or analog modes with other P25 radios. Public safety users at all levels of government have embraced Project 25. For example, Project 25 has received the endorsement of the National Association of State Telecommunications Directors (NASTD), the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials - International (APCO), the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), the Major Cities Chiefs (MCC), the National Sheriffs' Association (NSA), and the Major County Sheriffs' Association (NCSA). Project 25 has received broad support at the federal level as well. Based on public safety user recommendations, the FCC endorsed the Project 25 suite of standards for voice and low-speed data interoperability in the new nation-wide 700 MHz frequency band. Every 700 MHz radio must include Project 25 compatibility defined by this TIA/ANSI standard. The U.S. Department of Defense mandated P25 for new land mobile radio systems. Recently, the Department of Homeland Security specified P25 as the standard for obtaining federal funding for interoperability grants. Interoperability Funding Should Be a National Priority Full public safety communications interoperability by the end of this decade should be a national goal. This is an ambitious goal, but a very worthy and doable one. Our nation has the necessary technology, the standards and equipment . What is lacking is the money to buy the equipment and deploy the systems, particularly at the state and local level, and we will not achieve this goal at the present pace of system upgrades. Instead, it will require a commitment lead by determined champions. Mr. Chairman, I urge this Committee to assume this important role. There are several reasons why the federal government must take the lead. As we all know, homeland security is a federal, state and local responsibility, but national planning begins at the federal level. This is one of the reasons why the Congress and the President created the new Department of Homeland Security. While we cannot predict future terrorist attacks, we must prepare for the real possibility and threat. Also, we do know that we will face natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, and earthquakes and other threats such as hostage takings, hazardous materials spills, and train wrecks. Interoperable public safety communications is critical to effective response in all these cases. With the states facing a staggering $80 billion aggregated deficit in 2004 alone, they cannot be expected to accomplish this goal without substantial federal support. Accordingly, we need a well-funded, multi-year federal program that guarantees that this communication problem is fixed, once and for all. Consequently, we must work aggressively to increase the funds devoted to interoperable communications now and until the job is done. Nothing should be allowed to delay or impede this funding effort. At the present time, combining fiscal year '03 base and supplemental appropriations, about $5B has been appropriated for various grant programs for state and local first responders. While wireless communications is one of a number of allowed uses for these funds, only about $154M or 3% of the total was designated in the legislation specifically for wireless communications enhancements. We would ask for your help to increase the sums designated for wireless communications in light of the broad consensus that exists for improving the status of wireless communications interoperability among government entities. We certainly cannot afford the human costs associated with delaying achievement of full interoperability. Mr. Chairman, ensuring that our nation's public safety officials have the tools they need to protect our citizens in the years ahead is a sound investment for the entire country. We urge this Committee to clear spectrum for public safety and to invest in interoperability for all public safety radio users. Motorola pledges its support to our public safety customers and to this Committee to help you make this happen. Thank you.
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