The Federal Communications Commission released on 31 July 2012 an order implementing the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. The Act creates a First Responder Network Authority. The FRNA will be responsible for implementing a nationwide, interoperable broadband public safety network. The FRNA will hold a single license for use of the 700 MHz D-block (758MHz-763MHz/788MHz-793MHz) and existing public safety spectrum (763MHz-769MHz/793MHz-799MHz).

The Act gives FNRA the authority to issue “open, transparent, and competitive requests
for proposals to private sector entities for the purposes of building, operating, and maintaining the network that use …”

How competitive and how fair will the issue of the requests for proposals be? Will larger, publicly-owned companies such as AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint get a fair shake at these contracts? Or will investors be denied the revenues, rates of return on assets, and dividends these contracts could bring?

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration in a discussion on public safety waiver applications and terminating existing leases in public safety broadband spectrum noted that “[f]or FirstNet to be successful, it must avoid the balkanization that has plagued earlier efforts at interoperable public safety communications and must find ways to lower costs by the economies of scale that ensue from consolidated procurement.”

Seems to me if you want to avoid balkanization, ensure the best carriers are awarded for their proposals to provide the public safety network. Larger carriers have the economies of scale to provide nationwide service.

“At the FCC, our mission is to unleash the potential of communications technology –
including mobile broadband – to benefit our economy and our society. We believe in the
power of dynamic free markets to drive these benefits, and that government has an
important but limited role to play in enabling innovation and investment in
communications technologies and services, promoting competition, and empowering
consumers.”

These words were shared by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski during a speech delivered in Barcelona a couple days ago. While I appreciate the Chairman’s intention to make broadband access available to every American household, we shouldn’t give Spain the impression that there is another European country with a capital west of Portugal.

Chairman Genachowski’s statement gives the impression that the FCC controls private capital namely communications technology. Yes, to a certain degree, the FCC regulates or creates a framework for access to the telecommunications, broadcast, and cable television markets. It also sets the framework for accessing public rights-of-way, poles, and that great and limited national resource; spectrum.

The agency, along with the rules it promulgates, and the statutes that give it authority, do not best promote a flexible and dynamic market. Free markets unleash communications technology and the innovation and dynamism that come along with it when incented by consumers that are willing and able to not only purchase communications goods and services and producers willing and able to develop and sell these goods and services.

It is the FCC’s attitude, as captured by the statement from Mr. Genachowski’s speech, which has it frequently on the precipice of picking winners and losers. Leave the technology development to the markets, FCC. The industry, its investors, and consumers will leave the FCC to regulate market entry on a minimal basis and ensure the acquisition of spectrum necessary for keeping consumers connected.

Vice-President Joe Biden recently touted one of the highlights of the American Jobs Act: the deployment a broadband network for first responders. Mr. Biden stated that the D-block of spectrum, the airwaves necessary for providing a seamless network of connectivity for public safety agencies, would be allocated to them.

The problem with the Act is that it makes mention of voluntary auctions, where broadcast stations would voluntarily give up spectrum (for a price of course) in order to free up spectrum for wireless use.

The administration should persuade the FCC to allocate D-block spectrum directly to first responders, and not make the allocation contingent on voluntary broadcast station auctions, or place any non-profit clearinghouses between first responders and sources of spectrum.

President Obama’s American Jobs Plan calls for the creation of a Public Safety Broadband Corporation. This not-for-profit, non-political organization will hold the 700 Mhz D-block spectrum and deploy and manage a broadband network for our nation’s first responders and public safety agencies.

I have reservations about this corporation. My first reaction was, “Is this the broadband version of the Federal Reserve?“

Specifically, the corporation will “hold the single public safety wireless license granted under section 281 (of the Act) and take all actions necessary to ensure the building, deployment, and operation of a secure and resilient nationwide public safety interoperable broadband network …“

There have been two schools of thought on the public safety issue. One school, in which I belong, says that wee ought to just transfer the D-block to public safety and allow local and state governments to enter into the necessary inter-jurisdictional agreements and construction contracts necessary for deploying this network.

I guess the Obama administration is concerned that since such a network will cross a bunch of state lines that they should determine who will receive the spectrum. They may also be thinking that, like September 11, 2001, an event that calls for the use of a nationwide public safety network will be a national event. Maybe. Maybe not.

Even an event as catastrophic as September 11 was mostly local in terms of emergency response. In addition, its been ten years and if the federal government hasn’t provided us with a nationwide broadband network, maybe it’s time for local and state public safety agencies to run with this.

Communications is in the blood in my family. My brother served in the Signal Corp in the U.S. Army. My sister worked in broadcast television. I volunteered at a small radio station in the Virgin Islands while in high school. Today I still volunteer, this time with the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary, having manned radios on the ground and in the air.

Growing up in the Caribbean, you knew two things: First, the first week of school meant a hurricane was coming your way. Second, you better have a radio station in your community that you can rely on.

The video I’ve included in this blog post drives home that point. Radio stations serve a purpose greater than listening to Rhianna or Lady Gaga. They are the lifeblood of the community, ready to provide you with life saving information 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The rains from Camille almost took my father’s life in 1969. I lived through hurricanes David and Frederick in 1979, and drove through the gusty winds of Hurricane Kate. Through all those events there was radio, keeping me and my family informed.

For these reasons, I believe policy makers should acknowledge the power of radio by ensuring that its channels are unencumbered by unnecessary interference.