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What does public safety do now?
The 700 MHz auction ended last week, with Verizon and AT&T emerging as the big winners and public safety emerging as the big loser. The D Block, which was designed to offer a public/private partnership that would serve both consumers and public safety, giving them priority access during emergencies, failed to meet its $1.3-billion reserve price. Subsequently, the FCC de-linked the D Block from the rest of the auction and has plans to make the spectrum available before the DTV transition in February of next year.
The question is, will the FCC try this public/private partnership once again? If it does, it needs to make the terms more attractive for an entity willing to bid on the spectrum. A $1.3-billion reserve price is quite a risk for any company embarking on this unproven strategy. Clearly, investors see it as a risky proposition. Frontline had planned on building this nationwide, high-speed wireless network for public safety officials, but even with the backing of L. John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, as well as other supporters, the company raised enough for the $128 million down payment, but not enough for the $1.3 billion reserve price on the spectrum. Subsequently, Frontline closed its doors before the auction began.
If the FCC changes its terms and creates almost a spectrum give-away to the entity willing to build this public/private network, you can bet we'll see protests and legal maneuverings from the winners who bid billions to secure their spectrum. Meanwhile, public safety once again languishes, with no solution in sight to the interoperability problem that has been plaguing that industry for years. -Lynnette
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | March 24, 2008 - 1:38pm
Everyone I have talked to in public saftey says they can't or wont go 700 Mhz anyway because of the costs and most of them have just replaced equipment.
Posted by Jim A | March 24, 2008 - 2:32pm
VerizoN Wireless will bid on and win any re-auctioned 700 D Block.
They already won the contiguous spectrum (Upper Band C Block) and are under contract with FEd for a Nationwide Push to Talk Network (in 700mhz). So it is a no brainer and sould follow for them to simultaneously build out at least the two Public Spectrum Networks and ride in on these deployments for their commercial C Block network.
The real article you should have one of your analyst to write will deal with how AT&T and Verizon Wireless will use their new 700Mhz License.
Will it be used to enhance their HSDPA and or CDMA networks or will they delay deployment and wait for the release of the 4G LTE systems duw out in 2013-2013??
The key here is how do they prevent other winners of this spectrum from deploying a competitive 700Mhz network based on WiMAX systems that will seriously impact their Cell Nets ?
One of the primary factors here is who will build the Handheld devices and do they build just for LTE or do they have enough volume to build for WiMAX ?
Jim
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