"During crises," said Council Member Brewer, "our first responders need reliable communication systems. Spectrum is important because it is the 'highway' through which first responders communicate with each other. A shortage of spectrum jeopardizes the lives and health of our courageous public safety officials and threatens their ability to protect the lives of New Yorkers.
"The Committee and the City Council look forward to working with the administration to ensure that the city has sufficient spectrum for clear and reliable communication amongst its first responders during emergencies," Brewer added.
There are only so many bands of airwaves available for allocation among television and radio stations, wireless communications companies, and public safety agencies. "Many agencies are forced to operate dangerously overcrowded radio systems, share channels with other agencies and face the potential for interference, and operate their radio systems on incompatible radio frequency bands," testified Vincent Stile, president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International (APCO). The situation slows emergency response, thus jeopardizing lives and property.
Currently the 800MHz range of the radio spectrum supports critical communications among dozens of city, state and federal entities. But the same bandwidth is shared with private cellular providers with signals that, from time to time, overwhelm the public safety signals. The problem is exacerbated because many private and public mobile systems operate on adjacent frequencies. One solution supported by Nextel Communications Inc. and APCO is billed as the Consensus Plan. It calls for reallocating the frequencies to untangle the intertwined public and private systems, re-banding them with a space in between the two groups. Nextel has committed $850 million for this proposal which has been submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Critics fear the cost could go beyond that, with the replacement of radios as well as transmission towers. But Nextel's Vice President of Government Affairs Lawrence Krevor insists, "the Consensus Plan... would be fully funded without needing any city monies... no taxpayer dollars will be required."
Verizon Communications advocates a different plan -- the Balanced Approach, which would retain current frequency allocations and resolve specific complaints on a case by case basis. Director of Spectrum/Wireless Policy for Verizon, Donald Brittingham, argued that interference can be fixed through technical means. He said, "While realignment can be helpful, risks of disruptions and costs are high."
Agostino Cangemi, deputy commissioner of NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT), testified that his agency is offering conditional support to the Consensus Plan with concerns that costs will run over budget.
All speakers support a separate measure to push Congress to reallocate bandwidths in the 700 MHz range for public safety use. The spectrum has already been promised without a specific date. The pending HERO Act would set the transfer date as January 1, 2007.
DoITT, working with the Committee on Technology in Government and the rest of the City Council, will be working on expanding and improving the communications tools that first responders will be using in the coming years. Using new broadband technology, city agencies will be able to transmit information wirelessly, opening the possibility for sending real-time video of crime and accident scenes. Council Member Brewer suggested that with broadband capability, "maps of building structures could be sent to firefighters before they reach burning buildings, helping them protect themselves and save lives at the same time." Or instead of just checking license plates, traffic police could send out amber alerts with suspect mug shots to local and regional law enforcement agencies. As Deputy Commissioner Cangemi testified, "The city's emergency preparedness is strong now, but there are exciting possibilities for expanding."
The Committee on Technology in Government looks forward to working with the full City Council to overcome the current challenges in the crowded airwaves, and to prepare New York City for the new breakthroughs in public safety communications.
