Admiral Jamie Barnett, chief of the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, addresses attendees at the APCO Winter Summit in Orlando, Jan. 26, 2010. (Photo by Keri Losavio)

The title of this article, “Staying Connected,” reflects the theme of the APCO International 2010 Winter Technology Summit, held in Orlando Jan. 25–27. On Monday morning, APCO President Richard Mirgon welcomed approximately 150 participants to the Summit and then handed the mic off to futurist David Zach, who asked attendees to examine how we think about the future.

A Change in Perspective
“Are you willing to be surprised? Are you comfortable with the unknown?” asked Zach.

Zach said we should be getting our ideas for how to meet the future from “everywhere” and proposed two models for thinking about the future: a measurement style and a design style. Under themeasurementmodel, people think in terms of best practices, the bottom line, legacy (what we’ve done before), marketing, credentials and the pursuit of something. Under thedesignmodel, people think in terms of open source idea gathering, looking to the horizon, frontiers, evangelizing, smarts (as opposed to degrees) and thepromiseof something.

Measurement, Zach said, represents a closed-mind approach to the future. People taking a measurement approach have already made a decision. Design, he said, represents an open-mind approach to the future.

On Monday afternoon, Zach came back for a second session, “How to Divide and Conquer the Future.” In it he talked about fads, trends and principles, defining the concepts and asking participants to identify examples of each in public safety communications. According to Zach, fads let us enjoy the moment. Trends inform and have a deeper impact. Principles don’t change. “We play with fads,” he said, “work with trends and live by principles.”

Is Radio Dead?
In the session, “The Ins and Outs of LTE for Public Safety,” Robert LeGrande, the CEO of LeGrande Technical and Social Services and a former CTO for Washington, D.C., Diane Wesche of Verizon Wireless and Len Fatica of Alcatel Lucent brought the discussion from the abstract to the concrete. Long-term Evolution (LTE) is the standard that public safety leaders and organizations have agreed upon for the eventual build-out of a national public safety broadband network in the 700 MHz band of spectrum.

The benefits of LTE, according to Wesche, are high throughput speeds, low latency and economies of scale. To these, Fatica added that LTE provides for very strong security and redundancy, and supports mbility. The economies of scale are being gained because a majority of major service providers in the U.S. are using LTE. It’s a global standard.

Wesche says that broadband trials using LTE are currently underway in Boston and Seattle. Wesche also says Verizon plans to spend the next three years building out LTE.

Fatica said Alcatel Lucent can build in 15 priority levels to ensure public safety has priority access to the network.

Right now, only data can be transmitted. The standards for voice have not yet been released. Both Wesche and Fatica indicated that voice is not expected to be incorporated immediately. Fatica said that one-to-one voice devices will be released first and that one-to-many devices will likely be available beginning in 2012–2013.

One participant asked: “Will radio be dead in 2015?”

“Radio isnotdead,” responded LeGrande unequivocally.

Fatica’s response was “It won’t happen that soon, but in the future, yes. LTE will have to be tested and tested thoroughly over a long period of time before public safety can consider rolling out LTE as a replacement to radio.”

Explaining that service contracts are used to subsidize consumer equipment, leading to the availability of inexpensive cell phones, Wesche said that “public safety should not expect subsidized devices.”

“We want to be considered [for subsidized devices], too,” said Chief Harlin R. McEwen, chairman of the Public Safety Spectrum Trust, which holds the license for the 10 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band allotted for public safety.

“We have to recover our costs,” was Wesche’s pragmatic response.

(Note: Look for an article on what LTE is and why you should care about it in the February issue of Public Safety Communications.)

The FCC Weighs In
The new broadband network and how to fund it were also the primary focus of Admiral Jamie Barnett Jr.’s (Ret.) comments on Tuesday afternoon in the session, “Public Safety in a Broadband World.” Barnett is the chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. “We will not have a broadband network unless we have some funding,” said Barnett. “It’s an investment for a lifetime, and it will be another technology generation before we have this opportunity again.”

Barnett said, “the public/private network is probably the best model,” but he did not preclude other options. He mentioned the possibility of grant funding for capital expenditures, but said that funding won’t all come from one source and advised participants to consider options to sustain the network over time. He also said the public safety network and the commercial network should be built out at the same time because doing so asynchronously would double the cost.

Despite the unanimous call of the joint public safety community for Congress to reallocate the D Block portion of the 700 MHz spectrum to public safety, the discussions at the Summit centered on a network that would be restricted to the 10 MHz already allocated to public safety. Barnett said the D Block is dedicated to commercial use, and the FCC is under a mandate by Congress to auction the spectrum. “I don’t want another failed D Block auction.”

Speaking on behalf of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Barnett did say that finding as much spectrum as possible for both commercial and public safety use is a priority for the FCC because it’s necessary for economic growth.

Barnett said the National Broadband Plan will be released on March 17. Commenting on the waiver requests the FCC has already received from public safety agencies who want to begin using the broadband spectrum immediately, Barnett said, “We’re moving forward quickly [on those requests], but it won’t be before the broadband plan comes out.”

Barnett also said the FCC plans to establish an Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC). ERIC will be a federal technical advisory group with strong public safety participation, said Barnett. It will address issues related to roaming, encryption and disputes. A workshop to discuss what it should do and how it should operate will be held on Feb. 10 from 2–4 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room (TW-C305). Audio/video coverage of the meeting will be broadcast live with open captioning over the Internet from the FCC’s Web page at www.fcc.gov/realaudio. The FCC’s webcast is free to the public and does not require preregistration.

Next Generation 9-1-1
According to the DOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration, “The nation’s current 9-1-1 system is designed around telephone technology and cannot handle the text, data, images and video that are increasingly common in personal communications and critical to future transportation safety and mobility advances. The Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG 9-1-1) initiative will establish the foundation for public emergency communications services in a wireless mobile society.”

According to Kathy McMahon, technical services manager for APCO International,“NG9-1-1 is not your dad’s 9-1-1.”

McMahon was one of several panelists in the session, “Next Gen 9-1-1 PSAP: Status of Techncial and Operational Standards.” The other panelists were Roger Hixson, representing NENA; Linda Ogilvie of Intergraph; Marc Berryman of DDTI; and Michael Smith of DSS. The session offered a high-level overview of the architecture and infrastructure that will be required to implement NG9-1-1.

Many people have the idea that NG9-1-1 is about allowing 9-1-1 to receive and use text messages, but that’s just one component of a very complex concept, McMahon told PSC. The panelists addressed such issues as multimedia communications, advanced data, nationwide access, advanced routing and transfer, and location-specific alerts to any device. GIS and location information are critical elements in NG9-1-1.

NG9-1-1 will replace E9-1-1, use IP networks and off-the-shelf hardware and have function-specific applications. It will allow for the transfer of notes and information entered anywhere along the process from one system to another seamlessly.

In short, NG9-1-1 is going to require a new infrastructure, a new language and a whole lot of change over time. Because this is such a complex topic, PSC will be publishing several articles over the coming months on specific aspects of NG9-1-1, and APCO and NENA are in the early stages of discussions to provide a joint education program on NG9-1-1. We’ll let you know as plans progress.

The Future Is Now
The summit wasn’t all about the distant future. Several specific technology projects were described in sessions designed to let participants know what’s currently being implemented with existing technology under today’s standards.

Jim Walker, the director of Alabama’s Department of Homeland Security, presented a session called “Virtual Alabama.” In a statewide initiative, Alabama has developed a program on a Google platform using maps and data from the sheriffs association, police and fire departments, assessor’s office, public utilities, schools and every level of government. The program allows responders to view traffic in real time, plot evacuation routes during hurricanes, preview floorplans and building layouts in 3-D to assist with firefighting, active shooting events and other incidents, view school cameras live, overlay data layers onto a map to show before-and-after disaster areas, identify where sex offenders live, and much more than I have space to report here.

The secure program is accessible only to those vetted and approved by the Alabama DHS. Several other Southern states have already begun the process of implementing a similar program, and a Virtual USA is under consideration. Walker’s goal for Virtual USA is lofty:

“Fifty-six soverign state and territorial common operating platforms meshed together and supported with federal assistance to promote multi-jurisdictional collaboration and information sharing for all government functions.”

The possibilities for this program are limited only by the imagination. “Turn your people loose,” says Walker.

Roger Quayle of IP Wireless offered a case study of NYCWiN in his session, “Next Generation Wireless Networks for Mission Critical Communications.” New York City’s Wireless Network (NYCWiN) is powered by IPWireless’ mobile broadband technology, based on existing 3GPP standards and is designed to provide robust, reliable and resilient data communications.

Nineteen agencies are on the network, which is currently being used for 50 discrete applications, including mobile fingerprinting, mobile field reporting and mobile access to photos and crime databases for police agencies; automated vehicle location and remote access to video feeds for first responders; remote traffic light management and wireless enabled traffic sensors for transportation departments; automated water meter reading for improved environmental protection; and automated vehicle location for more than 400 vehicles across more than a dozen agencies, which can provide real-time management of the city’s vehicle fleet.

According to Quayle, some of the lessons learned that other areas should take into account for broadband deployments are that cell edge throughput is critical and must be optimized and intercell interference cancellation is key to providing video surveillance with high uplink throughput.

Web 2.0
Another topic covered at the conference was the concept of Web 2.0 and how Twitter, social and professional networking sites, RSS feeds, blogs and more can be exploited by public safety. For more on this topic, read “Beyond the Web” by Alan Shark.

More to Come
The Winter Summit included far more information than can be adequately conveyed in a single article, including additional case studies, tips for evaluating technology and strategies for project management. So we’ll be following up on some of these topics in future magazine and eNews articles. Stay tuned!

About the Author
Keri Losavio is the editor of Public Safety Communications. Contact her via e-mail at losaviok@apcointl.org.