WASHINGTON, D.C. — On July 28, 2011, just two months in advance of the 10th anniversary of September 11th, this discussion will shed light on the importance of building a 20 MHz nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband network immediately from technical, operational and economic perspectives. Such a communications network would help prevent the future loss of first responders’ lives and allow police, firefighters and EMS workers to better protect the public through the wireless exchange of robust data and video during everyday emergencies, as well as major events, natural disasters and potential terrorist attacks.

What: Discussion on Wireless Spectrum and Public Safety

When: Thursday, July 28th (see times by location below)

Who: Richard Mirgon, Immediate Past President, Association of Public Safety Officials International (APCO); Peter Rysavy, Rysavy Research and author of whitepaper, “Public Safety Spectrum”; Andrew Seybold, Andrew Seybold Inc., Consultant, Educator, Writer; and Other Public Safety Alliance Leadership

Where: 441-CHOB, Cannon House Office Building (11am ET) and SVC-209 (3:30pm ET)

Please RSVP to Lauren DuBois at duboisl@apcointl.org or laurendubois@gmail.com. (Note: Ethics compliant refreshments will be provided.)

Rysavy will present his recent research that explores the vital importance of wireless spectrum for public safety (see more below). Seybold will provide an update on the first real-world capacity testing of the San Francisco Bay area’s Public Safety LTE Broadband system, as a waiver jurisdiction using the 10 MHz of spectrum licensed to the current Public Safety Broadband Licensee.

About PSA
The Public Safety Alliance is a partnership with the nation’s leading public safety associations, which includes the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the National Sheriffs’ Association, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the Major County Sheriffs’ Association, the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association, the National Emergency Management Association and the National Association of EMS Officials. The partnership is operated as a program of APCO International. For more info, visit us at www.psafirst.org.

Key points from Rysavy’s whitepaper that will be expanded upon:

LTE is the technology likely to see the broadest deployment of any new wireless technology over the next decade. Public-safety applications will increasingly demand higher bandwidth. The same innovation shown in commercial broadband will extend to public-safety broadband. In light of the finite capacities of LTE discussed in “Public Safety Spectrum” and growing bandwidth demands of public-safety applications, Peter Rysavy’s view is that 20 MHz of spectrum for LTE is the absolute minimum to satisfy the needs of law enforcement. While commercial operators can design their networks for typical densities of mobile users, emergency situations can result in needing to support extremely high densities of public-safety workers. For this reason alone, the public-safety network has to have as high a capacity as possible. Anything less than 20 MHz of spectrum could lead to catastrophic consequences due to applications performing unreliably or failing completely.

Beyond needing 20 MHz just to satisfy bandwidth requirements, there are compelling reasons for providing Public Safety 20 MHz of contiguous spectrum: LTE is spectrally more efficient operating in 20 MHz channels than 10 MHz channels; using noncontiguous radio channels will significantly increase the cost of the radio-access network due to the need for additional radios and antennas; adding spectrum later in a noncontiguous manner will result in devices in the field likely not being able to take advantage of the new spectrum.

More to come during Thursday’s discussion.