The big news for the week has to be the continued crumbling of LA-RICS. According to an article in Urgent Communications. ) LA City opted out of the LA-RICs consortium by a vote of 12-0. The immediate impact to LA-RICS and to Motorola is the loss of the City of LA for the construction of the new LA-RICS LMR radio system. The City says that they can save money by enhancing their own existing LMR system instead of spending money with LA-RICS.

In an area which makes heavy use of the T-Band (unused TV-Channels in the UHF TV band), and has issues with the number of 700 MHz LMR channels which can be used due to issues with Mexico, it does not appear that those who made the decision had reviewed and understood all of the implications of such a move. It also leaves in doubt the future of the LA-RICS FirstNet broadband system too. It is unfortunate but the LA area has a very poor track record in being able to centralize any type of public safety communications systems.

LA-RICS, of course, has been plagued with miss-steps. Not too long ago LA-RICS had a major problem with the fire fighters and their Union when they basically just started showing up at fire stations to install 70 foot towers to be used for the FirstNet LTE system. The fire fighters said that they feared being radiated by the LTE signals and in many cases they enlisted the assistance of the neighbors surrounding the fire stations. LA-RICS had to scale back the 225 planned towers to somewhere around 70 at the moment, which of course will provide much less coverage than any of the commercial operators now have in that area. LA-RICS did not do the type of outreach that wireless providers know that they have to do in order to minimize the complaints when applying for a permit for a single new tower, let alone 225. Surprising people by showing up to dig a hole and plant a tower next to a fire station is never going to result in a successful conclusion. This is not the first time that the LA area has tried to provide consolidated communications systems, all of which failed over the years for the same reason, politics.

When I was working for Motorola in LA in the late 70s and early 80s we were involved with the LA County Sheriff’s department and others to pioneer the use of the UHF TV channels in the area that were not being used for TV. The idea was to obtain two channels (each of which is 6 MHz worth of spectrum) , one for the City and one for the County. We suggested a different approach which was to use one TV channel for both City and County Fire and one channel for City Police and the Sheriff’s channels so that the city and county would have full interoperability at least between like agencies. The idea was rejected by both the City and the County, again for purely political reasons, and the City ended up with one UHF Channel for both Fire and Police and the County another for its sheriff and fire communications. Those were the days before wide-band capable radios so they could not interoperate across both TV channels and they ended up with two systems with no interoperability capabilities.

It is a shame that the growth of interoperable communications for public safety is oftentimes not a casualty of the technology but rather of the people who should be working together for the good of the public safety community. Some of these people are politicians who don’t fully understand the meaning of the decisions that are voting for but some of them are leaders in their own public safety community who for whatever reason don’t trust people wearing different types of uniforms. FirstNet would never have happened except for the formation of the Public Safety Alliance (PSA). This was a unique (unfortunately) organization made up of law enforcement brass, fire brass, and ems brass. They banded together for a common cause to convince those in DC that the D block was needed by Public Safety. Time after time I had the privilege of attending meetings with top elected officials along with Police, Sheriff, Fire and EMS personnel in full uniform. This unified approach resulted in FirstNet and the PSA is no more but Safecom, NPSTC, and APCO are organizations where all of the agencies should be working together closer than they are. I have to wonder what would have been the outcome in LA if those involved worked as well together as the PSA did in DC ? Have a great week-end and a Happy and quiet Thanksgiving next week! Andy

Google+ – Google+ via Google Alerts Nov 20 23:15 The Myers Model: FirstNet and the Public Safety Broadband Network — States ready to deploy the Public Private Partnership (P3) model!!! …

UPCOMING EVENTS – Guam PSBN via Google Alerts Nov 20 10:10 Guam Public Safety Broadband Network (Guam PSBN) is a program to prepare Guam for the design, deployment and operation of the Nationwide …

APCO speaker outlines potential PSAP cybersecurity strategies in heightened threat environment – Urgent Communications via Google Alerts Nov 19 18:10 We’re talking about destroying a data network, English said during the session on cybersecurity and public-safety communications. What if they …

Rural Carrier Reps Cite Opportunities, Challenges to FirstNet Partnering – National Public Safety Telecommunications Council – NPSTC via Google Alerts Nov 19 09:35 … the construction and operation of a nationwide public safety broadband network being overseen by the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet), …

France raises 2.8B from 700 MHz spectrum auction – FierceWireless via Google Alerts Nov 19 03:55 The 700 MHz frequencies will be used in particular to reinforce the capacity and speed of its mobile broadband network, particularly indoors and in …

How Can Our Emergency Communications System Handle an Attack on Washington? – ADVFN.com via Google Alerts Nov 18 07:26 The Smart Spectrum Summit: Broadcast/Broadband Networks for Public Safety and Other One-to-Many Data Applications is being held November 18 …

FCC announces final agenda for November open meeting – Lexology via Google Alerts Nov 17 17:25 … National Telecommunications and Information Administration Organization …

Harris County Tackles Business Model for Public Safety LTE Sustainability – Mission Critical LTE Web Portal – Other news via Google Alerts Nov 17 15:45 Buildout of the Harris County public safety LTE network, called Broadband Interoperable Gateway Network (BIGNet) is on track, with the county …

FCC Upholds 1-Day Response for Public-Safety Interference Complaints – mccmag.com via Google Alerts Nov 17 15:45 Cooper said the FCC has submitted a budget request to construct the online portal to track public-safety complaints online as outlined in its Aug.

Department of commerce national telecommunications and information administration digital … – ramyhosting.com via Google Alerts Nov 20 22:06 commerce department information of administration telecommunications and national digital converter. Per clnverter. The FCC afrikaans emmanuel …

Public Knowledge, Other Consumer Groups Urge FCC to Protect Text Messaging Users – Public Knowledge Tech News and Comment via Google Alerts Nov 20 20:00 … affect public safety, innovation, and free speech. As a legal matter, given that voice and data are both telecommunications services, the FCC should …

Rosenworcel: Strengthen Security With FM Chips – Radio World via Google Alerts Nov 20 17:45 All in all, however, the commissioners and chairman praised the work of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security bureau for bringing the issue …

FCC Proposes Changes To Alerts, Hearing Aid Compatibility – Law360 via Google Alerts Nov 19 18:10 The agency approved the two measures unanimously at a meeting Chairman Tom Wheeler said symbolized the FCC’s core values of public safety …

Post-Paris Attacks, IBM Launches First Responder App Contest – NewsFactor Network via Google Alerts Nov 18 21:30 … United States Geospatial and Intelligence Foundation and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials to develop an app ecosystem …

Cellular IoT (CIoT) or LoRa? – The 3G4G Blog via Google Alerts Nov 18 19:00 Back in September, 3GPP reached a decision to standardise NarrowBand IOT (NB-IOT). Now people familiar with the evolution of LTE-A UE …

What are three advantages that spread spectrum have over narrowband transmissions? – Quora via Google Alerts Nov 18 05:55 1. You can work around interference. If one frequency is jammed, then you still can get through. 2. You have more bandwidth. By using multiple …

House Panel Holds Another FCC Oversight Hearing – All Access Music Group via Google Alerts Nov 18 04:25 And he criticized the proposed cuts to the agency’s 2016 budget as having “severe consequences to the agency’s ability to protect public safety, …

Cablevision, AT&T, Verizon etc., can block content they don’t like – From the Trenches World Report via Google Alerts Nov 18 02:25 MassPrivateI According to the FCC’s “Open Internet Order” commissioner Ajit Pai, admits broadband providers may soon ban free speech or block …

Orange expands low-range spectrum to 90 MHz – Telecompaper via Google Alerts Nov 18 00:00 The 700 MHz will be used to boost capacity and speed for LTE, especially …

NetMotion Diagnostics Delivers Network Assessment Tools for FirstNet Preparation – NetMotion Wireless, Inc. via Google Alerts Nov 17 23:10 NetMotion Diagnostics Delivers Network Assessment Tools for FirstNet …

Wyoming could be leader in creating cybersecurity businesses – Wyoming Business Report via Google Alerts Nov 17 17:30 … of a cybercrime, said David Simpson, the chief of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau.

NTIA sets up portal to coordinate sharing of 1695-1710 MHz portion of the AWS-3 band – FierceWireless via Google Alerts Nov 17 17:25 The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) launched a new online portal