Vendor's getting anxious about FirstNet!

Seems that some vendors are getting a tad anxious and concerned about what they claim to be a lack of transparency in the FirstNet process.

From Fierce Broadband Wireless

The board of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) will hold its next meeting on Feb. 12, giving it a chance to respond publicly to a barrage of complaints regarding the board's perceived lack of transparency and responsiveness. "We are concerned that there has been something of a cone of silence dropped around the process," said Brian Hendricks, global head of technology policy for telephone-equipment maker Nokia Siemens Networks. Meetings with the FirstNet board are difficult to set up, which "leaves most of us with the sense that we're sort of fumbling around in the dark for the light switch, and that is a concern," added Hendricks, who was quoted by Bloomberg. "It seems FirstNet has kind of shut themselves off," said Donald Hairston, a senior vice president at Textron. "How do you build systems if you don't talk to your users?" Panelists expressed frustration that despite FirstNet receiving 133 NOI submissions before the end of 2012, there still has been no official acknowledgement of the suggestions that were offered, according to Urgent Communications. Read More

Hurricane Sandy Exposed Flaws in Public Safety LTE

Hurricane Sandy exposed flaw in public-safety LTE plan

By Tammy Parker

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Hurricane Sandy's brought down numerous commercial cell sites on the Northeastern seaboard and may have highlighted a glaring flaw in plans for the nationwide public-safety mobile broadband network. In a Sept. 25 presentation, Craig Farrill, First Responder Network Authority board member, advocated for creating a diverse nationwide public-safety LTE network composed of multiple wireless networks, including commercial cellular networks, in order to facilitate widespread coverage quickly. However, those commercial cellular networks are the same ones that failed during Sandy due to a host of issues: downed towers, widespread electrical outages, flooded generators and drained backup batteries. One quarter of all cell sites across 10 states were estimated to have been disabled, at least temporarily, by the storm. "These networks failed when we would have needed them most," said Charles F. Dowd, a deputy chief who oversees the New York Police Department's communications division and is a member of the FirstNet board. "The idea of using commercial networks is a real concern for public safety," he told the New York Times. Other FirstNet board members who visited New York after the hurricane "clearly saw the difference between the performance of commercial and public safety networks," said Dowd. "They knew the new system cannot be built to commercial standards. It has to be at a higher level of redundancy and survivability." But building a nature-proof network would be costly as well as nearly impossible. "To think that you can build a network that can withstand anything and everything that Mother Nature throws at it is a bit unrealistic," said Bill Smith, president of AT&T (NYSE:T) Network Operations, according to the New York Times. "It's not impossible, but it would be incredibly expensive." Meanwhile, millions of dollars in federal grant money are sitting unused while local agencies hold off on plans to build out their own LTE networks at the behest of the U.S. Department of Commerce, which grew concerned in May that the networks those jurisdictions were planning might not be compatible with the future nationwide network. In July, the FCC announced the 21 jurisdictions that received public-safety broadband waivers in May 2010 allowing them to lease 700 MHz spectrum from the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST) would see those rights expire on Sept. 2, after which the entities needed to acquire a six-month special temporary authority (STA) from the FCC to continue operating. Only the state of Texas has been awarded an STA to use its PSST spectrum. "You can't expect local governments to just sit there and not use resources for several months while the federal government tries to make a decision on how to proceed," Barry Fraser, interim general manager for the Bay Area Regional Interoperable Communications Systems Authority in California, told the New York Times. "I don't know how much longer we can keep all of them on board."

Trouble in the VoLTE World!

This is going to be a serious problem particularly for those in the Public Safety world who think VoLTE is going to replace PTT radio networks.  It will be interesting to see how battery life will be expanded, maybe the VoLTE hand set will look like the old cellphone "bricks"!

1. Study: VoLTE slashes smartphone battery life by 50%

By Tammy Parker

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Operators hoping to engage in widespread deployment of voice over LTE in order to gain spectral efficiencies in their network may face some unhappy customers because one vendor's recent tests showed that VoLTE calls can slash a device's talk-time battery life by half. The study comparing device battery life for calls placed over an LTE network vs. calls placed over a CDMA network was conducted on an unnamed U.S. operator's network in two major markets using a smartphone capable of supporting both CDMA and VoLTE voice calling. "The device's estimated battery life was reduced by 50 percent or about 252 minutes of talk time when voice calls were placed over the LTE network, compared to voice calls placed over the CDMA network," according to the study, authored by Ardeshir Ghanbarzadeh, director, services development, for Metrico Wireless, which was acquired by Spirent Communications in September. "The significant difference in current drain between VoLTE and CDMA technologies for voice calling applications suggests further optimization of devices supporting VoLTE calls are needed in order to give end-users talk-time battery life expectancy levels similar to that of 3G devices," said Ghanbarzadeh in the report, a copy of which was obtained by FierceBroadbandWireless prior to its public release. The smartphone tested had a fully charged, lithium-ion 3.7-volt 1540 mAh battery. View a larger version on the Web. CDMA voice-only calls resulted in an average battery current drain of 183 milliamps (mA), and average power consumption of 680 milliwatts (mW). That was about 50 percent less than the power gobbled up by VoLTE calls, which produced an average current drain of 365 mA and average power consumption of 1358 mW. Interestingly, tests of multi-service simultaneous voice and data calls using just the LTE network revealed 11 percent less current drain than multi-service sessions using CDMA for voice and LTE for data. "This is possibly attributed to the fact that only the LTE radio is in use when using VoLTE/LTE, where as the CDMA radio and the LTE radio are in use when conducting the session in CDMA/LTE," wrote Ghanbarzadeh. Specifically, the average current drain for CDMA voice combined with LTE data was measured at 889 mA, and the average power consumption at 3280 mW. Employing VoLTE for calls along with LTE for data service produced an average current drain of 790 mA, and 2915 mW of power consumption. CDMA operators, such as MetroPCS (NYSE:PCS) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) have led the charge into LTE and VoLTE as they seek to replace their older 3G technology with something more data friendly and spectrally efficient. In addition VoLTE enables carriers to set up a native mobile VoIP solution the can compete with over-the-top calling services such as Skype and incorporate new features, such as video, into traditional voice service. MetroPCS became one of the first mobile operators in the world to deploy VoLTE when it launched service this past summer in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. DespiteFierceBroadbandWireless' inquiries, the operator did not make a representative available to discuss whether MetroPCS' VoLTE users have suffered from the types of battery-life issues described in the Metrico/Spirent study. T-Mobile has said it will continue supporting MetroPCS' VoLTE deployments after the two operators' merger closes, likely in the first half of 2013, but has no intention of expanding the VoLTE service anytime soon. Verizon Wireless CTO Nicola Palmer recently disclosed the operator expects to begin consumer trials of VoLTE in late 2013 with commercial VoLTE service expected in 2014, two years later than initial commercial launch plans. Verizon has indicated a desire to sunset its CDMA networks by 2021. AT&T (NYSE:T), meanwhile, consistently targeted 2013 for its VoLTE launch. The operator intends to shut down its 2G GSM network by 2017 Related articles: Verizon pushes back VoLTE service until 2014 Updated: Verizon Wireless to sunset 2G and 3G CDMA networks by 2021 T-Mobile will support MetroPCS' VoLTE but won't rush to expand it AT&T will shutter its 2G network by 2017 The next generation of voice: VoLTE

FirstNet Board Meets, moves forward, Utilities didn't even get an honorable mention!

The FirsNet Board met recently to kick off their new activities to build a nationwide 700 MHz LTE network in the D-Block but despite all the rhetoric floating around the industry about sharing with other critical infrastructure users, such as the nation's utilities, there was not even mention of utilities reported by the trade press at this meeting.

See Urgent Communications article here!

Marc

700 MHz Awarded to Public Safety - Now What?

Lumped into this weeks Payroll Tax Cut bill was an allocation of the long contested 10 MHz of spectrum referred to as the 700 MHz D Block.  The future of the D block has been in limbo since the 2008 spectrum auctions, but  this week Congress and the Obama Administration finally passed legislation that allocated the D Block to Public Safety for the construction of a nationwide LTE network.    Congress also kicked in an additional $7 billion of tax payer dollars to build the network and another $300 million for R&D for the network.

But you can be sure, that much like ObamaCare, there are sill many unknowns.  And public safety representatives are already saying $7 Billion isn't enough!  No one has yet thought or talked about where the money will come from to operate and maintain the system (but that money has to come from only one source and that is the US Taxpayer)  and nobody yet knows who is in charge of planning, designing, and managing the network buildout and operation.

However I am sure that this topic will dominate next weeks discussion at IWCE and for many months to come in the various halls of the lobbyist and equipment manufacturers who will no doubt play a major role in shaping the success of the network.

I expect the Public Safety Industry hasn't seen this much excitement since the 800 Re-banding plan was announced a few years ago.  BTW, anyone know how re-banding is going?  It's finished, right?

Marc

Upper 700 MHz Band Plan - The Public Safety D Block

The Public Safety D Block is actually two 5 MHz blocks of spectrum in the Upper 700 MHz band between 758 MHz to 763 MHz and 788 MHz to 793 MHz as shown below: