Committee Sends Joint Letter to FCC Requesting Public Safety Equipment Information

The text of the letter is below and can be downloaded here. 

Dear Chairman Genachowski:

In your response of July 20, 2010, you explained that publicly available information indicates that Motorola Corporation has a very significant share - approximately 80 percent according to The Washington Post - of the public safety narrowband equipment market in the United States. You added that the staff of the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau believes that proprietary solutions and market dominance play an important role in ongoing problems with interoperability among public safety users and innovation, cost, and competition in the public safety equipment market. Moreover, the current structure of the public safety equipment market may hinder efforts to achieve interoperability for a broadband public safety network.

These were troubling answers, and more recent developments raise additional concerns about this matter. Specifically, news reports indicate that certain public safety jurisdictions that have received, or have applied for, waivers for early deployments of 700 MHz broadband networks have already awarded contracts to the same dominant vendor.[1]

In light of these developments, we would appreciate your assistance in obtaining responses to the following additional questions and requests:

1. Please provide a list of waiver recipients and applicants that have already selected a vendor, and identify the vendor.

2. Please indicate whether these jurisdictions followed a competitive bidding process in the selection of the vendor that is to construct the broadband public safety network.

3. Is this vendor(s) supplying equipment that conforms with open, commercial LTE standards?

4. In addition to LTE, please indicate whether these vendors intend to implement proprietary broadband wireless technologies. If so, how would such proprietary technologies impact:

a. network and device equipment costs borne by public safety relative to commercial equipment;

b. the ability for public safety to benefit from innovation in wireless technologies;

c. the likelihood of terminated product lines or new mandatory releases that result in unique costs to public safety relative to commercial technologies;

d. public safety interoperability at the application, device, and network levels among networks provisioned by different vendors;[2]

e. the ability of public safety users to enter into partnerships with commercial wireless providers;

f. competition in the public safety communications equipment market; and,

g. the FCC's National Broadband Plan finding that encouraging incentive-based partnerships with a variety of commercial operators would benefit public safety.

5. How would the construction of early deployed public safety networks by dominant vendors:

a. be impacted by subsequent adoption of final technical and operations rules governing 700 MHz public safety broadband networks - would the public safety agency be responsible for paying for any and all network and device changes?;

b. affect achievement of a nationwide level of public safety interoperability at the device, application, and network levels?

Thank you in advance for your assistance with this matter. We would appreciate a response by May 5, 2011.

Sincerely,

Related Documents: 

Letter to Julius Genachowski, Chairman, FCC, from Chairmen Upton and Walden and Reps. Waxman and Eshoo (April 20, 2011).

Letter to Julius Genachowski, Chairman, FCC, from Chairmen Waxman and Boucher and Reps. Barton and Stearns (June 30, 2010).