It appears it doesn’t matter “who you know” but, “who you own!” Our revered 2-party system seems to produce parallel bank accounts more often than legitimate solutions.
Former Sept. 11 commission Chairman Tom Kean says first responders in Louisiana not having had access to radio spectrum needed for interoperable communications “cost lives,” as it did at the World Trade Center. On the ground, the people that get there first can’t talk to each other because the radio communications don’t work,” Kean told CNN Sunday. “They haven’t got enough what’s called spectrum.”
News media last week reported that police forces in New Orleans City and the three surrounding parishes all use different and incompatible radio equipment.
Experts say that proper equipment and training and freeing up more and better frequencies are essential pre-requisites for reaching the holy grail of full communications interoperability for first responders.
Kean said a bill in Congress to provide more spectrum was stalled. “Nothing has been happening, and again, people on the ground – police, fire, medical personnel – couldn’t talk to each other.”
“That’s outrageous and it’s a scandal and I think it cost lives,” he concluded.
At issue are the recommendations of a 1995 congressional panel that, as TV broadcasters transitioned to digital transmission – which takes up a much smaller fraction of the spectrum – the frequencies freed up would be allocated to first responders.
Ten years have been wasted propping up some of the most backwards elements of American technology.
The parts of the spectrum identified by the 1995 Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee report are in the high 700-Mhz range – which experts say is ideal for use by emergency services because signals sent over these frequencies can penetrate walls and travel long distances.
“This (part of the spectrum) is prime real estate,” said Yucel Ors of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, a non-profit that represents first responder and emergency management communications specialists.
But, he added, “There are squatters on it,” referring to the TV broadcasters.
“It is time to tell the broadcasters to get out of the way,” said [Republican Congressman] Weldon, blaming “the lethargy of Congress – both parties and both chambers” for the failure to move on this issue before.
Ors said that broadcasters had also lobbied hard against a deadline. “They have more resources than we do,” he said, “First responders are busy on the front lines, we don’t have as much time as they do to lobby Congress.”
So the blame is now being placed on analog TV?! God that’s a friggin’ stretch. The main reason being is that the spectrum will be sold, locked up, and/or divvied out by large corporations. In other words, once the spectrum used by analog TV is sold, it won’t be ours to use anymore anyway.
I’m not sure why the link wasn’t provided, but here it is:
http://compactURL.com/gkgxexqf
Interesting! Good find!
I used to be a transmitter engineer for a PBS affiliate in the 90s. I sent a link of the story to a friend who still works for PBS and he had this to say:
So the TV stations were forced to go digital by government regulation. That regulation further stated the analog channel would continue to be in use until digital achieved 85% market penetration. And now the TV stations are viewed as “squatters”?
Why are the TV stations viewed as being at fault? For financial reasons, TV broadcasters would have been happy as clams to broadcast in analog on their existing frequencies until hell froze over. They were making good money just as things were.
Why don’t the first responders bitch at the FCC for forcing TV stations to tie up the spectrum currently used for DTV? I think that argument is just as valid. Sheesh!
This is so ludicrous that I have to comment again. Let’s imagine that analog TV was killed off. The poor (who would most likely be affected as they can’t afford cable or HD capable TVs) would never have heard about the hurricane and more likely would have been killed.
Think about it! What do you watch during a storm when cable goes out? Broadcast TV, of course. And what if you don’t have a $5000 plasma screen HD monitor, you’d be screwed of course.
I personally blame the free enterprise system for the failure. Days after the disaster millions of people were driving their cars to work. These cars could have been used to get victims out of the area, but no. They were being wasted in the pursuit of personal gain. How dare they!
Freeing the frequencies is just a first step. The commercial radio equipment used by emergency and public safety officers are very expensive. To replace the current VHF and UHF radios to make them compatible would cost hundreds of millions, and that burden would be on local and state agencies. Many of the newer programmable radios may be able to be used, but there’s still other problems. You can’t have several hundred people effectively using a single frequency. This takes advance training, establishing protocols and coordinated practice. I have no ideal were the funding would come from to bring every small police agency and volunteer fire fighter into a major federally coordinated response effort. Everyone wants protection, but nobody wants higher taxes. This isn’t Rome, we can’t go and sack Gaul to build a new bathouse.
Well thats big buisness for you.
1. Sorry I forgot the link.
2. IF, most of the STB’s proposed for adapting digital broadcast to existing analog sets are $50 tops. Your cordless crystal ball needs new batteries.
There are enough available frequencies out there. The problem is the lack of coordination to assign the available frequencies into a structured arrangement. Adding more frequencies might only create more problems.
If every emergency person used the same frequency then no one could communicate as all the babble would drown each other out. The police need several low power channels for their own communication on local levels. Then they need higher power channels to talk with commanders. The commanders need other channels to talk among commanders. Then they need more channels to talk with other emergency personnel. The same with the fire departments, search and rescue, National Guard units, etc. The solution is NOT to add more frequencies. It should be to utilize what is available so each department can remain separate yet be able to communicate with other departments when needed.
In both the WTC and Katrina the problems arose because the commanders could not talk among themselves to discuss what was needed where. More important perhaps was the inability of some radios, especially police radios, to even work inside the buildings with command centers outside. With Katrina the radio networks also relied on local electricity, which was wiped out, command structures, which were destroyed or severely damaged, and people that, for whatever reason, were unavailable.
When we talk about emergency planning, this communication problem should be addressed. The frequencies used though should be identical across the nation so when rescue units from another state come to help, they too will fit into the communication grid. Blaming the Television frequencies for this communication failure is just shifting the blame from the agencies that didn’t learn any lessons from 9/11.
The 9/11 Commission had as much to do with this disaster as anyone. So this guy is supposed to be credible? The committee he chaired recommended a new federal agency be created to oversee the inept workings of existing federal agencies.
Yeah, I give HIS opinion a lot of weight.
Nextel already makes digital 2 way radios that can also be used as cell phones. I’m sure they wouldn’t refuse millions of new customers in the public service. I’ve used them myself. They are a great product, secure, reliable and now can go set to set when away from towers. As usual the government is custom making solutions when better and cheaper ones could be bought off the shelf. Of course they’d still need high powered 2 ways now and then but that would be in areas with no cell coverage and when the range is beyond set to set as well; doesn’t happen often!