Public Safety at Stake

From the fire fighters who died on 9/11 to the rescue workers struggling to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, the absence of reliable and interoperable voice and data communications among public safety agencies has become an urgent national dilemma. Within the coming weeks, the Senate Commerce Committee will mark up DTV legislation likely to impose a hard deadline on the clearance of TV channels 52 to 69 -- freeing up precious spectrum for public safety voice interoperability and for auction to commercial broadband services. Senators will also consider whether the vacant, unassigned channels between channels 2 and 51 should be opened for unlicensed access by public safety agencies for mobile data networks and for other commercial and community wireless broadband networks.

Senator John McCain and 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer are leading the long-delayed campaign to ensure better disaster preparedness by moving a handful of analog TV stations off spectrum that are badly needed to ensure interoperability for our nation's first responders. Beyond voice communication, other panelists will describe the benefits of mobile, high-speed public safety data networks that will require access to the sort of high-penetration airwaves that currently lie fallow as unassigned TV channels and "guard bands" in every community nationwide.

Participants

• Michael Calabrese
  Vice President


• John McCain
  (R-AZ), United States Senator


• Timothy Roemer (remarks)
  Panel Member, 9/11 Commission


• Greg Meffert
  Chief Information Officer, City of New Orleans


• Robert LeGrande
  Chair, Spectrum Coalition for Public Safety and


• Mary Brown
  Senior Telecommunications Policy Counsel, Cisco Systems, Inc.


• Paul Smith
  Technology Director, Center for Neighborhood Technology