Was Nextel's Morgan O'Brien hinting that Nextel will make some sort of frequency switch offer to gain contiguous blocks of spectrum? He's known as a free-thinker, and will no doubt propose something unique in the company's FCC filing.

There was one topic that no one discussed during the conference seminars-- the pile of money that Nextel promised public safety if the FCC grants their Phase II waiver. In fact, O'Brien didn't mention it himself during his banquet speech.

The entire set of conference audio recordings is available on one CD-ROM in mp3 format for $399, or on separate tapes ($10 ea.) or CDs ($18). Surf the vendor's Web site.

When Lehi (Utah) police officer Joe Adams was laid to rest on Wednesday, a dispatcher reportedly broadcast in order the IDs of each Lehi officer, and each acknowledged on the air. When she reached Adams' ID, his brother, who is an Orem officer, acknowledged, "10-8, enroute to heaven."

The featured speaker at Monday's opening luncheon was bumped for some reason, but appeared during a hastily-arranged noon session today.

According to Gary Pulford of Intrado, some telematics service providers have a rather rustic way of finding the correct PSAP for an incident: their system determines the location of their customer, and then displays a list of all PSAPs with the corresponding ZIPcode. The operator then starts calling the PSAPs-- from the top down, until they find the one that handles that location.

Barry Furey of Tennessee (Nashville is the next conference site) joked during the closing banquet about Salt Lake, "Any city that makes its citizens cross the street in 15 seconds or less is OK!" He was wearing a bright blue, denim sport coat!

DISPATCH Monthly Magazine's Coverage of the
Annual APCO Conference

Seminars, Visit From Nextel Exec
Highlight Last Day

by Gary Allen

Attendees to the annual conference were definitely moving slower as the fourth day began with early seminars, and ended late with an appearance by the co-founder of Nextel at the closing banquet, who pledged his company's resources to solve the 800 MHz interference issue.

Today's news also includes copies of a letter written by 16 members of Congress to FCC chairman Michael Powell, urging him to stand fast against the long line of wireless carriers filing Phase II waiver requests. Rep. Anna Eshoo, who coordinated the letter, also sent a letter to APCO praising their efforts, and seemingly placing blame for any delay directly on the heads of carriers.

Morgan O'Brien, now vice chairman of Nextel, told APCO members he was in charge of a team to devise a long-term solution to public safety channel interference, and previewed a filing his company will make with the FCC in early October.

APCO's executive council also changed as new officers were sworn in, and the group handed out its Life Member, Presidential and special awards.

Radio Promises

The significant and ground-breaking appearance by O'Brien was obviously meant as a signal to APCO members that Nextel intends to handle the interference problem. In fact, O'Brien said as much. And, tantalizingly, O'Brien said Nextel would pay its "fair share" to provide a long-term solution to the interference problem.

O'Brien said he came to re-introduce himself to public safety, and to "put a face to the name of Nextel." He explained how he founded the company FleetCall, which eventually turned into Nextel.

He explained that he is no longer "supreme commander" of Nextel's army, but is still a commander. He said that, "The soldiers that are our legions are legions of lawyers." Then oddly, he told the crowd, "They are well-trained, well-disciplined, battle-tested and not afraid of hand-to-hand combat." He didn't explain what that means to APCO, although the implications are obvious.

O'Brien said that Nextel should be viewed as "the tough kid from the wrong side of the tracks" who has to, in some cases, fight in order to get his seat at the table. That is part of the cultural heritage of Nextel, he said. What's more, although O'Brien said he would describe Nextel as "either particularly pugnacious or provocative," he did admit the company could accurately be described as "somewhat territorial and threatening."

That said, O'Brien said, "I'm here tonight in a new role, which I think is probably going to be as important as any that I have taken on with the company, which is heading up the Nextel 'Peace Corps.'"

He then breached the topic of 800 MHz interference, a situation where "Nextel's full-licensed, fully-approved by the FCC systems" can cause problems on public safety 800 MHz systems. What is at risk, O'Brien said, was in some cases the public safety. He said the "very last thing" he wanted to do was approach the problem as combatants. "So think of me as the peace ambassador from Nextel."

He said he was happy to receive the invitation from APCO, so he could introduce himself, "and indicate to you how important we think it is that a constructive solution be found, and to say to you that we understand our responsibility and role in solving the problem, and our expectation that we will bare a fair share of the financial responsibility for addressing it."

O'Brien explained that the inherent design of Nextel's system configuration is opposite of public safety systems: low-altitude transmitter sites, multiple high-power transmitter, high reuse of frequencies. The interleaving of frequencies is another cause, he said, and called the technique a "hold-over from the last 25 years." He noted that Nextel's system design offers a 6:1 channel use ratio, and accommodates 8 million customers on the same system that originally handled just 1 million customers.

O'Brien said there are short-term and long-term solutions. He noted that Nextel has teams of engineers, lawyers and consultants in the field right now handling reports of 800 MHz interference around the country. "We believe we've addressed the most serious problems," he said.

But the short-term fix is "doomed to fail," he said, since Nextel will continue to lower its transmitter sites, putting them closer to public safety mobile and portable radios, and to increase frequency re-use. This will simply increase the chances of interference with public safety 800 MHz systems.

O'Brien announced that Nextel will file a proposal with the FCC, hopefully in early October for a long-term solution, "something to put this behind us," as he described it. He noted working with the FCC is necessarily a time-consuming process. "The 'due process' process takes time, as we all know, and it needs to take time."

He added, "On the other hand, however, that time that we're playing with as we work that process, increases every day the risk that something is going to happen."

He did not provide complete details, but said there are three principles covered by the proposal:

  • interleaving of spectrum must give way to contiguous blocks. He pointed out that there must be a new band plan to accommodate this change
  • time is of the essence. "I don't think we have years (to address this). I think we have to address this very promptly.
  • "We have to come up with some creative financing proposals, because this is going to be expensive." He added, "Nextel is prepared to pay it's fair share, but we're going to need to be very creative."

O'Brien recalled that he's been in the business for over 30 years. "For me, this issue, it's a wonderful opportunity for me--of the things I have worked on...this is the culmination. I can't think of anything more exciting to work on than this."

He said that both public safety and Nextel have the opportunity to lay "the foundation for the next 30 years for mobile communications." He concluded by saying, "I can't think of anything more important than eliminating the possibility that lives will be lost. I know we can do this."

[The TelecomClick Web site has posted an "unofficial" transcript of O'Brien's speech]

The Next Phase II?

According to a presentation by Rick Jones (Loves Park, Ill. 911), the next big issue for public safety is wireless number portability. How's that?

If you're not familiar with the subject, and not many are, this FCC-related issue is similar to Phase II: it has a deadline, wireless carriers are involved, and there are tons of complex technical, financial and procedural points to consider.

The crux is the FCC's order that wireless customers should be able to move from carrier to carrier, and retain their original telephone number. Currently, wireless customers are often reluctant to change carriers to lower their costs or gain features because they'd have to change their telephone number.

The FCC set a Nov. 24, 202 deadline for carriers to handle so-called number portability in the top 100 markets. The companies are now working to create a single database to allow sharing and management of phone numbers, and work out procedural issues. But in the meantime, there are loads of implications for public safety.

First, whenever a person "ports" their current wireless phone from one carrier to another, there is a finite period of time during which both phones will be active with the same phone number. This affects both incoming and outgoing calls.

The carrier industry is working towards a 2-1/2 hour cut-over time for porting phones. During this time, an out-going call to 911 would properly show the caller's phone number and, under Phase I/II, ANI/ALI information. In this scenario, a PSAP could not accurately determine the caller's newest carrier, since the phone is active on both systems.

During the cut-over, a PSAP that needs to call back a ported phone will have unpredictable results in reaching the subscriber. The phone that is reached depends on where during the 2-1/2 hour porting process the call is placed. So, if a wireless caller dials 911, gets dropped for some reason, and the dispatcher tries to call the phone number back, he/she might ring the previous carrier's network, or the current carrier's network.

By the way, these same issues also apply to wireline phones if you change your local telephone carrier. And they apply during a five-day cut-over period!

There are also issues involving fixed wireless service, analog cellular phones, uninitialized phones, and some esoteric FCC rate restrictions.

Jones complained, "We've had extreme difficulty" in getting wireless carrier's involved in the number portability project. "We don't have a clue" on how to solve some of the complex issues, he said. Jones asked for anyone who wants to help the committee to contact him at (815) 654-5011 or e-mail rockford9@aol.com.

Well Connected

The Project 36 committee on CAD-to-CAD communications has finished its start-up activities, and has established an aggressive schedule for itself to come with a standard by next year's Nashville conference.

The goal of Project 36 is to bring together CAD software vendors and PSAPs, and find a way to allow the applications to communicate intelligently, thereby allowing separate and possible distant dispatchers to share information easier and quicker.

The goal is purposely being defined very narrowly-- to handle those basic types of everyday tasks that involve the transfer of detailed information, now accomplished over the phone. This includes telephoning an adjacent agency with BOLO information about a robbery just prior, or a fire department requesting automatic mutual aid for a fire.

Chair Lex Rutter explained the final product will be an informal, so-called "APCO standard," which is not equivalent to a formal ANSI standard. However, he didn't rule out a more formal standard at some subsequent time. The project committee will also create a check-list for agencies to create a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between agencies that exchange CAD data using the standard.

He said there has been "excellent" participation from CAD software vendors. Hopefully, Rutter said, the companies will also help fund the project's activities, since APCO expects its work groups to be self-supporting. In fact, he rated it as "difficult to very difficult" to obtain money for project money from APCO.

The committee is looking for input from CAD users, particularly scenarios under which two or more comm centers would want to exchange data. They handed out a survey to attendees asking for information. The research working group is also looking for agencies that have already implemented direct CAD-to-CAD links with other comm centers, so they can learn from their experience.

The project will focus specifically on linking comm centers. However, Rutter said, the committee's work could also apply to other types of agencies or even companies who need a direct link. The project will also not consider outbound-only data links, such as traffic or press view-only systems. But again, some parts of the project may be applicable to these applications.

Among the considerations when implementing CAD data links is the translation of different data fields (priority codes, incident activity types, etc.), and the necessity to provide a definite acknowledgement back to the sending CAD system. Rutter pointed out that the procedural issues of data exchange are almost as difficult to master as technical issues.

For example, one agency might use letter-based priority codes, while the other uses numbers. Not only must there be a translation table to move data back and forth, both agencies must reach a formal agreement on how their codes are equivalent-- is a "B" priority equal to a "3" or "2" on the other system?

The resulting standard will apply no matter what type of connection is used: dial-up modem, full-time T1 or DSL, etc.

On its face, Project 36 seems to offer some additional possibilities, although the committee is apparently desperately trying to keep the scope of the project narrow enough to finish within a year. First, the project seems to offer the perfect opportunity to standardize basic CAD formats. For example, the basic data fields such as unit ID, jurisdiction code, street type or priority code could be defined the same across all CAD software applications in their length and type of data (numbers only, alpha only, alpha or numbers allowed).

There are also endless possibilities to link up with alarm companies, telematics providers, tow companies or anyone else that routinely calls your comm center (or whom you call) and provide information. Not only will such a CAD-to-CAD standard solve some technical difficulties, it could pave the way to much more cooperation among agencies and, consequently, a better emergency response.

The APCO home page has a direct link to the project's Web page, complete with information on its current activities. Eventually the Project 36 page will include information submitted from end users, and minutes of meetings.

Presidential Hand-Off

After the highlighted speech by Nextel co-founder O'Brien, Barry Furey (Tenn.) took the podium to welcome attendees to next year's annual conference in Nashville. He also showed a short slide show of Nashville attractions to over 1,000 APCO members in the giant convention center ballroom. [APCO's photos]

Gallagher then presented a special award to this year's conference committee chair Michol Abraham. She humbly said that she was just the conductor, and then asked the audience to applaud for "the orchestra"--she gestured towards the Utah contingent of APCO members.

Gallagher then presented Presidential Awards for special achievement during the year:

  • Gregg Riddle, for his work on the Chapter Enhancement Committee
  • Lynn Feller, for her work on Project 37--Certification
  • Lex Rutter, for Project 36 and the International Committee work
  • Robert Gurss, APCO counsel
  • Bill Kuhn, frequency coordination work at headquarters
  • Bill Hinkle, Project LOCATE
  • Rick Hessinger, the 911 Committee
  • John Ramsey, work as executive director

Lastly, Gallagher awarded the annual Weldon Joe Blair Award to -- Joe Blair himself!

Gallagher then gave his out-going speech, saying, "I have climbed the mountain," and that he has had a great view during the past year. Tonight he must pass the gavel, "One of the toughest tasks I've ever had to face." He reviewed the association's accomplishments during the past year, and acknowledged the many people who helped him. In particular, he thanked Rick Hessinger, whom he called "solid as a rock."

He noted that the association almost closed the APCO Institute three years ago because it wasn't financially viable. Now, he said, some 10,000 students receive Institute training each year.

He also mentioned that the APCO board approved the group's newest work group-- Project 40, to look into the staffing crisis that is gripping the nation's public safety comm centers. The project will be headed by Julie Righter, who works for Lincoln (Neb.) 911. [She is looking for project volunteers, particularly from very small law enforcement-only and fire-only agencies. E-mail her at work]

Gallagher also took special pains to thank his wife Judy, and gave her a kiss (in photo). "The fulfillment of APCO's potential starts with you," he told the audience. He asked them to become involved by volunteering for a committee, or running for chapter office. "Go for the gold!"

Gallagher swore in the new slate of officers (l. to r. Greg Ballentine, 2nd v-p; Vincent Stile, first v-p; Thera Bradshaw, pres.-elect), Glen Nash, pres.), and then presented new president Glen Nash his presidential ring. Gallagher then banged the gavel for the last time, and handed it over to Nash.

In his first speech as president of APCO, Nash said was honored by the trust and confidence placed in him. "The presidency is not a one-man show," he said. "I'm not expected to do it all. My job is to lead a 4-member board of officers, assisted by a 51-member staff, and 150 or so members of 22 committees in representing the best association's 15,000-plus members. I can handle that job, because I have of you there to help me.

Nash noted that he comes from the technical side of public safety communications, and that, "We think a little differently than other people." He said techies are always wondering how things work, and why they're located where they are.

People have asked him what his goals will be. "My goal will be to survive," Nash told the audience. He issued two challenges to the the members: First, become involved in Phase I/II implementation at their own comm centers, and to support APCO's national and international frequency allocation efforts. Second, examine the possibility of migrating to narrow-band radio gear to improve spectrum congestion.