WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwire - February 7, 2011) - Roberson and Associates, LLC will release a comprehensive, new study today that charts a clear path forward for public safety priority access on dedicated and shared commercial networks.
The debate over the Federal Communications Commission's plan to auction the D-Block for public safety is entering a pivotal phase, and the Roberson Report represents a major turning point in that discussion. While some members of the public safety community have questioned the viability of using the 10 MHz D-Block on shared basis with their currently dedicated 10 MHz broadband spectrum at 700 MHz, this study conclusively determines that no technical obstacles exist to public safety users having priority access to a shared network with commercial carriers.
In fact, this study concludes, commercial partnerships offer significant advantages to public safety officials.
"Today we are announcing a comprehensive technical study that refutes the myth that commercial broadband wireless networks can't provide enhanced coverage and overflow capacity to a dedicated nationwide public safety data network," said Dennis Roberson, President and CEO of Roberson and Associates, LLC.
"The priority access mechanisms described in the study rely on capabilities inherent in the existing Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard selected by both public safety and commercial providers for their next generation systems," Roberson added. "LTE provides public safety users with: 1) guaranteed, automatic access to either dedicated public safety or shared commercial networks; 2) the ability to establish a connection on a busy network; 3) room for priority public safety information transfer on a busy network; and 4) control over their traffic. In order to realize the significant cost and operational benefits that accrue to public safety with commercial network sharing, the public safety radios should be able to use the same electronics available to all other LTE devices."
The Roberson report establishes that an interoperable, broadband network is technically feasible and meets the concerns expressed by some in the public safety community about sharing access to commercial spectrum in an emergency. The report was commissioned by T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel.
ABOUT ROBERSON AND ASSOCIATES, LLC: Roberson and Associates, LLC, is a technology and management consulting company with government and commercial customers that provides services in the areas of RF spectrum management, RF measurements and analysis, and technology management. The organization was founded in 2008 and is composed of a group of select individuals with corporate and academic backgrounds from Motorola, Bell Labs, IITRI (now Alion), independent consulting firms, and the Illinois Institute of Technology. Together the organization has over 200 years of the high technology management and technical leadership experience with a strong telecommunications focus.