Emergency Communications Interface between Technology, Policy, and Business

1. Emergency Communications Interface between Technology, Policy, and Business Paul Kolodzy 15 November 2012

2. Emergency Communications • Locally Funded • … Rural to large urban cores • Regionally controlled Spectrum Use • … 55 Regional Planning Committees • National controlled Spectrum • … National policy makers and politics • International access to technology • … cellular to public safety

3. Attributes • It must be: • Possible – does technology (current or quickly developed) provide a solution • Permitted – does policy (national, local, or agency) allow the solution to be used • Pragmatic – does it make economic sense with regards to the market or government Any complex system must address more than the technology and the business plan, it must address the policy constraints (and opportunities)

4. Emergency Communications Challenges “Technology” • Requirements (or desires) are very challenging • Availability, security, coverage • Interoperability • Not thinking about a system-level solution • Each band is independent • Each architectures is expected to solve the entire problem • Exploitation of Smart Radio Technology • Assuredness through Diversity

5. Emergency Communications Challenges “Policy” • Lack of National Standard and National Organization creates fragmented requirements • APCO, NPSTC, FirstNet, FCC … • Follow the $$$ and the Policy • National requirements can become unfunded mandates • National requirements without sustained national investments • Local responsibility without a local voice • Responsibility lays at the feet of the local government official

6. Emergency Communications Challenges “Economics” • Requirements developers and funding sources are generally decoupled • Insatiable appetites for capabilities • Public Safety – Commercial Service work together • A source of sustainable resources (spectrum, funding) for emergency communications • Spiral solutions are discarded in favor of a model that is focused on “the big bang” • Incremental versus large government “national” system deployment

7. Smart Radios Enabling New Directions • Heterogeneous Networking • Policy Integrated into Devices • Spectrum Sharing • Distributed Servers (Akamai) • Peer-to-Peer

8. Policy Technology Smart Radio Combining Sensing, Adaptation, and Policy Carrier Aggregation Higher local throughputs Asymmetric Channel Pairing Enhanced Multicasting Data Caching (Content Based data management) Data applications and changing QoS Requirements Dynamic Spectrum Access Channel Assignments are only the starting point Interference Tolerant Systems Noise floor is no longer the limit • Ubiquitous Coverage Requirement • Penetration deep inside structures and in remote areas • New Technologies in Hybrid architectures (HetNets) and for relays • Self-Sustaining Funding Requirement • Priority Access • Spectrum vs Infrastructure vs Network Sharing Techniques • Spectrum Band Allocations and Assignments • Mixture of Narrowband and Broadband systems and waveforms • High level of Interference Protection • Converse to the Interference-limited commercial systems

9. Possible Directions • Innovative solutions that break the traditional architectures and funding models. • Trade-off between: • Users versus the policy makers • Procurement officers versus the Funding agents • Exploit baseline architectures with spiral development of new capabilities • Stove pipe information paths versus cloud and crowd-sourcing • Assuredness of information from external sources • Heterogeneous networks tailored to emergency communications