Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Public safety radios go dead- Cellular traffic the culprit in some cases; Nextel proposes 'fix'

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 17:34:43 -0400

<SNIP>

"For a year, Clyde Hill police Chief Bill Archer couldn't figure out
what the trouble was. His officers were using solid equipment on a
system that seemed to be working for other agencies. "

<SNIP>
"I couldn't talk on the radio from my own police station," Archer said.
"It was terrible. We bring prisoners up here, and if something got out
of hand, it was literally a situation where you could be in one room and
be fine, walk 5 feet somewhere else and have a communications mess. We
kept trying to figure out what was going on."

============================================================================

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Public safety radios go dead- Cellular traffic the culprit in some
cases; Nextel proposes 'fix'

By CLAUDIA ROWE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Early on a November evening in 2000, Bellevue police heard that a masked
gunman had broken into the Wells Fargo Bank on Factoria Boulevard. He
held up a clerk, crawled back out through a window and eluded officers.
Last week, it happened again. The robber slipped away, wielding a large
kitchen knife, as officers searched in vain.
There was nothing particularly ingenious
about either break-in. Each time, the police
were stymied by something as elemental as
radio static. It clouded descriptions of the
suspect in one case and mangled
coordination in another.

The culprit? A nearby cell-phone tower.
Around the Puget Sound area, first responders have encountered similar
problems for years, particularly in high-traffic areas -- the corner of
South Maynard Avenue and South Weller Street in the International
District; the intersection of Roosevelt Avenue and 45th Street in the
University District, the interchange of Interstates 90 and 405 in
Bellevue and the meeting of I-405 and state Route 167 in Renton.
Problems at each of those sites have been addressed, but new ones
continue to turn up.
"The transmissions just go away, midsentence," said Chris Fischer,
director of communications for the 911 center that covers police and
fire dispatch for 27 agencies in south King County. "You'll be in the
middle of a conversation and it just blanks out for a minute."

With cellular service increasing daily, the problem has worsened in
recent years, and it exists nationwide. In Portland, officers chasing a
suspected carjacker fanned out to surround him -- until their radios
went dead. Several had to borrow telephones from nearby homeowners to
call dispatch. In Anne Arundel County, Md., a deputy sheriff was forced
to drive blocks away from a burning home to tell headquarters about the
fire because his radio suddenly stopped transmitting. And police in
Denver have identified 24 "dead spots" where radios fall silent or get
tangled in unintelligible static.

The problem comes from cellular services, predominantly Nextel, sharing
the same radio frequency as public safety agencies, a setup arranged
more than 10 years ago when few foresaw how prevalent cell phones would
become. It's as if cellular and police radio signals, laid out like
strings in a piano, once sat side by side without touching. But with
increased communications traffic, these "strings" swell to the size of
ropes, causing friction, overlap and interference.

After years of wrangling over a solution, Federal Communications
Commissioners are now voting -- in private and electronically -- on a
fix-it plan heavily promoted by Nextel. The company proposes to spend
$850 million on disentangling public safety and cellular frequencies,
but in return wants a stretch of virgin spectrum valued by some analysts
at $5 billion. A decision is expected within the next few weeks, and
Nextel's competitors are up in arms.

Caught in the middle are police, firefighters and paramedics, who hope
the next dead spot doesn't pop up during a life-or-death moment.

Further complicating matters is the difficulty of pinning down the
problem.  Cellular companies frequently move or retune their towers --
there are several hundred in King County alone -- and dead spots that
appear one day may be gone the next, only to resurface elsewhere a month
later. Nextel has been responsive about adjusting problem towers once
identified, safety officials say, but they long for a more proactive
solution.

"You can fix it one place and it sort of squirts out somewhere else,"
Fischer said. "We're probably just moving the problem from one site to
another."

For a year, Clyde Hill police Chief Bill Archer couldn't figure out what
the trouble was. His officers were using solid equipment on a system
that seemed to be working for other agencies. Yet he often had
difficulty when he tried to speak to police in the field.

"I couldn't talk on the radio from my own police station," Archer said.
"It was terrible. We bring prisoners up here, and if something got out
of hand, it was literally a situation where you could be in one room and
be fine, walk 5 feet somewhere else and have a communications mess. We
kept trying to figure out what was going on."

A chance conversation with a cellular technician working nearby provided
the answer. Nextel had erected a tower facing the Clyde Hill station. As
soon as it was turned away, the trouble disappeared. But without the
technician's suggestion, Archer said he never would have guessed.

None of the interference in Western Washington radios has resulted in a
death or disaster, said Kevin Kearns, director of information and
telecommunications services for the King County Emergency Management
Division. But any of them might.
"It could be a situation where an officer hears the word 'shoot,' but he
doesn't hear the word 'don't,' " said Tim O'Regan, a spokesman for
Nextel.

Rival companies such as Verizon and Cingular agree that Nextel's plan to
separate itself from public safety frequencies makes sense. The sticking
point, they say, is the company's insistence on getting a chunk of empty
spectrum in return.
"Nextel is using a problem it created to propose a fix that will give it
a
multibillion-dollar windfall," said Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for
Verizon
Wireless. "It's essentially a request on the part of Nextel -- a demand,
really --
saying, 'We'll get out of the way of public safety. We'll fix the
problem we
caused, but you've got to give us something.' "

Nor is there any provision in Nextel's plan for costs that run over $850
million.
"You hit that point and what if the city of Seattle has not yet stood in
line for
reimbursement of Nextel's problems?" Nelson said. "No one's obliged to
pay
after that. Nextel just puts up its hands and says, 'Gee, sorry, we gave
it our
best guess, but that's on you, Seattle.' "

Even first responders who support the proposal -- and many do -- doubt
that Nextel's budgeted amount would cover the total price tag.

"How much of that $850 million would we get here in Puget Sound?" said
Alan Komenski, chairman of the King County Regional Communications Board
and communications manager for the Bellevue Police Department, which
manages a 911 center covering much of northern King County. "The money
that Nextel's putting up is not going to take care of this issue
nationwide and what are we going to get, a half or a third of what we
need? Everyone's going to want a piece of the pie."
The industry group representing Nextel also opposes the company's plan.

"They would literally have to retune thousands of radios. It's
complicated, it's costly and it would take a very long time to do," said
Travis Larson, a spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications &
Internet Association. "The importance here is to fix the problems where
they occur, as opposed to a complete overhaul of the communications
system."

An alternative plan, supported by Verizon and much of the wireless
industry, would address interference on a case-by-case basis and mandate
that all new cell towers be tested before use to ensure they don't cause
problems. But many public safety workers have decried this as an
after-the-fact remedy that puts them at risk until a problem site is
identified.
Meanwhile, most average citizens have no notion of the brewing
consternation.

"This is something that affects their lives every single day," said Bill
Schrier, director of technology for the city of Seattle. "And they don't
even know it's going on."

Alan Caldwell, director of government relations at the International
Association of Fire Chiefs, thinks he understands why.
"It's very complicated from an engineering point of view and it gets
worse when you throw politics in," he said. "But the one thing that
isn't complicated is the public safety issue. We need to have clear
channels without interference."
P-I reporter Claudia Rowe can be reached at 206-448-8320 or
[email-masked]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/168829_publicsafety13.html
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