Emergency Communications
Interface between
Technology, Policy, and Business
Paul Kolodzy
15 November 2012
Emergency Communications

Locally Funded


Regionally controlled Spectrum Use


… 55 Regional Planning Committees
National controlled Spectrum


… Rural to large urban cores
… National policy makers and politics
International access to technology

… cellular to public safety
Kolodzy Consulting
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)
Kolodzy Consulting
Emergency Communications Challenges
 “Technology”

Requirements (or desires) are very challenging



Not thinking about a system-level solution



Availability, security, coverage
Interoperability
Each band is independent
Each architectures is expected to solve the entire problem
Exploitation of Smart Radio Technology

Assuredness through Diversity
Kolodzy Consulting
Emergency Communications Challenges
 “Policy”

Lack of National Standard and National Organization creates
fragmented requirements

APCO, NPSTC, FirstNet, FCC …


National requirements can become unfunded mandates


Follow the $$$ and the Policy
National requirements without sustained national investments
Local responsibility without a local voice

Responsibility lays at the feet of the local government official
Kolodzy Consulting
Emergency Communications Challenges
 “Economics”

Requirements developers and funding sources are generally
decoupled


Public Safety – Commercial Service work together


Insatiable appetites for capabilities
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
Kolodzy Consulting
Smart Radios Enabling New Directions

Heterogeneous Networking

Policy Integrated into Devices

Spectrum Sharing

Distributed Servers (Akamai)

Peer-to-Peer
Kolodzy Consulting
Policy  Technology

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

Smart Radio


Carrier Aggregation


Spectrum Band Allocations and
Assignments



Mixture of Narrowband and Broadband
systems and waveforms
High level of Interference Protection

Data applications and changing QoS
Requirements
Dynamic Spectrum Access


Enhanced Multicasting
Data Caching (Content Based data
management)


Higher local throughputs
Asymmetric Channel Pairing


Combining Sensing, Adaptation, and
Policy
Channel Assignments are only the
starting point
Interference Tolerant Systems

Converse to the Interference-limited
commercial systems
Kolodzy Consulting
Noise floor is no longer the limit
Possible Directions

Innovative solutions that break the traditional architectures
and funding models.

Trade-off between:



Exploit baseline architectures with spiral development of new
capabilities



Users versus the policy makers
Procurement officers versus the Funding agents
Stove pipe information paths versus cloud and crowd-sourcing
Assuredness of information from external sources
Heterogeneous networks tailored to emergency communications
Kolodzy Consulting