FCC: House Committee Concerned About Motorola

Following the troubling San Francisco BayWEB fiasco, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce submitted a letter last Wednesday to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski regarding its concern about Motorola's dominance in the market of Public Safety (PS) communications.  The committee cites a June 30, 2010 letter questioning PS's "reliance upon an exclusive or limite vendor pool for equipment and devices."  The lack of a diverse selection of vendors causes prices that are higher than corresponding commercial prices and fewer options for interoperability.  The FCC's July 20, 2010 reply agreed with the committee, also sharing its fears that this market structure hinders movement toward an interoperable broadband public safety network. 

Since the problem persists, with Motorola being the chosen vendor of most waiver requests for early deployment of 700 MHz broadband networks, the committee called attention to five issues, requesting a reponse from the FCC regarding:

1. A list of waiver recipients and applicants and their vendors
2. Competitive bidding process information in waiver recipient jurisdictions
3. Confirmation that the vendor is supplying open, LTE standard-compliant equipment
4. Indication of whether said vendors intend to implement proprietary broadband capabilities, and impact on:
1. network and device equipment prices relative to commercial equipment
2. innovation in PS wireless technology
3. terminated product lines or new mandatory releases resulting in unique costs relative to commercial costs
4. interoperability on application, device, and network levels among networks from other vendors
5. ability of PS users to enter into partnerships with commercial wireless providers
6. competition in the market
7. the effect of the FCC's National Broadband Plan, which found that encouraging incentive-based partnerships with a variety of commercial operators would benefit PS
5. The dominant vendor's effects on construction of early deployed PS networks regarding:
1. adoption of final technical and operations rules, and costs of any of the rules calling for changes  (Would the agencies be responsible for these costs?)
2. achievement of a nationwide interoperable system at the device, application, and network levels

These questions have been on the minds of industry insiders for years, and it appears these issues will be addressed soon, with the help of Congressional attention.