Just the beginning

Oct 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By James Careless

After a year and $1 billion in grants, progress toward interoperable communication is hard to gauge

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Since the 9/11 attacks, federal lawmakers have bemoaned the lack of interoperable communications between public-safety agencies that may need to coordinate efforts when large-scale incidents occur.

Expecting a windfall from the auction of 700 MHz spectrum to commercial wireless carriers, Congress earmarked an unprecedented $1 billion in anticipated auction proceeds to fund Public Safety Interoperable Communications (PSIC) grants. On Sept. 30, 2007, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) co-allocated more than $968 million to 56 states and territories. Although disbursed at the state/territorial level, local government agencies were given an opportunity to tap into these funds by applying to their respective state/territorial bodies with their interoperable communications projects.

This month, NTIA plans to release state-by-state investment summaries at www.ntia.doc.gov/psic. But the effectiveness of the PSIC grants will not be able to be assessed for quite awhile, said Todd Sedmark, communications director for NTIA.

“The purpose is to help state and local public-safety agencies fill interoperability gaps and enhance their ability to communicate when responding to hazards,” Sedmark said. “This program has just started, so money spent and results achieved are still to be determined.”

Charlottesville, Va., Fire Chief Charles Werner, a member of the SAFECOM executive committee and the Virginia Statewide Interoperability Executive Committee, echoed this sentiment, noting that the process of disbursing the grant money has been subject to delays.

“But even without the delays, there is no easy way to tell how much progress has been made, as the projects just received funding approval and have yet to be implemented,” Werner said.

To receive the funds, states and territories had to submit applications to the NTIA by August 2007. These applications included criteria outlining how each state would evaluate grant requests from public-safety agencies in their jurisdiction.

By last December, the states or territories had to identify for NTIA the projects they wanted to fund using PSIC money, plus submit an investment justification for those projects and their own statewide communications interoperability plans (SCIPs). All PSIC-funded projects must be completed by Sept. 30, 2010.

Yucel Ors, director of legislative affairs for the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, said APCO officials are awaiting a full report on PSIC disbursements and plans to monitor use of the PSIC grants.