Nov 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Jim Barthold

Cities big and small are once again considering 4.9 GHz for public safety.

There have been a variety of reasons why the public-safety space has yet to widely adopt the 4.9 GHz licensed wireless spectrum that the federal government has been giving away for the last five years. Born of the need for improved communications, the licensed spectrum is designed to support new broadband applications such as high-speed digital technologies and wireless LANs for incident management, dispatch, and vehicular or personal communications.

Of course, no community in the nation has the money to build a public-safety-only wireless network, no matter how inexpensive the spectrum is, so there is a need to fund such build-outs. That angle initially hinged on the unreachable dream of free municipal wireless, whether supported by advertising or corporate buy-in.

There also was a period during the past year when first responders paused to consider the benefits of the 700 MHz broadband spectrum the FCC reclaimed, some of which was earmarked for public safety under a public/private partnership model that remains in limbo. While this spectrum may eventually benefit public safety, first responders are not mortgaging their stations on that prospect and again are focusing on the 4.9 GHz band.

Unfortunately, there just hasn't been a great selection of 4.9 GHz equipment, as only a handful of vendors have offerings. Vendors instead have focused on building gear that they think they can sell to the larger commercial markets: 2.4 GHz, 5.8 GHz and even some 700 MHz.

The technology hype curve is at work here,” said Stephen Rayment, chief technology officer and co-founder of BelAir Networks, one of a handful of vendors moving aggressively into the 4.9 GHz public-safety space. “Everybody was talking about 700 MHz, and I think it's well down in the trough of disillusionment at this time. I'm not sure if it's going to climb back out or not.”

Under the FCC's plan, some enterprising service provider would spend billions of dollars for the 700 MHz spectrum and then build a national wireless network hardened for public safety. Conceptually, this would allow cash-strapped public-safety agencies to avoid paying the up-front capital costs associated with a broadband network, but no commercial operators made a qualifying bid. “There is no free lunch,” Rayment said.

Not that there's anything wrong with 700 MHz spectrum.

“[It] is important … but you look at the infrastructure and the cost … basically 700 MHz is just the next generation of what's out there with 800 and 900 … but it's going to take 16 years to get it out,” said Mike Wons, vice president and general manager of public-safety systems for Federal Signal, a systems integrator for multiple public-safety agencies' 4.9 GHz systems.

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