https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • Product Guides
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookie Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Omdia Crit Comms Circle Podcast
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • Product Guides
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
    • Sponsored content
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • Why Attend
    • Exhibitor Listing
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Join the Event Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Cookie Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

content


Cyren Call makes its business case

Cyren Call makes its business case

Without the coveted 700 MHz airwaves slated for auction, the numbers don’t add up
  • Written by Urgent Communications Administrator
  • 1st April 2007

Any public/private partnership that would build a nationwide public-safety network will require at least 30 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band to be economically viable, Cyren Call Communications officials recently said while detailing the company’s business plan.

Although supported by virtually every national public-safety organization, the political viability of the proposal unveiled by Cyren Call Chairman Morgan O’Brien at IWCE a year ago appears to be in jeopardy (see story on page 10). However, many fundamental assumptions included in the Cyren Call economic model are applicable to any public/private wireless broadband partnership that might be pursued to provide a nationwide broadband network to public safety.

Under Cyren Call’s plan, Congress would allocate 30 MHz of spectrum currently slated to be auctioned within a year to a public-safety broadband trust, which would pay as much as $5 billion to the U.S. Treasury for the airwaves. Money for this payment — not in Cyren Call’s original proposal but necessary to get Capitol Hill to consider the notion — would be raised through the capital markets as a government-guaranteed loan, which carries a more favorable interest rate and a longer term than a commercial loan.

This interest-rate and term-length advantage is critical to the economic model because it would let the trust lease the spectrum to commercial operators at monthly rates that would be less than they would pay the private markets if they bought the spectrum outright using a private loan, said Khai Nguyen, Cyren Call’s vice president of finance. But Nguyen emphasized that the commercial operators would need to pay more than the trust’s loan payment to retire the $5 billion debt.

“To protect the trust and the public-safety community, the commercial operators, in terms of lease payments, will have to pay an amount that’s higher than the interest rate that the trust has to pay, to give the trust a buffer [to create] some operating room should there be a default in the future,” Nguyen said.

After winning spectrum rights through a bid process, commercial operators would embark on a 10-year buildout of a nationwide, public-safety-grade broadband network that would leverage fourth-generation wireless technology. The airwaves would be leased on a regional basis through a process that would group desirable urban markets with less attractive rural areas.

Ultimately, Cyren Call envisions a network with 37,000 cell sites — serving more than 99% of the nation’s population and covering 75% of the continental U.S. — that would provide the 99.999% call-completion rate required by public safety, Nguyen said. The network also would include an overlay network — probably using satellite technology — that would provide primary coverage to the most rural areas and a redundant communications link where terrestrial coverage already exists.

By comparison, commercial nationwide networks available from carriers today have about 25,000 cell sites, do not offer such a large coverage area and are built to provide only a 98% call-completion rate.

“When we’re moving around at rush hour, [commercial users] all kind of accept — at some level — that there will be blocked calls,” said Cyren Call spokesman Tim O’Regan. “For public safety, that condition is absolutely unacceptable because human lives could be lost as a result [of a blocked call].”

In addition, to help ensure survivability, the network’s cell sites need to be hardened with additional backup power and alternative backhaul routes in case of an outage in the primary backhaul system. Overall, Nguyen said Cyren Call believes the additional public-safety demands will mean the network will cost the operators about $6 billion more than a typical commercial nationwide network.

For commercial operators to realize a return on such a sizeable investment, Cyren Call has estimated that the network needs about 35 million subscribers, but currently there are only 3 million potential public-safety users.

Moreover, although a public/private network could be built on the 12 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum already allocated to public safety, the necessary user costs would be exceedingly high — about $375 per month per user, Nguyen said.

As for proposals that call for the commercial spectrum to be auctioned but require the winning bidders to build out such a public-safety-grade network, Nguyen said such an approach would not generate the revenue Congress has budgeted for the auction.

“Think about it: No one would pay the full-market price for a spectrum license and then subject the license to all these conditions that would either raise its costs or lower its rate of return,” Nguyen said.

With 30 MHz of spectrum, however, a commercial operator would have the flexibility to leverage its considerable network investment to attract other kinds of customers, particularly critical-infrastructure, enterprise and commercial users. Such a mix would make it easier to reach the 35-million-customer threshold within 10 years, which should allow the network provider to offer service at average user rates of about $60 per month, Nguyen said.

Critics of the proposal have expressed doubt that a commercial operator can sell an affordable, profitable service while building a network that meets public safety’s rigorous coverage and survivability criteria, especially given the fact that public-safety users would have priority access.

In terms of the buildout, there likely would not be much friction between the trust and commercial operators during the first few years, said David Knutson, Cyren Call’s vice president of development. As with most networks, buildouts would begin in the most profitable urban areas and expand to less populated areas over time. Not only are base stations in these areas the most profitable, but also existing tower sites can be leveraged, so they are easier to install.

But as the network buildout extends to very rural areas — where a return on investment may be questionable, at best, especially if a new tower site must be built — there could be a need to revisit the terms of the original lease agreements to sustain the model, he said. And both sides would have considerable leverage in such talks, which could occur about five years into the effort, he said.

“The trust owns the spectrum; the lessees own the network. So there’s this nice marriage that requires these guys to work together,” Knutson said. “If the trust takes that spectrum away, that network is not going to be able to operate, and there will have to be an arrangement made to take over that network.

“There’s a mutual need to work together that’s built into this because the trust doesn’t want to lose the network, and the operator certainly doesn’t want to lose the right to use the spectrum. … For 95% of the country, it will be a non-issue, but for the 5% of the areas that will be the most challenging, there will be some interesting discussions that may be had in the future.”

Even if this sticking point can be resolved, many question whether commercial users would pay to be on a network where public safety is mandated to receive priority access.

“I talk to all the network operators, and if they don’t own the spectrum outright, they’re not building on it — bottom line,” said Andy Seybold, wireless analyst for Outlook 4Mobility. “Then, I’m told by Cyren Call that, if those [incumbent] guys won’t do it, we’re going to have other interested people in wireless coming in.

“So I’ve got a greenfield operator coming in at 700 MHz. He’s going to build out a voice and data network that he only has secondary use on, and he’s going to compete against Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile, which have 100% use of their frequencies. Now, if I’m a consumer, which network am I going to get on?”

Nguyen acknowledged that the question is legitimate, because it’s never been tested in the marketplace. But Knutson said the concerns are somewhat overblown and based on a perception of preemption in the circuit-switched world, where communications are blocked completely. That’s not the case in the IP environment in which this network would operate, where prioritization occurs on a packet level.

“In the IP world, it really turns into latency, and it’s more of a delay issue rather than a don’t-get-communication issue,” he said. “So, even though your bits might be delayed 30 seconds as opposed to getting a hard ‘failure; no network access’ message, in all likelihood, it’s going to go through at some point.”

Moreover, the Cyren Call model calls for commercial users to experience a 98% call-completion rate — the benchmark for commercial networks — even during heavy usage by public safety. In the case of a catastrophic incident like Sept. 11 or Hurricane Katrina, public safety could dominate the network, but Nguyen noted that commercial users in such incidents likely would try to flee the areas of devastation — and the corollary network congestion — rather than making calls using those base stations.

Meanwhile, Knutson believes the network’s survivability design will be very attractive to commercial users, given the failure rate of commercial networks during mega storms.

“Let’s look at it this way: The other networks are going to go down,” he said. “So, would you rather be on the most reliable network or the other network that is going to go down?”

BUSINESS PLAN REQUIRES 30 MHZ

<2 M public-safety subscribers 35 M mix subscribers1 >60 M commercial subscribers
Spectrum2 12 MHz 30 MHz 30 MHz
Services data and video Voice, data and video Voice, data and video
Usage profile3 Heavy public safety Mix of usage profiles Average commercial
Call completion rate 99.999% User type dependent 98%
Required ARPU4 ~$375 ~$60 Average commercial
1 Mix of 2 million public-safety subscribers, 6 million critical infrastructure subscribers and 27 million commercial subscribers
2 Contiguous paired spectrum in upper 700 MHz spectrum band
3 Heavy public-safety subscriber monthly usage: 1800 minutes of voice, 3100 megabytes of data. Average commercial usage: 900 minutes of voice, 300 megabytes of data
4 Estimated monthly service payment from each subscriber to finance deployment and operation of a broadband network with 37,000 cell sites and generate acceptable rates of return
Source: Cyren Call
Tags: content Policy Rebanding

Most Recent


  • AT&T wireless growth keyed by FirstNet—now provides 24,000 agencies with 4.4 million connections
    AT&T this week reported that FirstNet ended 2022 supporting more than 24,000 public-safety agencies with “about” 4.4 million connections, including 377,000 connections that were added during the last three months of 2022—a total that represents more than half of the carrier’s post-paid wireless growth for the quarter. AT&T officials released these figures in conjunction with […]
  • Report: Remote work causing offices to empty, but walkable cities still in high demand
    Given the reliance on vehicular transportation in the United States, some American cities historically haven’t prioritized being walkable in past planning and or design. But amid an unprecedented shift in the economy toward remote work, those that have are increasingly desirable for prospective residents. A new report from Smart Growth American and Places Platform, “Foot Traffic Ahead […]
  • Federal agencies infested by cyberattackers via legit remote-management systems
    It has come to light that hackers cleverly utilized two off-the-shelf remote monitoring and management systems (RMMs) to breach multiple Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agency networks in the US last summer. On Jan. 25, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) released […]
  • How 5G is making cities safer, smarter, and more efficient
    It’s a scenario we’ve all experienced: an ambulance with a blaring siren racing against time to get a person in medical distress to a hospital through traffic. What we don’t see is 5G connectivity enabling paramedics to communicate with hospital staff via video conference and coordinate care in real-time before arriving at the emergency room. […]

Leave a comment Cancel reply

To leave a comment login with your Urgent Comms account:

Log in with your Urgent Comms account

Or alternatively provide your name, email address below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Microsoft patches 6 zero-day vulnerabilities under active attack
  • The battle over connected cars drags on
  • U.S. must redefine critical infrastructure for the digital era
  • Prioritizing rapid restore leads to stronger ransomware-attack recovery

Commentary


How 5G is making cities safer, smarter, and more efficient

26th January 2023

3GPP moves Release 18 freeze date to March 2024

18th January 2023

Do smart cities make safer cities?

  • 1
6th January 2023
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


UrgentComm

AT&T wireless growth keyed by FirstNet—now provides 24,000 agencies with 4.4 million connections dlvr.it/ShY5qH

27th January 2023
UrgentComm

Report: Remote work causing offices to empty, but walkable cities still in high demand dlvr.it/ShXM7Z

27th January 2023
UrgentComm

AT&T FirstNet unleashes robotic dogs for emergency services dlvr.it/ShW7p8

27th January 2023
UrgentComm

Federal agencies infested by cyberattackers via legit remote-management systems dlvr.it/ShVhn3

26th January 2023
UrgentComm

How 5G is making cities safer, smarter, and more efficient dlvr.it/ShVS1h

26th January 2023
UrgentComm

MCPTT interworking for critical communications dlvr.it/ShTm3P

26th January 2023
UrgentComm

Self-driving cars present terrorism risk, FBI director says dlvr.it/ShTTHx

26th January 2023
UrgentComm

UK Home Office officially will cut ESN ties with Motorola Solutions in December dlvr.it/ShNjfN

24th January 2023

Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.