LA-RICS helped by 700 MHz narrowband order, set to begin LTE network deployment next week

The Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) welcomes spectrum aid provided in the FCC’s recent 700 MHz narrowband ruling, but more channels are needed for its new P25 system to match the capacity of its existing LMR network, according to LA-RICS Executive Director Patrick Mallon.

As part of last week’s report and order that eliminated 700 MHz narrowbanding requirements, the FCC ruled that public-safety licensees operating LMR networks on T-Band (470-512 MHz) spectrum should receive priority when applying for 24 reserve channels in the 700 MHz band. This prioritization was based on the fact that Congress mandated that LA-RICS and other public-safety T-Band licensee must vacate that spectrum by 2021.

Mallon said having the FCC prioritize T-Band users on the 24 700 MHz reserve channels—at 12.5 kHz channel widths—certainly will help LA-RICS, but adding this spectrum to the existing 100 channels the public-safety authority has at 700 MHz still puts it well short of the 600 channels available on T-Band spectrum. Earlier this year, LA-RICS asked the FCC to act quickly on its 2012 petition to use 96 reserve channels for its new LMR network.

“Even going to P25 Phase II [using 6.25 kHz channel widths], that’s still less than we currently have,” Mallon said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “It gets us closer, but only incrementally. We would need a fully functioning PSBN [public-safety broadband network] to support voice over LTE in order to migrate routine communications [to voice over broadband] and save the 700 MHz narrowband channels for critical [voice communications].”

With this in mind, LA-RICS next week is expected to begin construction of its public-safety LTE network on Band 14 700 MHz broadband spectrum that is being leased from FirstNet, Mallon said. By getting started soon, LA-RICS will be on schedule to complete its much-anticipated LTE network by September 2015, which is a condition of the $154.6 million federal grant that is being used to fund most of the project, he said. When completed, the 231-site network easily will be the largest public-safety LTE system in the United States.

In separate bids, Motorola Solutions won the contracts to build both the P25 and the LTE systems. Last year, LA-RICS signed a contract with Motorola Solutions to build the P25 network at a cost that could total $149.6 million, if all phases of the plan are deployed. In March, LA-RICS signed a $175 million deal with Motorola Solutions to build the LTE network.

In terms of its LMR project, LA-RICS has deployed P25 Phase II at seven sites already that required only minimal hardware adjustments, Mallon said.

“We were able to reuse existing antennas; we just replaced the transmitters,” he said. “Some optimization for that is supposed to begin next Monday. We hope that, by the December timeframe, we’ll be able to deploy some assets for proof of concept and do some demonstrations and actual training. Then, we hope to expand upon that in 2015.”

For the broadband project, local public-safety agencies were asked to decide whether to participate in the LTE system by next month, but the LA-RICs board extended that deadline to November 2015, Mallon said.

“It was extended an extra 12 months. That’s because potential users want to be able to kind of see the car and kick the tires,” he said. “It was recognized that it was very difficult for them to make an opt-out decision as to whether they were going to participate in the system—or not—before the system was fully built.”