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39–839 PDF 2008

OVERSIGHT OF THE NATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION

AND INNOVATIONS IN INTEROPERABILITY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND

THE INTERNET

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND

COMMERCE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 22, 2007

Serial No. 110–24

(

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce

energycommerce.house.gov
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan, Chairman

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey

BART GORDON, Tennessee

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois

ANNA G. ESHOO, California

BART STUPAK, Michigan

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York

ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland

GENE GREEN, Texas

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado

Vice Chairman

LOIS CAPPS, California

MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania

JANE HARMAN, California

TOM ALLEN, Maine

JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

HILDA L. SOLIS, California

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas

JAY INSLEE, Washington

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

JIM MATHESON, Utah

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana

JOHN BARROW, Georgia

BARON P. HILL, Indiana

JOE BARTON, Texas

Ranking Member

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois

FRED UPTON, Michigan

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois

HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona

CHARLES W. ‘‘CHIP’’ PICKERING,

Mississippi

VITO FOSSELLA, New York

STEVE BUYER, Indiana

GEORGE RADANOVICH, California

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania

MARY BONO, California

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

DENNIS B. FITZGIBBONS, Chief of Staff

GREGG A. ROTHSCHILD, Chief Counsel

SHARON E. DAVIS, Chief Clerk

BUD ALBRIGHT, Minority Staff Director

(II)
(III)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts, Chairman

MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania

Vice Chairman

JANE HARMAN, California

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas

JAY INSLEE, Washington

BARON P. HILL, Indiana

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

FRANK PALLONE, JR, New Jersey

BART GORDON, Tennessee

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois

ANNA G. ESHOO, California

BART STUPAK, Michigan

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York

GENE GREEN, Texas

LOIS CAPPS, California

HILDA L. SOLIS, California

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan, (ex officio)

FRED UPTON, Michigan

Ranking Member

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois

HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico

CHARLES W. ‘‘CHIP’’ PICKERING,

Mississippi

VITO FOSELLA, New York

GEORGE RADANOVICH, California

MARY BONO, California

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey

JOE BARTON, Texas, (ex officio)

(V)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Barton, Hon. Joe, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas,

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 12

Capps, Hon. Lois, a Representative in Congress from the State of California,

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 14

Dingell, Hon. John D., a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, prepared statement ...................................................................................... 11

Doyle, Hon. Mike, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth

of Pennsylvania, opening statement ................................................................... 9

Engel, Hon. Eliot L., a Representative in Congress from the State of New

York, opening statement ...................................................................................... 8

Eshoo, Hon. Anna G., a Representative in Congress from the State of California, prepared statement ...................................................................................... 11

Green, Hon. Gene, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas,

opening statement ................................................................................................ 5

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 6

Harman, Hon. Jane, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, opening statement ........................................................................................ 4

Hastert, Hon. J. Dennis, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Illinois, prepared statement ................................................................................ 13

Markey, Hon. Edward J., a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, opening statement .................................................... 1

Solis, Hon. Hilda L., a Representative in Congress from the State of California, opening statement ........................................................................................ 10

Upton, Hon. Fred, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan,

opening statement ................................................................................................ 3

WITNESSES

Devine, Steve, patrol frequency coordinator, Missouri State Highway Patrol

Communications Division, Jefferson City, MO .................................................. 90

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 93

Kneuer, John M.R., Assistant Secretary, Communications and Information,

and Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce .............................................................. 16

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 18

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 118

McEwen, Harlin, vice chairman, National Public Safety Telecommunications

Council, Ithaca, NY .............................................................................................. 58

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 60

O’Brien, Morgan, chairman, Cyren Call Communications Corporation,

McLean, VA .......................................................................................................... 69

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 71

Rittenhouse, George, senior vice president for technology integration, Bell

Labs, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ .............................................. 53

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 55

Tucker, Mark L., chairman, CoCo Communications Corporation, Seattle, WA . 102

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 103

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Brito, Jerry, senior research fellow, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, statement ........................................................................... 125
Page

VI

Kneuer, John M.R., Assistant Secretary, Communications and Information,

and Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, letter of March 1, 2007, to Mr.

Engel ..................................................................................................................... 153

Peha, Jon M., professor, electrical engineering and public policy; associate

director, Center for Wireless & Broadband Networking, Carnegie Mellon

University, statement .......................................................................................... 135
(1)

OVERSIGHT OF THE NATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION AND INNOVATIONS IN

INTEROPERABILITY

THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2007

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS

AND THE INTERNET,

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:10 a.m., in room

2322 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward J. Markey (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Members present: Representatives Doyle, Harman, Gonzalez,

Inslee, Rush, Eshoo, Stupak, Engel, Green, Capps, Solis, Upton,

Hastert, Stearns, Shimkus, Wilson, Fossella, Terry, Ferguson and

Barton [ex officio].

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH

OF MASSACHUSETTS

Mr. MARKEY. Good morning. The subject of today’s oversight

hearing is the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. In the last Congress NTIA’s job description was expanded to include the administration of two new billion dollar

grant programs. First, NTIA has been charged with running the

Digital TV Converter Coupon Box Program to help ensure that

analog televisions will not go dark on consumers after the DTV

transition on February 17, 2009. And second, NTIA is responsible

for administering the Public Safety Interoperable Communications

Grant Program, which will distribute $1 billion in grant payments.

Let me start with the DTV Converter Box Coupon Program. To

ensure that millions of televisions do not go dark on February 17,

2009, Congress created a $1.5 billion fund which NTIA will use to

distribute two $40 coupons per household to subsidize the purchase

of digital-to-analog converter boxes. Yet NTIA recently placed an

important restriction on coupon availability. For the first $990 million of the funding, any consumer can obtain a coupon. After that,

however, only consumers who live in exclusively over-the-air television households are eligible.

For a transition that has significant consumer education hurdles

to overcome, arbitrarily changing consumer eligibility in the midst

of the program will simply lead to greater consumer confusion.

Moreover, it will unfairly disenfranchise millions of consumers who
2

subscribe to cable or satellite service but who also possess perfectly

functional analog televisions. And let us remember that these televisions, which consumers bought in the tens of millions over the

last several years, typically last 15 to 20 years. As a practical matter, the eligibility limitation is virtually impossible to implement.

I would note that NTIA decided not to limit eligibility for the first $990 million because there is no cost-effective means to identify exclusively over-the-air households. In fact NTIA itself, observed that trying to do so would ‘‘likely delay reasonable and timely distribution of coupons and result in waste, fraud and abuse.’’

Yet, after the Bush administration’s Office of Management and

Budget ill-advisedly revised the proposal, NTIA reversed course

and limited eligibility for the remainder of the funding. Why? Apparently because the Bush administration is concerned that $1.5

billion may be inadequate.

Chairman John Dingell and I and other Democratic colleagues

urged the administration and our Republican colleagues to ensure

sufficient funding in the last Congress so that we wouldn’t face precisely this situation. If the administration is now concerned enough

to restrict eligibility out of fear that funding may be insufficient,

it should have to come to Congress and asked for more money. Instead, the administration limited eligibility of the coupons in a

manner that may leave millions of Americans with new fishbowls,

end tables and doorstops.

I am also not convinced that NTIA’s consumer education efforts

will adequately inform consumers about the coupon program. To a

certain extent, NTIA is limited because Congress itself limited the

consumer education funds to a mere $5 million. On the other hand,

NTIA has not asked for more funding. Rather, the administration

appears to be overly reliant on the Internet and the good graces of

industry to get the job done.

Web sites can certainly be a powerful tool, assuming a consumer

knows a transition is underway in the first place in order to look

for information online. It also presumes that the consumer has a

computer. Since the GAO has told us that about one half of the 21

million over-the-air households earn less than $30,000 a year, I

think it is a safe bet that the most challenging consumers to reach

are the least likely to be surfing the Web for information. In other

words, if these households find cable too expensive and otherwise

qualify for food stamps, do we really think they own computers?

I note that other groups, including the disability community,

have expressed concerns about outreach, notably, the lack of any

commitment to provide closed captioning for public service announcements or to offer telecom relay service on consumer education hotlines. And while NTIA has publicly stated that it is collaborating with industry and public interest groups, it has no written public plan for directing the consumer education campaign.

And finally, with respect to the new Interoperability Grant Program, our overarching goal is to ensure that all of the Nation’s first

responders will be able to communicate in time of crisis. NTIA is

the expert agency in telecommunications and in spectrum issues.

Congress charged NTIA, not the Department of Homeland Security, with administering this program so we could get some new

thinking. We could have sent the money to the Department of
3

Homeland Security, but we didn’t. We wanted NTIA, with its telecommunications and spectrum-based expertise, to fund innovative,

cost-effective solutions to interoperability.

We look forward to working with the NTIA to ensure that this

is how the program works. Let me turn now and recognize the gentleman from Michigan, the ranking member, Mr. Upton.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Mr. UPTON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you,

and I want to thank our witnesses for testifying today on this very

important issue. And I also appreciated, in my tenure as chairman,

the bipartisanship, attention and time and support that we received on this DTV transition.

At the heart of this concern was the immediate post–9/11 realization that our mission was to get the long promised 24 MHz of spectrum in the upper 700 MHz band clean to the broadcasters by a

date certain and once and for all into the hands of public safety for

interoperability. In fact, clearing that 24 MHz was precisely the

task which the bipartisan 9/11 Commission and its recommendations to the Congress also recognized as mission critical to our

homeland security.

Yet, despite the moral imperative, it still took years of planning,

countless roundtables and hearings, discussion drafts and negotiations and addressing fears of turning folks’ televisions off, the dark

side, to finally get to the passage of the DTV Act last Congress. Individually, each local broadcaster had to invest significant sums,

often millions of dollars, to make that transition, not to mention

the added energy and insurance costs for operating both the analog

and digital facilities at the same time.

And they are ready. Our local broadcasters are to be commended

for doing their part. Had it not been for their hard work and sacrifice, this transition would not have been possible. And we worked

shoulder to shoulder with public safety to finally clear the major

milestone in this mission and even added value by creating the $1

billion public safety interoperability grant program to be funded

with cash on the barrel head out of the DTV spectrum auction proceeds.

Of course, while we resolved to clear broadcasters to get the 24

MHz into the hands of public safety by a date certain, this will not

happen by simply waving that magic wand. There is a plan in

place. It is a carefully calibrated plan to ensure that this DTV transition occurs by a date certain. There may be some things we could

do to improve consumer education, for sure, passing the BartonHastert-Upton-almost Markey bill, since the Senate stripped some

of our provisions.

But make no mistake, if we alter any of the fundamental pillars

of the DTV Act plan, like the auction date or the spectrum allowance allocations, we, in fact, will jeopardize the 24 MHz of public

safety spectrum and $10 billion in auction proceeds, I think it will

be more than that, which fund the billion dollar public safety grant

program and the converter box subsidies. The stakes are too high

to gamble and we have come too far to risk straying from that wellplotted course.
4

I would like also to take a moment to touch upon the NTIA converter box program. As a complement to the NTIA plan, cable operators have said that they could provide consumers with a low-cost

set-top box that among other things can make digital signals,

broadcast signals, viewable on analog TVs. Unfortunately, the

FCC’s Media Bureau recently denied certain waivers from the integrated set-top box rule, which will have the result of forcing consumers to pay $2 to $3 more each month to lease a set-top box that

offers no new features.

And I think that the integration band is a bad idea, but when

viewed in the context of the Government’s strong interest in promoting an efficient transition to DTV, with minimal consumer impact, it is even worse. We should be looking for ways to make it

less expensive, not more expensive, for consumers to make the

transition to digital.

I look forward to hearing from our two panels this morning. I am

proud that we were successful in not only passing the DTV Act last

Congress, but we also provided a helping hand to enable our first

responders to better protect the American people. And at this point,

Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent to submit, for the

record, along with my colleague and friend, Ms. Harman, the written testimony of Jerry Brito, the senior research fellow at the

Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and also in the

record, again, with my colleague, Ms. Harman, the testimony of

John Peha, professor at Carnegie Mellon University of Electro-engineering, into the record and press releases praising this.

Ms. HARMAN. Will the gentleman yield to me?

Mr. UPTON. I would be glad to yield.

Ms. HARMAN. I am happy to join in this request, but I do want

the record to show that I do not agree with some of the conclusions

reached in this material, but I do think the record should be as full

as possible with respect to some cautions about how we go forward.

Mr. UPTON. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. Without objection, those materials will be included in the record.

The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JANE HARMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Ms. HARMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn’t realize I had

arrived, I guess, before my esteemed colleague over here. Well,

thank you. I did, I did. Good morning to all. I have to watch him

all the time. Welcome to our witnesses, and apologies in advance

for leaving by 10 o’clock because I have to chair another hearing.

Our Nation has a serious interoperability problem, and I am

more and more frustrated with our failure to correct it. Five and

a half years after 9/11 we are at risk of the same devastating communications failures that killed hundreds of firefighters in the

World Trade Center who didn’t know the towers had begun to glow

red and who couldn’t hear the evacuation order issued over police

radios located in helicopters flying overhead. The DTV transition

and the release of 24 MHz of spectrum for public safety is an unprecedented step in the right direction. As co-author of the Hero

Act, which was introduced in 2001, I had hoped this transition
5

would occur when Congress promised it, in late last year, but now

I am determined to be sure it occurs in 2009.

As our witnesses know, spectrum is only half the battle. The next

step is ensuring that public safety has the robust networks to communicate during emergency responses, both large and small. The

fact that private citizens have access to such networks while police

officers, firefighters and EMTs don’t is a sad and tragic commentary. Many of the ideas, systems and technologies we will hear

about today are promising. They show great promise on the technology side. But we need to ensure that regional systems work together; that local and regional solutions do not bring us farther

away from a national solution. There is a risk that the $1 billion Public Safety Interoperable

Communications Grant Program, which may grow even larger if

the adds that the Senate made to H.R. 1 become law, there is a

risk that it could improve communications operability at the expense of interoperability. This is unacceptable. We don’t need a

welfare program, we don’t need a broadcaster relief program. What

we need is a public safety program, and this member of this committee, who is also a member of the Homeland Security Committee,

is going to keep on keeping on until we keep that promise to our

public by 2009. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MARKEY. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Terry.

Mr. TERRY. I waive.

Mr. MARKEY. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Ferguson.

Mr. FERGUSON. I waive.

Mr. MARKEY. Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr.

Green.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GENE GREEN, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to thank

my colleagues, and I apologize because I can’t be here because I

have an Ethics Committee meeting at 10 o’clock and hopefully we

will get our earmarks taken care of so some of us won’t be in trouble if we request something for our districts, but I would like my

full statement placed into the record.

Mr. Chairman, I want to welcome Mr. Kneuer, and I guess when

the transition to digital television was discussed and passed in

2005, I had concerns about it at that time, and I still have those

concerns. There wasn’t enough money allocated to provide everyone

with coupons for a converter box or the standards of the boxes were

just released recently, just last week. And I believe the concern I

think a lot of us share was taking away public airwaves, which currently carries signals to millions of televisions and selling that

spectrum, but we don’t know if those folks will still get their television reception.

Up until February 28 you could still go buy an analog television

set, and unless we provide folks, like in my district, how they are

going to receive that. I have a district that is very low in cable penetration, and as our chairman said, if they don’t have cable, they

definitely typically don’t have computer access. So I am looking for-
6

ward to NTIA’s plan to ensure that people who have analog television sets are notified because of how important television is to us

for emergency broadcasting and lots of other things.

Like I said, cable penetration is very low in my district, and the

number of homes with Internet access is even lower than that. The

taking away of the spectrum ensures that their televisions will not

be working on February 28, 2009, and I hope we can deal with that

between now and then. I know we need a hard date, but I also

know that there is a lot to be done. I have to remember that Congressman Walden from Oregon, about 3 years ago when we first

started talking about, it said why don’t we make the retailers put

a statement on these saying this is the hard date. If you buy this

analog TV, you may have to purchase a converter. I don’t know

where that is at in the process. We need a lot of consumer information, and it is already too late to do that because they can’t buy

analog TVs now, but let me tell you how many people bought those

$200 large analog TV sets.

The Public Safety Interoperable Communications Program is another important part. Having lived through 9/11, Katrina and Rita

in the Gulf Coast area, we know we have a patchwork system and

the challenge is unique, and unlike commercial use, emergency response systems must work in burning buildings, during natural

disasters and under other extreme circumstances. I am concerned

without planning and oversight the billion in interoperability

grants NTIA is overseeing would do nothing more than purchase

new radios for police cars and fire trucks.

And I particularly follow the efforts of my hometown, Houston,

which is making efforts to ensure that a state of the art interoperable communications system will provide public service agencies

with a reliable system for the foreseeable future. The Houston metropolitan area is comprised of 10 counties, it spans 9,000 square

miles, with a combined population of 5.3 million; 41 percent of

those folks only reside in the city of Houston within the 640 square

miles, the fourth largest city situated almost entirely within the

Nation’s third largest county.

We have the Port of Houston critical infrastructure and petrochemical area, a large medical center and our commercial assets.

Since 2003 Houston has worked to implement a comprehensive

plan, not just within the city of Houston, but across the region, and

our long-term goal is to migrate to the 700 MHz radio system for

the public safety. It will go from not just the Houston area but

around the region and cover a 13-county area. That is just one of

the problems we have in our country, and I know New York, Newark, everywhere else; LA, Long Beach, you name it, so again, I look

forward to NTIA’s solution to this and your testimony. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Green follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. GENE GREEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM

THE STATE OF TEXAS

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this oversight hearing with the NTIA. I look

forward to hearing from the witnesses on the status of the DTV transition and the

Public Safety Interoperable Communications Program.

The transition to digital television is something I was opposed to when it was

passed in 2005, and I still have many concerns.
7

There wasn’t enough money allocated to provide everyone who needs a converter

box with coupons to subsidize those boxes—the standards for the boxes were released late, just last week actually—and the distribution system of offering vouchers

in two stages seems too complicated for many consumers to understand without

proper notification, which there hasn’t been.

It is unbelievable that we are taking away public airwaves—which currently carry

signals to millions of televisions across this country—selling that spectrum, and not

providing every American person who has an analog television with a voucher so

they can keep using their television. Some of these televisions could have been purchased as recently as last year.

I want to hear NTIA’s plan to ensure the people who have analog televisions are

notified of this program and the consumers who don’t have cable, or Internet, are

aware of the transition and that these coupons are available.

Cable penetration in the 29th district of Texas, the district I represent, is low.

The number of homes with Internet access is low as well. How are these households

going to know they need to apply for a coupon that will only cover about two-thirds

of the price of a converter box so they can keep using their televisions?

We are taking spectrum away from the American people and not making it right

by ensuring their televisions will be working on February 18, 2009.

I don’t believe all this falls on NTIA because they have to work with what they

were given, which was flawed to begin with, but I am concerned they aren’t doing

all they can to ensure the households that most need the vouchers will know about

them or how to apply for them.

The Public Safety Interoperable Communications Program is another important

issue I look forward to hearing testimony on.

The need for more interoperable communications systems has become apparent

with 9/11, Katrina, Rita, and other disaster response efforts across the country.

We have a patchwork system that works at times and at other times is unpredictable. The challenges are unique, and unlike commercial use, emergency response

systems must work in burning buildings, in natural disasters, and under other extreme, unpredictable circumstances. I am concerned without planning and oversight, the $1 billion in interoperability

grants NTIA is overseeing will do nothing more than go to purchase new radios for

police cars and fire trucks.

I applaud the work and monetary investment my hometown of Houston is making

to ensure they have a state-of-the-art, interoperable communications system that

will provide public service agencies with a reliable system for the foreseeable future.

The Houston Metropolitan Statistical Area is comprised of 10 counties that span

nearly 9,000 square miles with a combined population of 5.3 million residents. More

than 41 percent of these residents reside within the corporate limits of the city of

Houston, a 640-square mile urban area that is the fourth largest city in the Nation,

situated almost entirely within the Nation’s third largest county.

The region has a high density of critical infrastructure, including the Port of

Houston, the petrochemical industry, the largest medical center in the world, and

extensive commercial assets.

Since 2003, Houston has worked to implement a comprehensive plan to improve

interoperability with adjacent jurisdictions. This plan includes short and long-term

objectives that address both tactical and full interoperability.

Houston’s long-term goal is to migrate to a 700 MHz trunked radio system for

Houston public safety agencies that provides full interoperability with the Harris

County regional radio system and State and Federal agencies.

This project will maximize public safety radio interoperability in the 13-county region surrounding the city of Houston and will achieve the highest level of interoperability on the SafeCom Interoperability Continuum, with both a standards-based,

shared system and daily use throughout the region.

The city of Houston has achieved tactical interoperable communications but faces

multi-million dollar projects to achieve the goal of full interoperability.

Grants should not be distributed in small amounts that patch together old existing technology but should be distributed on a risk-based system with priority given

to entities that are investing their own money to create fully interoperable systems.

I hope Secretary Kneuer and NTIA agree that this is the kind of interoperability

we need to aim for with this grant program.

Thank you again Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing, and I welcome our witnesses and look forward to their testimony.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. Speaker

Hastert.
8

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to yield back my

time, if I could insert my statement into the record.

Mr. MARKEY. Without objection.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez.

Mr. GONZALEZ. I will waive.

Mr. MARKEY. He waives. The gentleman from New York, Mr.

Engel.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ELIOT L. ENGEL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW

YORK

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank

you for holding this hearing, and I want to welcome Assistant Secretary Kneuer to the committee today. I want to add my voice to

the frustration that Ms. Harman mentioned in terms of interoperability. Representing New York City and the suburbs, we obviously

feel the most pain about what happened in 9/11, and it is very frustrating that so many years later we are really not up to where we

should be, and I think we really, really need to move much more

quickly on this.

It grieves us, every life that was lost, but obviously there were

lives that were lost that didn’t have to be if we had had an interoperability system that most of us thought we really had until we

learned sadly that we did not, so it is unconscionable, I think, that

more than 5 years later we are still not up to where we should be.

But I would first like to start by thanking the Secretary for assisting with New York’s eligibility for the Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program. The city of New York has

made enormous investments in the 400 MHz portion of the spectrum to ensure reliable first responder communications. There has

been some concern that the Department of Commerce’s eligibility

guidelines could be limited to systems that use the 700 MHz range.

I raised this concern with Secretary Kneuer, and he sent me a letter guaranteeing an interpretation of the language to allow systems

that do not operate on a 700 MHz range like New York to receive

funding, so I want to mention that because I think it is significant.

I ask the Chair for unanimous consent to submit this letter into

the record.

Mr. MARKEY. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to acknowledge that NTIA has recently awarded funding to the Metropolitan Television Alliance for the first phase of the New York City

9/11 Digital Transition Project. I know that there was some difficulty determining the grant guidance and thank the NTIA for resolving the issue. I must say, though, that I hope, in the future,

programs like these don’t take quite as long as this one did to administer.

Last week this committee had the opportunity to hear testimony

from the FCC Commissioners, and we obviously had opportunity to

ask them a number of questions. One issue that I felt was important to address was the status of the DTV transition. Chairman

Martin pointed out that the FCC shares the responsibility of educating the consumer about this transition with the NTIA, that it

wasn’t solely an FCC responsibility. NTIA has been tasked with
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the important role of administering the Digital TV Transition Converter Box Coupon Program, a program that, in my opinion, has

been severely under-funded and continues to be severely underfunded.

When you look at other countries, other cities, international cities, they are spending much more money for much less people that

really have to have this transition, and I don’t believe we are

spending adequate money for this at all. The thoughtful and responsible implementation of the converter box coupon program is

an essential piece of the success of the DTV transition, so with

great interest, I want to hear what plans Mr. Kneuer has for the

program and most importantly, learning about NTIA’s consumer

outreach efforts.

Finally, I intend to ask Mr. Kneuer questions regarding NTIA’s

responsibility to administer the Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program. This program is very relevant to New

York and to the United States, and I look forward to learning

about the plans for the program, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank the gentleman. Chair recognizes the

gentlelady from New Mexico, Mrs. Wilson.

Mrs. WILSON. I will pass, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MARKEY. Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania,

Mr. Doyle.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE DOYLE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. DOYLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I begin, I would

like to thank Mr. Upton for having the comments of Dr. John Peha,

an alumnus of this committee’s staff and a professor of electrical

engineering and public policy and director of the Center for Wireless and Broadband Networking at Carnegie Mellon University and

also a constituent of mine, into the record, so thanks, Fred.

Mr. UPTON. Do you agree with his conclusions, as well?

Mr. DOYLE. Yes, I actually agree with a lot of these conclusions.

Mr. Chairman, I also won’t be able to make the second half of this

hearing, so while I will address my questions for Assistant Secretary Kneuer in a moment, I want to take some time to talk about

the second panel.

Members of the subcommittee will recall my commitment to protecting local resources and making sure that decisions are made

where they are best made. I worked hard on the COPE Act last

year to achieve those results, and I will continue to do so when

needed, which is why I am glad we have Mr. Devine on today’s

panel to talk about his efforts to coordinate Missouri’s public safety

airwaves for interoperability across the State and with its neighbors.

Spectrum itself is nearly infinite, but in terms of what is usable,

what is worth investing in, it is much more limited. When you get

up around 90 or 100 gigahertz, it is about as valuable as the London Bridge is in Arizona, which is why we must challenge everyone

who uses our airwaves to do so in the most efficient way possible.

And that is why efforts to make public safety’s communications
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interoperable, redundant and more effective are so crucial to our

Nation’s first responders and ultimately to the American public.

Gone are the days when people who don’t understand technology,

are given choices between inefficient and expensive dead-end radios. Mr. Chairman, I see our time is short today, but we must

take the best of what we have learned from the commercial space,

like interoperability and cost-effective technology and merge it with

the best of public safety’s communications legacy, such as rock solid

dependency. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. The gentleman

from Illinois, Mr. Shimkus.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I will just waive.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentlelady from California, Ms. Solis.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HILDA L. SOLIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Ms. SOLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also thank you Ranking Member Upton for holding this very important hearing today.

I want to thank the witnesses, also, for being here and providing

us testimony later today. I am particularly interested in two specific topics.

First I am eager to hear about the NTIA and what they are

doing to ensure that consumers are educated about the digital television coupon program well in advance of the 2009 deadline.

Households with over-the-air television sets and no cable or satellite service are disproportionately low-income, Spanish-speaking

and in many cases, underrepresented minority groups. I hope that

Assistant Secretary Kneuer will address outreach efforts to these

households with limited Internet access and in particular, to language barriers that exist and hopefully outline more creative solutions to ensure that these consumers are not left behind in the digital transition.

And then second, I am looking forward to learning more about

the public safety interoperability grants to local communities.

Many of the cities that I represent in Los Angeles have applied for

grants to achieve interoperability with their neighboring communities. In fact, the city of West Covina provided a real life example

of the regional interoperability problems they and other cities in

the San Gabriel Valley are facing.

Last April the city of West Covina’s SWAT Team responded to

a bank robbery situation in the city of Baldwin Park, which is

neighboring, to assist the city’s police. But despite standing right

next to each other, the officers could not use their radios to communicate and had to, instead, call in to their respective dispatch centers to communicate. The U.S. Conference of Mayors found, in a recent survey, that over a 1-year period, 44 percent of the cities reported that the lack of interoperable communications made the response to a public safety incident requiring multi-agency response

very, very difficult.

And in California, as you know, wildfires and earthquakes are a

constant threat to our citizens’ public safety, and we can’t wait 20

years for the first responders to become interoperable. We have to

do more to ensure that all our cities, towns, rich and poor, rural
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and urban, are able to achieve interoperability in the near future.

Again, thank you for being here, and I look forward to your responses. Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY. All right, the gentlelady’s time has expired, as has

all time for statements by the subcommittee members. Other statements for the record will be accepted.

[The prepared statements follow:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. DINGELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS

FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important oversight hearing. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the U.S. Department

of Commerce is the executive branch’s expert agency on telecommunications and information services. As such, it is important that NTIA come before this Committee

to offer its insights into the state of telecommunications in our great Nation.

First, I am curious to know what specific policies the executive branch has put

in place to serve the telecommunications needs of all Americans. For example, does

NTIA believe that everyone in the country has access to universal, affordable, and

robust broadband services? If not, what specific action is NTIA taking to fill in the

gaps? In the past, NTIA has produced meaningful research into the digital divide

and the level of minority media ownership. I would like to know why these efforts

have fallen off in recent years.

Second, I am interested in NTIA’s stewardship of the digital television transition

converter box coupon program. All of us would like to see the transition take place

on time. NTIA, however, took more than a year to release rules for the program,

and the rules contain a major defect. Ignoring the congressional debate and conventional wisdom about the cost and difficulties with eligibility restrictions, the rules

restrict the latter portion of the funding to over-the-air households only. As a result

of this short-sighted approach, millions of Americans, whose analog sets will no

longer work after the transition, could be denied participation in the coupon program. NTIA’s decisions will prove an important measure of how successful the transition will be for American families. If the administration believes it will take additional funding to prevent televisions from going dark by the Government-mandated

transition, it should make such a request to the Congress.

Third, I have concerns about NTIA using its role in working with the Internet

Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to better promote an effective, open, and transparent process for all parties for the governance and security

of the Internet.

The second panel in today’s hearing addresses public safety communications interoperability. The need for interoperability was vividly displayed during the devastating destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. In 2005, as first

responders rushed to the Gulf Coast in the terrible aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,

the need for reliable communications among first responders from across the country became an immediate and real issue witnessed by all of America.

The Department of Homeland Security has been funding efforts for interoperability for several years. After $3 billion and 5 years, some progress apparently has

been made at the local and State level. But I believe not enough progress has been

made. We need a more forward-looking and innovative approach to a problem that

has persisted for too long.

I thank the chairman for holding this hearing, and I look forward to the testimony

of the witnesses.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ANNA G. ESHOO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS

FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Thank you Mr. Chairman and welcome Assistant Secretary Kneuer.

One of the issues your agency has jurisdiction over which is of concern to me is

the administration of grants to promote the upgrade of 9–1–1 emergency call centers

and the location tracking information they’re able to receive from callers in distress.

Along with Rep. Shimkus I’m the House co-chair of the Congressional E9–1–1

Caucus, which works with public safety and industry to promote the adoption of advanced E9–1–1 technology to ensure that all 9–1–1 callers can be located by emergency assistance when they call 9–1–1.

The ENHANCE 911 Act, signed into law by President Bush in 2004, is designed

to speed enhanced 911 implementation and improve coordination among all levels
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of government by providing funds to address and promote best practices and technology innovations.

The law authorizes $250 million in matching grants for States and local governments, but the last Congress failed to appropriate funds for this important program.

As in previous years, the President did not provide funds for the program in his

Budget.

Last month the Senate Commerce Committee authorized $43.5 million for the

Joint E9–1–1 Program Office as part of the Senate 9/11 legislation, and last week

Rep. Shimkus and I wrote to the CJS and Transportation Appropriations Subcommittees requesting funding.

I’m hopeful we’ll be successful in securing funding for the E9–1–1 Office this year,

and I’m eager to hear what plans are underway to lay the groundwork for the success of the program.

I’m also interested to learn more about the public safety interoperability grant

program which you administer along with the Department of Homeland Security.

During the consideration of 9/11 legislation earlier this year, I raised an important issue related to the need to ensure the grant program is not limited solely to

new hardware purchases that facilitate interoperability.

I think it’s imperative to ensure that the interoperability grants are not solely focused on ‘‘equipment’’ that enables interoperability for voice communications among

responders in the field but also IP-based solutions, including providing grants for

software, middleware and network-based solutions that enable interoperable voice

and data communications among individuals and organizations.

I look forward to discussing these issues with you, and I yield back the balance

of my time.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOE BARTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM

THE STATE OF TEXAS

Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this NTIA oversight hearing.

I’ll start off by thanking Assistant Secretary Kneuer for releasing the NTIA rules

on the digital-to-analog converter box program. The rules were universally applauded by the broadcast, consumer electronics, cable, and retail industries and by

me. Under the rules, all U.S. households that feel they need a subsidized converter

box may request one or even two, and the cost will be subsidized from the first $990

million allocated to the program. If it becomes necessary to tap the remaining $510

million, only homes that get their television signals exclusively over the air will be

eligible. That’s to ensure that converter boxes go to those who really need them.

It should not be necessary to access that additional money, however. Broadcasters

tell us that only 25 percent of exclusively over-the-air homes and only 15 percent

of cable and satellite homes will feel they need a subsidized converter box. Overthe-air homes tend to have two televisions and cable or satellite homes tend to have

one television that is not connected to the pay service. Using the broadcasters’ projections and the 2005 FCC estimates of the number of over-the-air, cable, and satellite homes, we should need 21.6 million subsidized boxes. We can easily exceed

that figure by nearly a million boxes using just the initial $990 million allocated

to the program, which can fund 22.5 million converters, including administrative

costs. And the consumer electronics industry—the ones actually building and selling

the boxes—thinks the demand will be considerably smaller. I’d also like to point out

that starting now, anyone who wants to buy their own $60 converter box could accumulate the requisite wealth before the transition date by feeding their piggy banks

a dime a day.

Turning to interoperable communications, I urge Secretary Kneuer to continue his

focus on the public safety grant program we created in the DTV legislation last Congress. Using NTIA’s considerable telecommunications expertise and lessons learned

from the mistakes of others, this $1 billion could go a long way to ensuring our firefighters, police and other first responders can communicate with each other—and

with us—when we need them most. I was also glad to see that NTIA is consulting

with the Department of Homeland Security, as we required, and making the most

of DHS’s administrative resources to minimize burdens on public safety officials,

while retaining ultimate decision-making authority.

I am also eager to hear from our second panel on how we can best maximize that

money and the 24 MHz of spectrum we have given to public safety. The proposals

appear to require varying degrees of funding, spectrum, and disruption to the balances we struck in the DTV legislation. We must determine which of these proposals, or others, most effectively address the interoperability problem.
13

I yield back.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. J. DENNIS HASTERT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to welcome the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, NTIA’s Administrator, Mr. Kneuer, here today. I look forward to getting an update on the converter-box program and to hearing from the second panel on how

best to use the money and spectrum allocated to public safety.

As part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, Congress passed the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act. It ensures a smooth transition from analog

to digital for Americans. It provides up to $1.5 billion to support the digital-to-analog converter box program. I want to applaud Mr. Kneuer for recently releasing

rules that will make coupons available to all Americans and for working closely with

industry to determine the specifications for the converter boxes, as well as coupon

distribution, consumer redemption, and retailer reimbursement.

The DRA also makes $5 million available for DTV consumer education. This was

just one of several consumer education provisions in the original language of the legislation. Unfortunately, the other provisions were stripped by the Senate on procedural grounds. Mr. Barton, Mr. Upton and I have introduced H.R. 608, the DTV

Consumer Education Act of 2007, to replace these important consumer education

provisions. Additionally, I am pleased that the cable, broadcast, consumer electronics and retail industries have launched their own consumer education campaigns.

Additionally, I want to highlight that the DRA freed 24 MHz of spectrum for public safety, as recommended by the 9/11 Commission. It also created a $1 billion

grant program to help public safety deploy new interoperable communications systems. This will allow local, county, state, and Federal public safety agencies the

ability to communicate with each other across all jurisdictions. To ensure public

safety receives these benefits and make our Nation safer, it is critically important

to preserve the February 17, 2009, DTV transition date and ensure that the auction

proceeds on schedule.

Thank you, and I yield back my time.
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Mr. MARKEY. Our first witness is John Kneuer, who is the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, National

Telecommunications and Information Administration. We welcome

you, sir. Please begin whenever you feel comfortable.

STATEMENT OF JOHN M.R. KNEUER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY,

COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION, NATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION,

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Mr. KNEUER. Thank you, Chairman Markey, Ranking Member

Upton, Speaker Hastert, members of the subcommittee. If my full

written statement will be made part of the record, I will just summarize.

Mr. MARKEY. Without objection, your full written statement will

be included in the record.

Mr. KNEUER. And I won’t summarize my entire testimony, but I

do want to talk about three areas of particular interest to the committee and also to the American people.

First, I would like to address the two large programs related to

the DTV transition that we have responsibility for: the Public Safety Interoperability Communications Grant Program and the DTV

Converter Box Program. I would briefly like to talk about the administration’s comprehensive broadband policies and the progress

we have been making towards maintaining the most innovative

and competitive broadband marketplace in the world.

The Balanced Budget Act of 2005, as amended by the Call Home

Act, entrusts NTIA with unprecedented operational and grant making responsibilities. In meeting these responsibilities and implementing these programs, I have been guided by three main tenets:

the intent of Congress, as reflected in the plain language of the

statute and the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD; the input of the impacted

constituencies as developed in our administrative record; and the

core expertise and judgment of the experts within the agency.

I welcome this opportunity to engage the committee in a dialog

about these programs. I am confident that working together, we

can ensure the completion of the DTV transition is a success for all

Americans. The most important public policy outcome of the completion of the DTV transition is the delivery of critical resources to

first responders. The end of the analog TV transmission will free

up 24 MHz of critical spectrum, and the PSIC program will deliver

$1 billion in auction revenue to first responders.

As you are aware, NTIA has executed an MOU with the Department of Homeland Security to procure certain grant making capabilities and consistent with congressional guidance to coordinate

policies, plans to ensure that this program does not conflict with

other ongoing public safety interoperability programs. That being

said, the MOU makes it explicitly clear that all final decision making authority, all accountability, reside within the Department of

Commerce.

I am personally committed to ensuring that the communications

policy and technology expertise of NTIA be brought to bear to ensure that public safety agencies around the country have the flexibility to leverage powerful new technologies to achieve the most efficient solutions to their respective interoperability challenges so
17

long as these solutions are demonstrably effective. We will continue

to work closely with the public safety community across the country and our colleagues across the administration to achieve this

goal.

Last week NTIA also published its final rules in the DTV Coupon

Program. These rules provide guidance for industry participants,

including converter box manufacturers and retailers, as well as for

consumers who may choose to participate in the program as their

means of effecting the DTV transition. Last week we also published

a request for proposal for services for the fulfillment of this important program.

I have been extremely encouraged by the response from industry.

Within a day of our rule announcement, at least two manufacturers

announced plans to produce set-top boxes and put them in the marketplace with prices around $60. Likewise, the consumer electronics industry, the cable industry, the broadcasters, have announced a broad consumer education campaign to inform and educate consumers about the transition.

With respect to broadband, the President articulated a clear goal

for his administration and for this country for universal and affordable broadband by 2007. In furtherance of this goal, we have adopted a comprehensive set of fiscal, regulatory, spectrum and technology policies designed to encourage innovation and investment in

broadband services and applications. By deregulating new

broadband deployments by incumbents, we have created incentives

for new fiber investments in competition with cable.

By making new spectrum available on both a licensed and unlicensed basis, we have been able to innovate wireless broadband

services to enter the market. By measuring and studying BPL deployments, it has been possible for BPL to mature into a viable

new competitor in many markets in the country.

As a result of these policies, broadband growth in this country

has been remarkable. According to the FCC, we added more than

13 million broadband subscribers in the first 6 months of 2006,

bringing the total number of broadband lines to nearly 65 million.

During that time, deployments of fiber, wireless and broadband

power line systems grew by more than 500 percent. With the most

competitive broadband over marketplace in the world, we will have

the most innovative, affordable and accessible broadband marketplace in the world.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kneuer follows:]
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Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Kneuer, very much. Chair recognizes himself for a round of questions. Mr. Kneuer, your new rules

will set aside $990 million for all consumers, whether they have

free TV, cable or satellite, in order to qualify for this converter box

program. And then after that money is expired, only $510 million

is left for exclusively free over-the-air consumers, that is people

who don’t have cable, don’t have satellite. You are saying that the

NTIA is committed to this program, but you had to make this decision of slice off the money in this way. If there was another billion

dollars in the program, would you have changed unlimited eligibility in the middle of the transition?

Mr. KNEUER. Our analysis was based on the resources that the

statute currently provides. The data that we have on the numbers

of set-tops, of analog television sets and the potential consumer

take rates and the changes in the marketplace seem to indicate

that the billion dollars ought to cover the consumers who choose to

take advantage of the program. That being said, if the demand for

the program exceeds that billion dollars, we did, in fact, shift to

make sure that to the extent possible, no household that would otherwise lose television service altogether and wanted to take advantage of this program would be left without those resources.

Mr. MARKEY. So you are saying no home will be disadvantaged?

Mr. KNEUER. What we are saying in the rule is that given the

best estimates of current consumer demand, we wanted to make it

as unlikely as possible that any household that wanted to avail

themselves of this program who would otherwise not receive television through a different distribution medium would have access

to the program.

Mr. MARKEY. I understand that, but again, millions of analog

sets have been sold in the last several years to people who live in

cable and satellite homes. My brother-in-law gave me an analog TV

set 2 years ago for Christmas. He didn’t know. So it could be that

millions of people are left without this converter box being made

available to them, and I think that the Congress did not put aside

enough money for this program.

Let me move on. It is my understanding that consumers will,

that the coupons are going to be available in 9 months. They will

be available on January 1, 2008, in 9 months. What level of confidence do you have that the retailers will have converter boxes on

their shelves in 9 months so that the consumers can use these new

coupons to get the converter boxes?

Mr. KNEUER. Well, I think the response from industry was really

immediate. It wasn’t the very afternoon that we released the rule,

it was the next day that we had multiple manufacturers announcing firm plans. One of the benefits and one of the things that came

out of the record, as we developed our record, we had very broad

consensus among manufacturers on what would be the most effective standards to adopt. We went largely with the industry guidance, so I think——

Mr. MARKEY. No, see my question is this. On January 1, in 9

months, you are going to make these coupons available. Under your

rules, the coupons will only last for 3 months. So here you have the

diversity of America up here, from New York City to rural America.
25

How can you be sure that in 9 months these converter boxes are

going to be on the shelves of the stores in all of America?

Mr. KNEUER. The only assurance I have is the expressed intent

of industry to take advantage of this program. The program creates

a billion dollar market, up to $1.5 billion.

Mr. MARKEY. I understand, but see, my problem is this. Under

your rules, the coupons expire in 3 months.

So if, in 9 months, someone has the coupon given to them and

they go into their store in rural America, the inner city, and there

is no converter box 90 days later the coupon is now worthless and

this person with analog——

Mr. KNEUER. I am sorry. I understand the question now. The

statute calls for us to make coupons available by January 1. If it

turns out that there is a manufacturing difficulty, there aren’t

boxes there and consumers submit requests into the program, we

would not redeem those—deliver a coupon to the customer until we

had data from the retailers that there were boxes in place so that

consumers don’t get a coupon that starts expiring before their box

is there.

Mr. MARKEY. Why don’t you just give them the coupon and if

they want to buy the converter box in the first 3 months or the

first 6 months, that it won’t expire? Why set a 3-month deadline?

Mr. KNEUER. It is statutory. Three-month expiration is in the

statute.

Mr. MARKEY. Do you agree with that?

Mr. KNEUER. It is in the statute. I mean, I think it does make

sense to have a limit so that we can track those monies. If a consumer requests a coupon, we now draw down, in our accounting the

program, if it sits there, we could be withholding resources to other

consumers while somebody has it sitting in a drawer and it is

never——

Mr. MARKEY. Again, this statute, which I did not support, it just

makes no sense to me. You are going to lead people into complete

confusion after a 3-month period. You are going to have people all

over America saying I need a converter box, it doesn’t work, where

do I get another one and your agency is going to be instructed to

say that you are not eligible. This statute just isn’t well thought

out. My time has expired. Let me recognize the gentleman from

Michigan, Mr. Upton.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you, Mr. Kneuer, for your testimony. I just

want to clarify one thing with Mr. Markey, whose brother gave him

that nice TV.

Mr. MARKEY. By the way, my brother-in-law. My brother would

never give me a TV.

Mr. UPTON. Thank God for your sister. I don’t know that Joe

Barton has cable, but you have cable, right? So your analog set will

work, so you won’t need that converter box, right?

Mr. MARKEY. Not if my analog set is not plugged in, so I think

in many homes, in that spare bedroom there is an analog TV set

that is not attached to cable.

Mr. UPTON. I am going to call Comcast to make sure you got

cable in your bedroom.

Mr. Kneuer, as we debated this issue in the last Congress, it was

our belief, and we heard it from the FCC, as well, that we thought
26

that the amount for the subsidy would take care of the folks that

really need the converter box. In essence, $1.5 billion. And you all

have come up with a plan, in essence, two levels. Everyone is eligible for up to $990 million expense. And then after that, the 510,

the consumer only has to check a box that they do not have cable

or satellite, is that right?

Mr. KNEUER. That is right.

Mr. UPTON. I mean that they actually don’t subscribe to it. It

could be available in that area, but they just say that they don’t

have it at their house, it is just a check off, and at that point they

can get the coupon and go get the box, is that right?

Mr. KNEUER. That is correct.

Mr. UPTON. And there would be nothing to prevent you if, in fact,

somehow you reached that $1.5 billion, there would be nothing to

prevent the administration from saying well, we have got a supplemental. We know that these things come up all the time. There

would be no reason for the administration to say that we might

need another $50 million or $20 million or whatever it might be on

top of this billion and a half to continue the program if, in fact, we

looked at bumping that ceiling, is that not right? Or Congress, of

course, could do it without the request, as we are seeing this week

with a number of different things.

Mr. KNEUER. One of the things that we were very focused on in

the design of this program is being able to collect real time market

data on what the demand trends look like; how many consumers

are asking for these boxes; what the redemption rate of the coupons looks like, so as we are gathering that data in anticipation of

looking at whether or not it is necessary to even request the additional $500 million, we will have real time data, and we will certainly be sharing that data with the Congress as it comes in so we

can collectively make decisions about that.

Mr. UPTON. Good. I look forward to that. Now, do you think that

the availability of the low cost set-top boxes from the cable operators would enhance your ability to manage the converter box program?

Mr. KNEUER. I certainly think any increased distribution of boxes

to consumers from whatever quarter will certainly ease the pressure on the program. There are a number of consumer choices for

consumers and how to achieve this transition for themselves and

if cable is their choice and there are low-cost cable options, that

takes pressure off this program.

Mr. UPTON. Now you said in your testimony that the converter

box program was welcomed by the industry. You said it was a very

positive response. You heard from, I think you said two different

manufacturers that they could hit within the—are there more folks

in the industry that you intend to hear from?

Mr. KNEUER. In developing our record, we heard from several

manufacturers who expressed an interest in participating in this.

So I would expect there will be more than the two.

Mr. UPTON. OK, great. Thank you. No more questions.

Mr. MARKEY. Gentleman’s time has expired. The gentlelady from

California, Ms. Harman.

Ms. HARMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again, my apologies

for leaving right after a few questions to chair another hearing. I
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want to come back to my rant in my opening remarks, which is

that this isn’t a welfare program and it isn’t a broadcaster relief

program, it is a public safety program. I do think it is important

that we provide converter boxes, as promised.

I do think it is important that we make sure nobody goes dark,

but let us remember that what is most important is that people

who live in neighborhoods that could any time now be under attack

by terrorists or by some natural disaster get the protection they

need from first responders and those first responders can communicate, not just with each other, but hopefully with other neighborhoods or the Federal Government or regional entities in the event

of attacks. So that is what we are really talking about and to remind broadcasters, who are one of the reasons or perhaps the reason why we went through this elaborate exercise, also have brothers and sisters and husbands and wives in these same districts, so

it is protection for them, as well.

In that spirit, I just want to ask about some timelines for this $1 billion grant. My understanding is you are collaborating with

DHS on this program, is that correct?

Mr. KNEUER. That is correct.

Ms. HARMAN. And you have some grant guidance with DHS. I

have had conversations with DHS leadership about how all this is

going to work because as it looks to me, the guidance is coming out

in the summer, and the grants are coming out in the summer, and

that doesn’t give any time, at least as I understand it, for communities and States to do their best job of putting forward proposals

to get the money. DHS has told me that that is not really what is

going to happen, and I just want to get you on the record. What

they say is going to happen is that the guidance is going to come

out in June or July, that some planning money is going to be distributed in September at the end of this fiscal year, but the real

grants are going to be made at the end of this calendar year. Is

that your understanding?

Mr. KNEUER. The amendments to the Deficit Reduction Act in

the Call Home Act that accelerated the timeframe for this program,

that the monies need to be awarded by the end of this fiscal year,

requires us to design this more as a formulaic kind of program

than perhaps we otherwise would have, making it more competitive

or otherwise. So the grant guidance that will come out in the summertime will be an announcement of basically the amount of

money that each State is entitled to under this program.

Those grants will be conditioned upon the States completing

their plans, having demonstrated the ability to say OK, we have

identified our existing capabilities, the gaps in our capabilities. We

have got a plan to fund those gaps and that they are going to be

effective, and so the awards will come out by the end of this fiscal

year, but those awards will be conditioned upon the States concluding their plans and having a demonstrated ability to fill the gaps

so that we actually do raise the level of interoperability across the

country.

Ms. HARMAN. Which means the money will not be transferred at

the end of the fiscal year——

Mr. KNEUER. The awards will be made by the end of this fiscal

year, and there will be, at that time, a portion of money will be dis-
28

tributed to help them with the plans, but the actual money goes

out as is very typical for Federal grant programs. You get the

award, but you don’t actually get the check until you have demonstrated that you have met the conditions of the grant. So the

monies will go out over a period of time, but the awards will be

made by the end of this fiscal year.

Ms. HARMAN. OK. Well, you are the banker, but you are not the

guy who makes the decision about who gets the grants, is that correct?

Mr. KNEUER. I am the guy who makes the decision about who

gets the grants.

Ms. HARMAN. You are the decision maker. Well, then I would

urge again that what we are hopefully funding is not operable communications operability systems, but communications interoperability systems, and the challenge to you and the challenge to people who will testify in panel 2, I am very sorry I am going to miss

your testimony, is to figure out how we make it possible to create

true interoperability and how we move forward, not backward, and

make certain, for example, in the case of near simultaneous attacks

around the United States, which is a possibility right now, in that

event, we have an interoperable system so that the resources of

Federal, State, regional and local entities can all be brought to bear

to make certain we offer the maximum protection to citizens.

Mr. KNEUER. I completely agree, and one of the largest areas of

progress that we have made over the past number of years is doing

a much better job at measuring the problem. This has been an

identified problem for a very long time but not very well measured.

So now we have the scorecards from the 75 urban area security initiative regions, we will have the State plans. Those scorecards

identify the gaps in interoperability. Now, there are always going

to be additional operability communication needs for first responders, and they should continue to serve those. This program is intended to fill in the defined gaps in interoperability, and that is

what we are focused on.

Ms. HARMAN. Thank you and thank you, Mr. Chairman. This

grandmother will be watching.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The gentleman

from Nebraska, Mr. Terry.

Mr. TERRY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just need

help working through this. On the interoperability side, following

up on the questions by my friend from California, I am trying to

get my arms around this, my mind around it. I came from city

council, and we dealt with some interoperability issues so police

could talk to sheriff and police could talk to fire in two different

counties. Didn’t work out all that well.

But also, since I have come here and we have dealt with this

issue in the last couple years, of interoperability, and dedicated

these funds, my office has had a parade of different types of technologies parade through that seem to have the magic solution or

the silver bullet which seemed to also, then, have an array of, from

seemingly affordable price tags to it to astronomical.

So my question is, is on your grants or even a formulary, is there

going to be a best practices, what you feel is the best technologies

to fill those gaps so we aren’t just sending grants to some commu-
29

nities that have chose, perhaps, the most expensive and perhaps

even maybe the least practical technologies out there?

Mr. KNEUER. There are certainly a host of new technologies that

are being introduced to address this problem. And to my mind, it

really has been one of the benefits of the focused attention of the

Congress and the administration and others on this problem, is

that the class of market participants who otherwise weren’t really

thinking about the public safety needs are now getting into the

marketplace and presenting new solutions.

In this program, I want first responders in different localities to

have the flexibility to choose the solution set that makes the most

sense, given their state of incumbent capabilities, but at the same

time, while there is enormous promise to many of these technologies, we need to be mindful and careful that they are, in fact,

effective and that they don’t exacerbate the problem by walling off

other systems if somebody picks a creative solution for their jurisdiction and it is incompatible with the neighboring jurisdiction.

And again, I can’t underscore enough the ultimate issue is the

effectiveness of the solution, not necessarily the efficiency of the solution, although efficiency is important. You don’t want to send a

fireman into a building with a beta system. It has got to be a demonstrated, proven solution that the public safety community endorses. But there are absolutely a number of efficient and effective

solutions that they can choose from.

I don’t know that we should be dictating what those solutions

are. There is a great scope and breadth of different localities with

different needs, and so I am not sure it makes sense for me to be

dictating what the best solution is for their needs, but I want them

to have the flexibility to choose the best solution for their needs.

Mr. TERRY. It is a difficult position to be in, especially as a free

marketeer as I am, but I fear that some communities may be

‘‘taken,’’ or on the flip side of that, we are going to be paying for

the golden Cadillac when we didn’t need to pay that price, therefore leaving other communities without sufficient dollars or a program without sufficient dollars, so I would like to find some way

to find a happy medium. Maybe a cafeteria style, a menu list of

certified or approved items that they can use and have some assurances that it is workable, that they won’t be taken and that we

aren’t then cheating others so that some communities could have

the most expensive program.

Mr. KNEUER. Those are the sorts of things that we do at our labs

in Boulder in examining these technologies and giving public safety

a sense of these are the things that are out there that work and

are effective, and they have a better sense of——

Mr. TERRY. Your labs are in Boulder?

Mr. KNEUER. Yes.

Mr. TERRY. Well, that counts against you, as a Husker. The other

question is on the cable boxes. I need to work through, a little bit

more, on what Fred brought up and some discussions that we have

had from various vendors about the rules making what boxes will

be eligible for the program eliminates some of the, what I would

say, the lower end or boxes that could be cheaper. First of all, before I ask that, go into that question, specifically, are we assuming

that anyone that has cable TV or satellite TV, that their vendor,
30

their cable or satellite provider will provide them, free of charge,

a set-top box so that they can continue to watch the product that

they are paying for? And will not be part of this program?

Mr. KNEUER. The subscribers to cable and satellite, for the televisions that they have hooked up to cable and satellite, should have

the transition essentially accomplished for them through that service arrangement.

Mr. TERRY. All right. So a voucher, a coupon, whatever we are

going to call it, that won’t go towards a cable box, a set-top box?

Mr. KNEUER. No.

Mr. TERRY. All right, so it is your understanding, my understanding that it is only for the free over-the-air television set?

Mr. KNEUER. Yes. The coupons are to fund converter boxes that

enable a television that is currently receiving signals over the air

to continue to receive signals over the air and to convert them to

analog for the analog set.

Mr. TERRY. And is it part of your rules of the use of that voucher

that it can’t be used for the higher end set-top boxes that could be

a combination of let us say, a DVD player or a DVR?

Mr. KNEUER. That is right. The statute limits the class of boxes,

left it to us to establish the standards for what those boxes are.

Our rules have categories of what is eligible, but the things that

are not eligible would be things like DVRs, DVDs, video game

functionality, anything like that. It has got to be the base

functionality to accomplish the digital-to-analog conversion and

nothing else.

Mr. TERRY. I have also been told that there can be very basic, small sized converter boxes that could be as cheap as $30, but the

rules don’t allow that to be done. Are you aware of what that argument——

Mr. KNEUER. No, if market forces bring the prices of a box below

$40, then the consumer will present that $40 coupon, they won’t

have any co-payment. They won’t get the change. You don’t get to

put in a $40 coupon and get $10 back, but if it is $30, that is acceptable.

Mr. TERRY. But the argument was that the criteria set for the

set-top boxes don’t allow for just the very simple converter boxes.

Mr. KNEUER. They are explicitly designed to fund the simple box

that will be inexpensive for the consumer.

Mr. TERRY. Thank you.

Mr. KNEUER. Thank you.

Mr. TERRY. I yield back.

Mr. MARKEY. Gentleman’s time has expired. Gentleman from

New York, Mr. Engel.

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I would

like to start with the Public Safety Interoperable Communications

Grant Program. I am very concerned that the NTIA has entered

into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of

Homeland Security. NTIA plans to use DHS’s resources to help design the grant guidance for the interoperable program. Currently,

as we know, DHS determines funding based on a formal rather

than a needs assessment.

This has often led to a discrepancy in funding. New York, in particular, often receives significantly less per capita than lower risk
31

States. It is a source of neverending frustration for us in New York,

and I am very concerned that NTIA will follow DHS’s current funding formula. So Mr. Secretary, can you tell me, will the NTIA administer funds based on a risk assessment or another funding formula?

Mr. KNEUER. The program is going to be formula based, given

the constraints in the Call Home Act. We will, in fact, look to the

DHS formula as a starting point. We have talked with them about

how best we can look at that formula, see if there are adjustments

that can be made. Our intent would be to share those thoughts

with Members of Congress, with perhaps focus groups of the public

safety community to say these are the kinds of things we are looking at.

But we are working at adjusting the formula to see if we can

come up with one that makes the most sense for this program,

given that this is a Commerce Department program. It is a different program intended to raise the level of interoperability across

the country, but we are using it as a starting point.

Mr. ENGEL. So then you do agree, it is accurate to say that you

do agree that a risk assessment would be a more reliable indication

of need than the DHS formula?

Mr. KNEUER. I don’t know that I would say that the risk formula

is the only or the best way to look at this. This is a program designed for everyone. There is, as Ms. Harman was saying, we need

to raise the level of interoperability across the country. That being

said, there are areas of the country that have much more express

needs, but that is why we are going to look at the formula, see if

there is a rational way that we can adjust it, and we will be sharing our processes with you as we go through them.

Mr. ENGEL. OK. Well, I want to very, very strongly—and I think

I speak for all of New York on a bipartisan basis that we are very

frustrated with the DHS formula, and we really think that a risk

assessment would be a much more reliable indication of need. It is

just 5 years later, just a source of neverending frustration. We

know that New York is obviously the biggest target, and why this

doesn’t happen more quickly is just something that boggles my

mind.

Let me ask you this, also. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 set

aside only $5 million for consumer education for the digital TV

transition out of what the Congressional Budget Office conservatively estimated to be $10 billion in auction revenues. That is $5

million out of $10 billion. Many of us on this committee believed

at the time that $5 million was woefully inadequate to accomplish

the task of educating the American public about the DTV transition and what they need to do to make sure that their televisions

don’t go dark.

As we get closer to the date of February 2009, my view, shared

by many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle, is that $5 million for consumer education is absurdly inadequate. So do you

agree with me, that $5 million is insufficient to educate consumers

all across America about the DTV conversion? When I mentioned

this last week to the Commissioners, they sort of punted on it and

said well, it wasn’t only their responsibility.
32

Mr. KNEUER. We are leveraging that $5 million on educating consumers about the existence of this program. I think you rightly underscore that this is a consumer education need and these are the

consumers of the cable industry and the consumer electronics industry and the broadcast industry, and they have enormous responsibilities to educate their consumers on the impacts of this

transition. They have made announcements and have launched a

group working together to expend considerable resources on that.

I am encouraged by the activities they are undertaking. I intend

to remain very vigilant of the activities that they are using. We are

working closely with them so that we can leverage that broader industry campaign, to leverage our $5 million so as they are educating consumers about the transition, they are also making consumers aware of the eligibility program.

Mr. ENGEL. Well, let me just say, because my time is running

out, that I really think that Congress needs to increase funding for

consumer education for the DTV transition, and I want to add my

voice to what Ms. Solis said before about communities that, households that are most vulnerable to being left in the dark by the DTV

transition; non-English speaking and lower income households are

the very households least likely to have Internet access, and because you are relying so heavily on the Internet to ensure that consumers learn, I think that is a very, very grave mistake. Thank

you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. Chair recognizes

the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hastert.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the chairman. I just want to follow up on

that. First of all, consumers are the customers, right? And if the

cable companies don’t keep their customers, they lose revenue,

right? So they have a role to play in making sure that these customers, whether they are Spanish-speaking customers or if they

are customers, anybody that they have, that they go out and reach

them.

So there is an economic impetus there, and so the $5 million

ought to be used for other means where you can get people that

probably won’t be reached by, I would guess be constantly

bombarded by the TV set. If you have one of those things on, you

keep it on. So I share the concern of my colleagues across the aisle,

but I don’t think it is quite a concern, because it is just the economics of it. If you don’t keep your customers online, you lose revenue.

I want to go back to the agreement on February 16. You and the

DHS signed a Memorandum of Understanding to implement the $1

billion Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program. What makes DHS the best agency to work with?

Mr. KNEUER. They clearly have the grant making apparatus and

the expertise with regards to the operational needs of the first responders. The SAFECOM office, which has been working on dealing with first responders on their communications needs is housed

within DHS. I think the report language of the statute directed us

to work collaboratively with DHS to make sure that this program,

while separate and housed within the Department of Commerce, is

not inconsistent with or in conflict with other ongoing grant making programs within the Department of Homeland Security.
33

I think there is a recognition that the public safety community

has become accustomed to and has systems in place to interface

with the Department of Homeland Security for a variety of grants,

not just the communications grants. So to any extent possible, they

should use a similar process to the one that they are using for

other Federal grants.

The plans that have been put in place to identify interoperability

needs were submitted to the Department of Homeland Security, so

they are the natural partner for us in the execution of this program. But again, to underscore, this remains a Department of

Commerce program, and all the ultimate decision making authority

resides in the Department of Commerce.

Mr. HASTERT. So the agency that will establish the policy rules

to implement the PSIC grant program will be the Department of

Commerce?

Mr. KNEUER. We are going to work with the Department of

Homeland Security to develop those policies collaboratively, but the

ultimate policy decisions remain mine.

Mr. HASTERT. And what is your timetable?

Mr. KNEUER. Under the Call Home Act, the grants need to be

awarded by the end of this fiscal year, so we hope to have grant

guidance coordinated and distributed sometime in the summer.

Mr. HASTERT. Now, we talk about different technologies that are

out there, and you have to make those decisions. What kind of different technologies are there?

Mr. KNEUER. Well, there are the Internet overlay technologies,

there are a variety of different service-based solutions that provide

very effective, efficient interim solutions, so as you have embedded

incumbent infrastructure—Mr. Engel was talking about New York

City, where they have got massive investments in the 400 MHz

band. They have an ability to have gateways that would allow

those 400 MHz systems to communicate with the 700 MHz systems

or responding to 900 MHz or others that are those sorts of technologies. So there are a host of different solutions as we pursue immediate interoperable communications capabilities, and then as, in

the ordinary course and the replacement of their infrastructure,

moving on more towards——

Mr. HASTERT. I represent an area that has three old industrial

cities with fairly sophisticated public safety, and then I go out in

the rural areas that stretch from the Chicago suburbs all the way

out to the Mississippi River, so I got a lot of little towns. Now,

those little towns, a lot of times, come to the support of the big

ones and vice versa, even though there is a lot of miles, but they

also will interact with each other. When it was barn fires, you

would get seven communities out there. We don’t have barns anymore, but we still have those types of problems. Will those towns,

if they pick out different technologies, will those technologies be

interoperable? Or must they be?

Mr. KNEUER. As we are considering different technology solutions, the required condition of these different technologies is they

all provide interoperable solutions in that they do not exacerbate

the problem by closing off a jurisdiction from its neighbors or from

others.
34

Mr. HASTERT. And you will be setting price or cost limits on

these technologies, right? Especially community size.

Mr. KNEUER. We would not intend to set cost limits for jurisdictions. There are different solutions in different jurisdictions that

are going to be dictated by the facts on the ground, but I don’t believe our intent would be to say you can choose a solution but——

Mr. HASTERT. Well, it goes back to my friend from Nebraska,

what he was talking about is, I have fire departments that sometimes compete in how much gold leaf they can put on their fire engines. It is a kind of competition. We don’t want to get into that

type of situation.

Mr. KNEUER. No.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank you. I yield back my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Gentleman’s time has expired. The gentlelady from

California, Mrs. Capps.

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.

Kneuer, for your presence with us today. Mr. Kneuer, in my questions to the FCC Commissioners last week, I pointed out that the

United States has fallen in world rankings of broadband deployment and access. According to the International Telecommunications Union, we are now 21st in the world in terms of digital opportunity. In 2001 we were in the top five.

But in your written testimony, you say that our Nation is still

the world leader when it comes to high speed Internet penetration,

pointing to a study that found that the United States had nearly

55 million lines as of September 2006, while South Korea had 14

million lines. Mr. Kneuer, South Korea has 49 million people,

about one-sixth as many as we have in the United States.

Do you mean to say that it is acceptable that, according to the

study you cite, there are 28 lines for every 100 South Koreans and

18 lines for every 100 Americans?

Mr. KNEUER. I think the question of our broadband status, there

are a number of studies that show different rankings. I think it is

important to keep them in context. We do, in fact, have the largest

broadband marketplace in the world, with more people performing

more functions and economic activity online in the United States

than anywhere else. That is by no means to say that there isn’t

more work to be done and that we can’t do better. Our goal has

been to create an environment for a host of competitive actors in

the marketplace, and I think we have been effective in doing that.

I believe we have the most competitive broadband marketplace in

the world. By making more spectrum available, we have licensed

and unlicensed wireless competitors and others.

Mrs. CAPPS. I just want to say, again, repeat that I find it unacceptable. Maybe you don’t, but I think it is amazing that the citizens of a country that is half as rich as ours, South Korea, on a

per capita basis, are much more likely to have broadband access.

I am going to follow that up on a different tack because I think we

need to get to the heart of why this is. And I think that your agency is where the President and the rest of the executive branch

should turn to for expertise on telecommunication and information

policy issues so that good policy can be made.

During the 1990s, for example, NTIA alerted policy makers in

the White House and raised public awareness, in every community,
35

about the ‘‘digital divide,’’ and that was a real turning point in the

efforts to get broadband to more people. The President has said

that we should have ‘‘universal and affordable access for

broadband’’ by this year. I think we would all agree with that goal.

I surely do. NTIA, however, doesn’t have good data as to who in

our country has or doesn’t have access to broadband.

And you don’t know how much people are paying who are lucky

enough to have it. Those are questions, I think, that the President,

the executive branch, all of us, should have the right to have information about. How can you properly do your job, Mr. Kneuer, as

principal adviser on these issues to the President, when you don’t

know, specifically, who has broadband access in the United States?

Mr. KNEUER. The challenge of coming up with that kind of really

concrete data, the census would do these reports, and they were

census reports, they were huge samples, and when the reports

came out, they gave really good data on a snapshot in time about

2 years old. And given the rapid growth in this marketplace, trying

to make policy decisions on data that old really doesn’t make as

much sense.

Mrs. CAPPS. Let me just follow that up. That gets to the point.

Shouldn’t the agency you head, NTIA, be doing more to map which

areas have broadband and what kinds of broadband they have?

Mr. KNEUER. Doing that in a rigorous way, to go out and to canvass the country, you find that the data you collect, while authoritative, is outdated. So you will create a very good picture of what

the broadband marketplace looked like 18 months ago.

Mrs. CAPPS. So you are saying that your agency doesn’t have the

capability of getting data in real time or close to real time?

Mr. KNEUER. For that sort of broad, concrete consumer activity,

no. Not in the time that would be relevant for a decision maker.

Mrs. CAPPS. Do you think it would be a worthwhile goal to find

a way to approach that?

Mr. KNEUER. We can always be more granular in our analysis on

these, but in a marketplace where, for example, we added 15 million new broadband subscribers in just the past 6 months, any time

you start to gather the data, the FCC’s numbers come out every

6 months, and they are always considerably out of date. You have

always got much, much more rapid activity in the marketplace.

Mrs. CAPPS. I would urge that your agency be the one to try to

find a faster way to get this information. Also, the information that

you just got, though it may be old, do you know how much people

were paying for their access to the broadband, those that were surveyed, even if it was a little bit dated?

Mr. KNEUER. There is some market data on those sorts of things,

yes, but again, it is not the level of granularity where you would

say in the community the average price is.

Mrs. CAPPS. I would like to hear more information on this topic.

Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY. Perhaps you could provide that for the record.

Mr. KNEUER. Sure.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY. The Chair recognizes the ranking member of the

full committee, Mr. Barton from Texas.
36

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I sincerely appreciate

you holding this hearing along with Ranking Member Upton. This

is one of the more visible things that we have done in the last several years, the move to an all-digital network, and we are looking

forward to February 2009, and it is important that we have an

oversight hearing like this to see what the progress is. I want to

ask unanimous consent, before I ask my questions, that I can submit several questions for the record for Congressman Radanovich,

who can’t be here today. He is a member of this subcommittee, but

his wife is undergoing chemotherapy treatment and asked that I

ask that he could submit some questions for the record.

Mr. MARKEY. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. BARTON. OK. First of all, I want to commend our witness for

getting the rules out on the proposed digital transition. How have

those proposals been received now that they have been made public?

Mr. KNEUER. I have been very encouraged by the response of industry and affected constituencies on this. As I said, the manufacturers responded, essentially immediately, with plans to introduce

boxes into the marketplace. The retailers who have an interest in

participating in this program commended having certainty and the

fact that the rules reflected a broad consensus. The broadcasters

and the cable industry and the consumer electronics industry have

all taken that opportunity to reassert their commitment to work

within the framework that we adopted to make sure that the transition is a success, so I was very gratified by the immediate responses.

Mr. BARTON. Do you feel that the deadline for the transition on

February 17, 2009, is on schedule? Do you think we are going to

be able to meet that?

Mr. KNEUER. I certainly believe that everything we are doing in

the program is on track to meet that deadline. And just to underscore again, the public policy benefits that flow from the conclusion

of this transition are manifest and very, very significant, and they

go well beyond the broadcast industry, by itself. There are the public safety issues, there is our future innovation and competitiveness

in the wireless industry, deficit reduction, so it is absolutely critical

that that date be met.

Mr. BARTON. As you know, in the reconciliation package that the

House prepared, we had a number of information requirements in

terms of public awareness and public displays to the old analog television sets. As they are being sold, the last ones off the shelf that

got stripped by the Byrd rule in the Senate, so Mr. Hastert and

myself and Mr. Upton have introduced a bill, H.R. 608, to put some

of those requirements back in the law. Does your agency have a position on that bill?

Mr. KNEUER. I certainly believe what we have talked about earlier this morning. It is absolutely incumbent that the industries

that support these consumers educate these consumers and be

doing everything they reasonably and possibly can to reach out to

their consumers to make them aware of this transition, so anything

to that end is a good step.

Mr. BARTON. Now, in my last minute and 25 seconds, let us

switch over to interoperability. I think it is fair to say that every-
37

body on both sides of the aisle is very disappointed and somewhat

perplexed that as many years as it has been since 9/11/2001, we

still have such a huge interoperability problem in this country. The

Speaker was asking you some questions about that.

There have been some proposals, legislative and otherwise, to cut

through all that and come up with one national system. Do you

have a position on that issue, the broader issue? Is it time to cut

the Gordian knot and have a federalized, preemptive national

interoperability standard in communications—both in terms of

spectrum and also in terms of equipment—so we can end this foolishness that every time we have some sort of a large, regional

emergency, we find out that the various law enforcement and emergency response teams can’t communicate for whatever reason?

Mr. KNEUER. Well, I think we have finally made significant

progress in identifying the gaps. We have actually measured the

problem fairly well now, and with the submission of the State

plans that will be part of this program, we will have a real sense

of how we can fill in each of those gaps. I think the conclusion of

this program will go a long way towards raising the overall level

of interoperability. I think we also need to remain mindful, however, that these are, at their core, local infrastructure that is put

in place and the challenge——

Mr. BARTON. I am about to be cut off. But that is a good excuse

5 years ago. It is a good excuse 4 years ago. It may even be a good

excuse 3 years ago, but it is not much of an excuse today because

I can guarantee you, if there is another hurricane on the Gulf

Coast or a big flood in the Midwest or earthquake in California, we

are going to find out that the locals can’t communicate, and they

are going to blame Congress or the President.

And if they can’t get their act together, I hope, Mr. Chairman,

you have shown yourself to be a man of decisiveness and action.

I am willing, on this issue, to be just as decisive and just as action

oriented as you are. If it is the majority’s wish, I am a Federalist

and I don’t believe in preemption, to enact a Federal preemption,

every now and then it may be necessary, and this may be one of

those times. With that, I yield back and thank you for holding this

hearing.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. And to the gentleman from Texas, that is why we gave the billion dollars to NTIA

and not to the Department of Homeland Security, so they could

take action, put a plan in place. They are the experts.

Mr. BARTON. I might also point out, we have an oversight hearing going on downstairs. You guys seem to like to do everything at

the same time, so I am going to have to run back down to participate in that, but I will try to come back up here.

Mr. MARKEY. The Democrats like to demonstrate their capacity

to be interoperable. The gentlelady from California, Ms. Solis.

Ms. SOLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to go back to my

question that I asked earlier, and basically, my understanding is

that the Government Accountability Office has reported that 21

million households only have over-the-air television and millions of

other over-the-air sets are located in cable and satellite homes.

After February 17, 2009, no matter your income level or ethnicity,

the only TV signal that you will receive will be digital, and during
38

the transition time, is it NTIA’s responsibility to ensure that all

consumers receive information about the coupon program to help

consumers purchase low cost technology and to convert from analog

to digital? And of the households that only have over-the-air television, as you know, about one-third are Spanish-speaking, and

nearly half of those households earn less than about $30,000 a

year. Do you really think that $5 million is enough funding to educate all consumers, including low-income, under-represented communities who may not even have adequate access to Internet access right now? Can you please give me an idea how you plan to

address that? Also, if you have any efforts ongoing right now with

respect to how you are going to deal with some of the Spanish

speaking consumers that are now one of the largest populations

that are seeking access?

Mr. KNEUER. We currently have a request for proposal for contracts that includes how best to use that $5 million for consumer

outreach, and we want to make sure that our consumer outreach

efforts are focused on those consumers who are going to be least

likely to be reached by the broader industry outreach. There are

different Federal standards that measure the foreign language population in a given area, and if that is over a certain level, you

should make public information available in that language. The

day that we released our rule, we translated our fact sheets and

our press releases into Spanish and had them posted on the Department of Commerce’s Spanish language Web site, so we are

clearly aware of the issue and intend to do everything——

Ms. SOLIS. But what do you do about those households that don’t

even have access to the Internet? That won’t be able to get on the

Web site?

Mr. KNEUER. I don’t intend to focus our education efforts on the

Internet. That being said, the Internet is very powerful and we will

take advantage of it, but we are going to——

Ms. SOLIS. But you just said that your advertisement in Spanish

was placed on a Web site. So you are making big assumptions is

what I am trying to get at.

Mr. KNEUER. Well, the only place we posted our press release

was on the Internet for anybody, but we did it both in English and

Spanish.

Ms. SOLIS. What about other efforts like radio, radio ads and

things like that, I mean, really doing a campaign to reach those

hard-to-serve consumers who, I think, would be dying to be a part

of this, but because there is no material or data out there, you are

going to miss a lot of potential consumers and customers that I

think many marketers would really want to benefit?

Mr. KNEUER. I think that is right, and I think the final point you

made, that marketers do have an interest in reaching some of these

consumers, so I don’t anticipate that they will be completely cut off

from the ongoing industry campaigns.

Ms. SOLIS. Most Latinos do have telephones in their household.

Would it be wise, maybe, to set up some kind of a hotline for them

to have access to information of where they could call, a 1–800

number?

Mr. KNEUER. I would expect that our education campaign will include 1–800 numbers.
39

Ms. SOLIS. And again, would you have staff available, live bodies,

not a recording, that would be able to translate or be able to talk

to these folks?

Mr. KNEUER. These are all the issues that we would evaluate as

part of the proposals that come in to us. Significantly, we are not

going to vet this contract on a price basis only. We are looking for

the best proposals, and those are precisely the kinds of issues that

we would be looking for in the consumer education proposals.

Ms. SOLIS. I would love to be able to work with you closely on

that and to make sure that we are really doing a good job of reaching out to the different coalitions, because it isn’t just the Spanish

speaking, but it is all the other immigrant groups. I also have a

large Asian Chinese population that also has very limited access to

the Internet and to many of these high tech equipment and gadgets

that we now have.

Mr. KNEUER. Absolutely. And we are well aware that we are

going to need to take advantage of a host of different agencies and

associations and groups that do reach out to others. We would absolutely welcome working with you or any other member of the

committee who has thoughts on community representatives who

can help us in that effort.

Ms. SOLIS. Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from New Mexico, Mrs. Wilson.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I have some

similar questions to my colleague who just spoke, particularly on

the public education campaign, and I wonder, maybe I mis-heard

what she said. Is it correct that you only have $5 million dedicated

to the public education effort?

Mr. KNEUER. Yes.

Mrs. WILSON. Well, in one media market in the 50th largest

media market in the country, we spent half that in a 12-week period between August and November of last year, and I will admit

that it was pretty intense, and you might want to spread that out,

but I don’t see how that is going to work. Can you kind of explain

this a little more to me? How are you going to get the word out?

Mr. KNEUER. The $5 million we intend to focus on educating consumers about the existence of this program. As we have said before, the overall consumer education campaign is one that is going

to be driven by the industries that serve those consumers. So the

cable industry and the broadcast industry and the consumer electronics industry have introduced and launched a widespread public

education, consumer education campaign. We intend to leverage

our $5 million resource with that broader, ongoing industry campaign, so the overall education of consumers is going to be carried

out, by and large, by the industries that serve those consumers.

Mrs. WILSON. I think the reality is those industry sectors are

going to be marketing to those sectors that they really care about

most, and frankly, the eyeballs that they care about are not necessarily the ones who are going to have the most trouble and most

need for converter boxes. I mean, they are business people. That

makes sense to me that they would be explaining this.

At the same time, if you are in the Navajo Nation or if you are

really just listening to the over-the-air, I don’t see that as a real
40

priority, as a business case, and I share the concerns of some of my

colleagues that have been expressed here, and one of the main reasons that I voted against this bill is I think there are going to be

a whole lot of people who are going to come home from work on

the day these things get turned off in March or April 2009, I can’t

even remember the date, but I think it is before March Madness

but after the Super Bowl, I think that is the way it ended up, and

they are going to be really ticked because their TVs aren’t going

to work and they are not really going to know why and they are

not going to know what to do about it, but I can tell you, my telephone is going to start ringing. I think we need to get serious about

public education here, not just to the mass market eyeballs that

they want to have come and watch the commercials for cars and

everything else but to the folks like, in my district, we have one

of the largest dependencies in New Mexico on over-the-air broadcasting of any market in the country, and I don’t see evidence here

that we are serious about this. And I think it is time to ramp this

up and really focus on those who are going to need this, because

right now I don’t see any evidence that this is going to work.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The gentleman

from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez.

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Mr. Secretary. And I know this course on the February date,

which is, I guess, the Valentine’s gift from the Federal Government

to everybody that is watching TV out there, and I like the thought

that we have some program in place, no TV left behind, but I am

not sure that is going to work.

And we are concerned, on both sides of the aisle, because the impact, obviously, on our constituents—I keep telling people when

these TVs go dark, that is going to be one heck of a welcoming committee I am going to have when I go back to my district, because

no amount of publicizing what is going to happen is going to cover

everyone. So we have to minimize, and it is really almost damage

control.

But I will tell you now and I am going to associate myself with

all the comments regarding the inadequacy of what is being done

out there by the United States Government, not so much the private sector, because I think they are going to be pretty aggressive

about it, but I don’t think that we are meeting our own obligation.

This is what I have said as far as what I have received because

I am a Member of Congress. I have got the FCC telling me what

is happening; I have got the National Association of Broadcasters,

and they are pretty aggressive; I got my Crutchfield catalog explaining about the TV that I might be ordering from them.

But I haven’t really seen any effort being made, and you would

say maybe it is too early, but it is not too early. I mean, we really

need to start preparing people so they understand. Now, certain individuals are going to be informed simply because they receive

statements from cable or satellite as to what is happening. Broadcasters, those individuals that truly are receiving their TV signal

over the antennae, over the public airwaves, I am not real sure

how we are going to reach them. It is going to be a difficult one.
41

But nevertheless, I just simply don’t think that we are doing

enough.

By everyone’s calculations, the monies that have been appropriated to provide the coupons will not be sufficient to cover the

number of analog televisions out there, and that is a real concern,

especially in my district, as well as my colleague, Congresswoman

Solis, so having said that, I just don’t see that in your remarks,

and I apologize because I missed much of your testimony because

I was somewhere else for a minute. However, I don’t see that there

is any initiative forthcoming from the administration to aggressively do its part.

I know the individuals that are going to provide the equipment

are going to do such. I know cable and satellite and broadcasters

and so on, but I just don’t see that there is really a concerted effort

that is going to result in what we would like to obtain. And I don’t

really have a question. I don’t want you to think that this is purely

criticism. It may be constructive criticism. Let us know what we

can do, as Members of Congress, believe me, on our Web sites, in

our newsletters, at our town halls. We are putting people on notice.

We will do that, but it is not going to be enough.

In an area that is not related, obviously to that particular issue,

there is a comment, I believe, in your testimony regarding efforts

by the administration in making sure that we have broadband. You

say the administration has also taken the lead to create technical

standards that will allow the rapid deployment of broadband over

power lines, BPL, while safeguarding existing licensees’ services

from harmful interference. I have not been able to attend all our

committee hearings, but I think broadband over power lines, I remember one or two witnesses in the past year or two. What exactly

are you making reference to, because that technology is not really

promoted in any appreciable degree, so you are referencing exactly

what?

Mr. KNEUER. Sure. Broadband over power lines is very promising

technology, and for a long time, however, there was a concern that

widescale deployments of broadband over power lines would represent an interference problem to radio systems. You send a

broadband signal over an unshielded power line and it bleeds off,

and it can cause interference. Significantly, there are 57,000 Federal radio systems in the bands that could be subject to that interference.

We conducted a study, using our laboratories in Boulder, to go

out and measure all of the test BPL systems around the country,

identified the potential for interference and confirmed that there

was, in fact, a potential for interference but also went further in

the study to show that that potential was one that could be very

well understood, easily mitigated and worked with industry to put

together saying if you deploy your system the following way, you

shouldn’t pose an interference concern.

That study was then incorporated into the FCC’s rules, which

created both now technical and regulatory certainty that BPL could

be widely deployed in the marketplace, and I think we are seeing

the results of that now. There have been significant announcements in Texas, as a matter of fact, of very widescale broadband

over power line deployments.
42

I think the utility industry is finding the benefit of not just being

able to provide the service but putting intelligence into the grid.

They can better manage their underlying networks, so I would anticipate that we will see considerable growth in the BPL deployment as a very viable competitive third, fourth, fifth broadband access point into the home.

Mr. GONZALEZ. Yes. And I would join you in that effort because

I just think in terms of how we provide it, I think the different

manner or method is important. I have not really seen anyone aggressively approach this for whatever reason, and I was just kind

of surprised.

Mr. KNEUER. We can share some of that with you.

Mr. GONZALEZ. I appreciate it. I yield back.

Mr. MARKEY. Gentleman’s time has expired. The gentleman from

Illinois, Mr. Shimkus.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Kneuer, it is good

to have you here. Thanks for visiting with me earlier this year. A

couple issues. Please don’t deploy a grant program without interoperability standards. I think that is really the basic message that

we have here. We have a very successful, through FEMA, the Fire

Act grant and a lot of it is technology and radios and communication devices. Our fear is you have heard it. So I would just plead

with you, that would be foolhardy and would really be frustrating

for all of us here, so if there is one thing is the interoperability

issue.

Issue two, I always get frustrated when my colleagues compare

us to countries without size, scope and density relations. South

Korea is 98,480 square kilometers, with a population of 48 million

people. Pretty dense. Easy to connect. California is 411,048 square

kilometers with 33 million people. That is a huge, a bigger challenge. And to compare apples and oranges and then take shots at

you and California is just one State in the Union.

One of the most connected countries in this world is Estonia. I

haven’t checked the population of Estonia. They had no infrastructure. They are all cellular, high-speed Internet access. They do all

their financial transactions. But they are there because they leapfrog technology, so in your defense, I think we are doing well, and

sometimes I think these shots are unfortunate.

I want to go on to the set-top boxes. How many here have free

over-the-air TV reception in their home? One. I mean, let me put

it that way. How many are not connected either by direct satellite

or cable? One, two, three, four. Now, we did this, Ranking Member

Upton and I did this in—now, we would kind of expect to hear all

of these wealthy, white collar professionals here—we were at a

hearing with Bobby Rush on the South Side of Chicago, not known

to be in this income bracket, on TV violence and we were in a

school auditorium. We asked that same question, I don’t know if

you asked it, Freddy? There were 400 and some students. Four

hundred students. Freddy, how many people raised their hands,

saying three out of 400 in inner-city South Side Chicago, only three

were receiving their signal——

Mr. UPTON. White Sox fans. And proud they are to be White Sox

fans.
43

Mr. SHIMKUS. So that is why we got to keep these debates in perspective. Real people, real reception of signals, and that is why I

follow up with this question. Secretary Kneuer, in 2005 the FCC

data estimates that there are 50 million over-the-air homes and 94

million cable and satellite homes. Over-the-air homes tend to have

two televisions which, by definition, are not connected to cable or

satellite. Cable and satellite homes tend to have one television not

connected to their pay service. According to broadcasters, 25 percent of over-the-air homes and 15 percent of cable or satellite

homes will feel they need a subsidized box. If you crunch the numbers, that comes out to 21.6 million converter boxes. If that is the

case, would the initial $990 million in the program cover the demand?

Mr. KNEUER. Yes.

Mr. SHIMKUS. OK. I want to end up on, if I do have time? And

just highlight the .kids issue that Chairman Markey and I worked

on years ago. It is still up and running. I think that shows some

success because if it was not financial for NeuStar to do that, they

had a pull-the-plug provision. However, it is not nearly deployed in

the way in which the chairman and I would have hoped to.

NeuStar is now lowering their price. What else do you think we

can do to get full deployment?

I lowered my expectations. I now have a 14-year old son, and I

think our original plan was 13 and under, pretty foolhardy. But I

tell you, from my 4-year old, who started when this program started, and now he is 7, it is still a good way for a young child to feel

that they are on the Internet and be safe. So what can we do to

really encourage further deployment? And I will pledge whatever

thing I can use to use the pulpit to help. I do like to put Corporate

America and organized labor and all these groups that say they

want to be helpful and good stewards on notice that they are not

doing it in this provision. So I will let you answer that question.

Mr. KNEUER. I share your frustration with the progress and

thank you for your leadership. I know this is something that you

have been very interested in. You have come to the Commerce Department, and we have had forums to talk to folks about this. We

have been working with NeuStar to lower the prices and to make

it more of an attractive proposition for content providers to get on.

The Secretary of Commerce sent out a letter to, I don’t know, I

think it was 6,000 media CEOs, something like that and the number may be smaller, but it was a bunch, to say this exists, it is out

there, you ought to participate. I think it is the bully pulpit reminding people, as they come in and are advocates before us and

before the Congress, that this is a resource out there and it is important.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my

time.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. Thank you. The

Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms. Eshoo.

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Mr. Secretary.

Nice to see you again. Back to interoperability. Along with DHS,

you are administering a billion dollar interoperability grant program, it has been mentioned before, for public safety. During the

debate on the floor of the House on the 9/11 bill, and also when
44

you came to my office, we discussed it earlier this year, I raised my

concerns that the interoperability grants are not solely focused on

equipment that enables interoperability for voice communications

among responders in the field, but also IP-based solutions, including grants for software, for middleware, for network-based solutions that enable the interoperable voice and data communications

among individuals and organizations. I hope you haven’t been

asked this direct question before, and I apologize for not being here

earlier to hear all of the questions asked of you; can you tell us,

with some specificity, how you are shaping these grants?

Mr. KNEUER. The statute directs us to fund grants for communications systems.

Ms. ESHOO. So it is pretty broad.

Mr. KNEUER. It is broad enough, and there are certainly components of those systems that go beyond the radio frequency interface, the radio component.

Ms. ESHOO. Right.

Mr. KNEUER. So to the extent that a jurisdiction or a locality is

pursuing an interim solution that includes an Internet based component and that Internet based component has software aspects to

it, those would be eligible under the program.

Ms. ESHOO. Let me ask it another way. But will you be granting

any grants that do not fit the description you just reiterated?

Mr. KNEUER. I would expect that the grants will go towards a variety of different solutions that reflect the variety of the different

levels of problems, so there may very well be some solutions that

come in that include, as part of the overall interim solution, a software component or an Internet-based component or what have you,

so I would anticipate that there will be grants that fund those sorts

of programs. There may be others that say we have completed the

gap that we have with an additional suite of radios.

Ms. ESHOO. Well, I want to get back to something that Mr.

Shimkus said—I think it was Mr. Shimkus—that said when these,

if I heard him correctly, that as these grants go out and they are

awarded, that they not be focused solely on just the equipment part

of it. Otherwise, I think that we are not going to make the kind

of progress that I think a lot of members see really must be made,

so I keep beating the horse. I think you get the picture.

Mr. KNEUER. Absolutely.

Ms. ESHOO. But I think the instruments that you have at your

fingertips really mirror what we are talking about. On page 3 in

your testimony, you stated that the administration is committed to

ensuring that the consumers have other options for broadband access besides cable and broadband and you also state that ‘‘when

every mobile phone carrier is also a broadband service provider, incumbent providers will be forced to compete with lower prices and

more innovation.’’

Two of the four national wireless carriers are owned, in whole or

in part, by the same incumbent providers. The cable companies

have a joint venture with a third national wireless company, and

given this cross-platform consolidation, how does the administration plan to ensure that the scarce spectrum resources are used to

achieve your stated goal of a third competitive choice for consumers?
45

Mr. KNEUER. Well, I think our spectrum policies have been focused on getting spectrum into the marketplace so that it can be

a competitive alternative. While some of the large carriers, wireless

carriers, are affiliated with landline carriers, they compete with unaffiliated carriers. Every wireless carrier is facing competition from

at least three unaffiliated wireless partners.

They may not be in direct competition with their affiliated

landline component, but that affiliated landline component is certainly facing competition from the unaffiliated wireless carriers,

from the cable companies, from satellite companies, from

broadband over power lines.

I think we are realizing a cross-platform competitive broadband

environment in this country that is in stark contrast to the sort of

vertical integration of the broadband platform in most of the rest

of the world and it absolutely does bring increased competition, increased innovation and all of the other attendant consumer benefits.

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mr. MARKEY. OK. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Fossella.

Mr. FOSSELLA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon,

Mr. Secretary. Thank you for being here. And as someone, with my

colleagues Mr. Engel and Mr. Upton, who helped to create the

grant program, let me again underscore as someone who represents

New York City the importance of interoperability and proceeding

with the grants, but at the same time I recognize there are 50,000

public safety entities and 24,000 public safety wireless systems

across the country.

We still have a fragmented system almost 6 years after 9/11, and

I know there have been many attempts over the years to create the

so-called national standard and always trying to balance where it

is with respect to standards and technology. But the fact remains,

do you think there should be or the question remains, do you think

there should be a universal standard or a uniform standard for the

entire country?

Mr. KNEUER. Well, I think standards-based solutions and having

standards that individual public safety agencies and communities

can build towards is the very vital part of the long range solution.

If you look at the SAFECOM continuum on how we progress from,

sort of, these disparate systems to tactical, interoperable communications and in the long-term come up with, sort of, completely

interoperable communications.

The challenge, though, as you underscored, with the 50,000 different regions selecting a single national solution for them to pursue based on a Federal dictate, you run the risk of having, as an

adverse consequence, localities turning off or turning in large

pieces of existing infrastructure and replacing it unnecessarily, so

certainly standards-based solutions are a key part of the long-term

goal.

Interoperability across the country is expressed in the objectives

of this program and all the efforts that we are undergoing, but you

do have to balance that with the realization that there are different

levels of infrastructure and capability in the ground in different

areas and that trying to adopt a single solution to all of those doz-
46

ens and hundreds of thousands of different problems may not be

the most effective.

Mr. FOSSELLA. But nevertheless, are we going to get into a potential stalemate in perpetuity? These are just local roadways that

will never connect. There are some who suggest that that is equivalent to building a Federal highway system. Everyone has got a little road network in their own urban area, whether it is in New

York City or the Mississippi River, at some point somebody has got

to make the decision of either we are one country or we are not.

That if we have a regional catastrophe or a national catastrophe,

we have the capacity to correspond with each other or we don’t.

And I just get this sense, and in your testimony, I think you said

you finally have made substantial progress in identifying the gaps,

which is worthwhile. I think the next question is well, how do we

ensure that those gaps are closed soon before the next catastrophe?

Mr. KNEUER. That is the express intention of this program, is to

make, as a condition of the award of the grant awards, demonstrate that you have got a plan to fill in those identified gaps.

And while localities should have the flexibility to pursue the solution that meets their particular need, the precondition on that

flexibility is whatever solution they do choose has to enable future

and ongoing interoperability with neighboring regions and other regions. So it may be a different solution, but it is a solution addressing the same problem.

Mr. FOSSELLA. Do you really think that is going to be the potential solution? I mean, to what extent does New York City’s metropolitan area extend? To what extent should New York City, that

encompasses, say, Long Island and Connecticut and New Jersey,

where does that responsibility end, and where does a small town

in western Illinois end? I am just curious if the goal is a national

interoperable standard or national interoperability ability to communicate, wherein does the local jurisdiction’s responsibility end

when attempting to obtain this grant?

Mr. KNEUER. Well, I think New York City is sort of the perfect

example, that they have got billions of dollars of embedded infrastructure. They have been pursuing their own interoperability solution. It needs a Federal official in operating a grant to say actually,

I am going to replace my judgment for yours on your interoperability solution, and you ought to do it this way. However, in

achieving their interoperability solution, it is inherent in that solution that their network can now communicate with neighboring jurisdictions who would respond or a regional jurisdiction or a different agency within the same geographic area, so they are achieving those solutions.

Mr. FOSSELLA. OK. My time has expired. Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired, although I

thank the gentleman for pursuing that line of questioning. I think

it is very helpful to us. Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington State, Mr. Inslee.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. How many Americans do receive their

signal over the air now?

Mr. KNEUER. Exclusively over the air?

Mr. INSLEE. Yes.
47

Mr. KNEUER. The estimates are around 15 percent. I have probably the best estimates here, but roughly, exclusively over the air,

18 to 20 million.

Mr. INSLEE. Eighteen to 20 million. How many public service announcements, under your plan, will that 18 to 20 million Americans see prior to this transition?

Mr. KNEUER. Public service announcements paid for by us?

Mr. INSLEE. Yes.

Mr. KNEUER. I have an estimate. But they will, by all reports,

be bombarded with this information through the television and

through other mediums as part of the broader industry public education campaign.

Mr. INSLEE. Well, how many by you?

Mr. KNEUER. I don’t necessarily think that buying ad time on

broadcast television, when the broadcasters are already devoting

those resources to their own PSAs, would be an efficient use of the

$5 million. That being said, we are working closely with the broadcasters so as they are engaging in that campaign and putting public service announcements on television, that those announcements

will be referencing our program. I mean, that is the principal way

we would expect to leverage this $5 million to a value many times

more.

Mr. INSLEE. So you are not buying TV, then?

Mr. KNEUER. No.

Mr. INSLEE. OK. So do you have any sort of reference point of

how many PSAs you expect Americans to see?

Mr. KNEUER. At this point, no.

Mr. INSLEE. Can you give me any estimate at all?

Mr. KNEUER. No.

Mr. INSLEE. See, now that is a little disturbing, because people

up here, we run for office, and I can tell you, when your neck is

on the line you figure out how many times people are going to see

your message, and it is a little troubling to me, if you got 18 or

20 million Americans, that the guy in charge of letting Americans

know how to do this can’t give any estimate at all how often people

are going to see this message.

Mr. KNEUER. I would certainly expect that is the level of marketing activity and that expertise. We will leverage some of that in the

acquisition of this program, and as I said, I think the industries

whose consumers are at stake and the industries that are performing this consumer education campaign are the most expert industries in the world in how to reach consumers and in those sorts of

metrics on if you want to be successful how many times you reach

somebody.

Mr. INSLEE. So as I understand it, you are pretty much leaving

it up to private entities to decide how much Americans get information, is that pretty much what you are telling us?

Mr. KNEUER. We are going to rely very heavily on the impacted

industries to perform the education of their consumers, yes.

Mr. INSLEE. Just speaking as one person, I think that is grossly

inadequate to fulfill this responsibility to 18 or 20 million Americans, and if you think turning off TVs for people is not such a big

deal, I will forward my calls to you when they come. I mean, I

would really encourage you to be more scrupulous in trying to fig-
48

ure out what a minimum penetration level of this message is for

those 18 or 20 million and find out a way that you can report to

us what that is. Just relying on the hopes that the private sector

is going to be able to do this to the right audience and not just the

high-profile, high-income, Lexus-buying audience but everybody

who deserves to get this message to figure out how to handle this.

This is a public obligation. We are depending on you to do that,

and I am not satisfied you are doing it at the moment.

Mr. KNEUER. Certainly, some of that expertise is what we are

looking to acquire. I mean, the candid answer is that that expertise

does not reside within the agency. Contracting for it is part of the

program and it is included in our request for proposals.

Mr. INSLEE. What I would encourage you to do is to set a minimal standard of penetration, just like anybody running for public

office in America from city counsel to mayor to President were to

do and say we are going to get to that level and then figure out

how to get there. I don’t sense that you have done that yet. I think

you are working on a wing and a prayer and a little too much optimism that this is all going to just sort of work out. And I can tell

you, if there are only a million people who don’t know about this

and how to solve it, we are not going to give them John Shimkus’s

home phone to deal with it. We are going to expect the public government to deal with it. So I encourage you to rethink this. On the

PSAs, will you have access for hearing impaired folks on your

PSAs?

Mr. KNEUER. Yes, that would be my expectation.

Mr. INSLEE. OK. Thank you. I hope you can give us more information a little later.

Mr. MARKEY. Gentleman’s time has expired. The gentleman from

Washington State has raised many very important questions, and

to the gentleman from Washington State and to everyone else, we

are going to have a hearing next Wednesday with the industry officials and the consumer groups who are being tasked here with the

responsibility of communicating, and I think they are going to

catch quite an earful from the committee members and then I

think we will be coming back to you again, Mr. Kneuer.

Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Stearns.

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make

sort of a plug like my colleague from New York mentioned, about

the interoperability, and we also have a lot of hurricanes and tornados in Florida, and one recently ripped through my district down

in Lady Lake, and so this is an important area for us and I guess

maybe you have answered this question, but have you given

thought to the eligibility of satellite communications in the grant

guidance for NTIA’s interoperability program?

Mr. KNEUER. I think, as the events in the Gulf clearly demonstrated, that satellite components can be a very critical piece of

underlying operability, and they can certainly be included in part

of an interoperability solution, to the extent, as I said, a State or

locality, in presenting a plan to fill in the gaps of their interoperability solution had a satellite component as part of that, it would

be eligible for funding so long as it was enabled and was a component of the interoperability solution.

Mr. STEARNS. So that would be a yes?
49

Mr. KNEUER. Yes.

Mr. STEARNS. OK. Let me just move to a little bit, talking about

this box that is going to be sold and the education. As I understand

it, Berlin has already gone through this transition?

Mr. KNEUER. To my understanding.

Mr. STEARNS. And have you studied how successful they were?

Mr. KNEUER. Yes.

Mr. STEARNS. And did they have any problems? I understand it

is small, but it is a demonstration that we can look to, to see how

successful it was.

Mr. KNEUER. Well, the transition of that, anyway, is complete.

Mr. STEARNS. It is complete. And what was the set box cost for

them? Just approximately.

Mr. KNEUER. I don’t recall whether or not they were distributed

or whether or not they had what the price level was on them.

Mr. STEARNS. I mean, I think it would be useful for your staff

just to——

Mr. KNEUER. Yes, I think they were distributed to people who

needed them.

Mr. STEARNS. So they were given free?

Mr. KNEUER. That is my understanding.

Mr. STEARNS. OK. And in their education program, did they

start—perhaps you don’t know the details, but it would be helpful

for us, I think, to say here is a demonstration that has been successful, they did it for free. Who manufactured the box, do you

know that?

Mr. KNEUER. No, I don’t know.

Mr. STEARNS. No. In their education program did they do mailings or they did television?

Mr. KNEUER. I can get back to you on the broad strokes of what

they did in Berlin. The one data point that I think is interesting

in the Berlin exercise is that there were a very large number of settop boxes that went unclaimed.

Mr. STEARNS. That were not claimed?

Mr. KNEUER. That were not claimed. Because consumers chose a

different path to the transition that met their own needs without

relying on the Government’s offer to assist them.

Mr. STEARNS. And why would they not want their set box? They

bought it through the supplier of the television?

Mr. KNEUER. I think, just as I would expect in the transition’s

conclusion in this country, consumers have a variety of choices on

how they wish to affect that transition. You can either buy a digital

set or a high definition set; you can subscribe to a service; you can

avail yourself of this program and get financial assistance for a

baseline functionality set-top box. You may go to the marketplace

and find a set-top box that includes other components, a DVR or

a DVD or something like that, so consumers are going to have a

variety of options on how they affect this transition’s conclusion

that meets their particular needs. And I would suspect that the circumstance was similar in Berlin and that a large number of consumers chose a different path rather than the one that the Government was offering as a means of assistance.

Mr. STEARNS. I think the point I am trying to go to is just what

you just made, is it the possibility, some people have complained
50

this $900 plus million is not going to be enough money but just as

you pointed out, in Berlin, that if they are educated early enough,

perhaps the consumers will make a selection where they won’t

need the set box and just like in Germany, not all of them were

used, so through this educational process the consumer will make

a decision, and he or she might buy a new high definition and say

by gosh, I am not going to get the box, and there we go.

And somehow, I am just hopeful that the market and this whole

idea of education will ultimately provide the consumer with a

choice and he or she will make that choice and not rely upon the

Government and then we might, in fact, not even need $990 plus

million. That is my point.

Mr. KNEUER. I think there are compelling consumer reasons to

make the complete transition to digital, to get a high definition——

Mr. STEARNS. We have seen it in Germany.

Mr. KNEUER. We are selling tens of million of digital and high

definition television sets every year. Tens of millions of American

households have already completed this transition and they are

going to continue to do it over the next 2 years. That being said,

this program serves as an option for those households that either

require or wish the financial assistance, but if you look at the take

rates of other transition options and you take the total number of

sets that are out there and the likelihood that the take rate is low

enough, that the billion dollars is sufficient, I think, is most of the

current market data would suggest that the billion dollars——

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent just for

15 seconds to ask him one question.

Mr. MARKEY. Very quickly, please.

Mr. STEARNS. Thank you. Are there any other countries that

have transitioned successfully, like the city of Berlin, either large

cities or not?

Mr. KNEUER. I don’t know of any countries that have completed

the transition.

Mr. STEARNS. Large cities?

Mr. KNEUER. Berlin is the only one.

Mr. STEARNS. The only one. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MARKEY. Gentleman’s time has expired. I think we should note that Berlin spent $1 million on one city. The program we have

for America is $5 million for the whole country. In Berlin they sent

a mailer to every home and put ads on all the mass transit, so the

scale here, $1 million for one city, $5 million for our whole country

of 300 million, it is just going to require us to continue to focus on

it.

Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Stupak.

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Apologize to everyone. I

have been running back and forth. We have an oversight hearing

going on downstairs. Mr. Kneuer, thank you for being here today.

I am concerned about the Memorandum of Understanding between your agency and the Office of Grants and Training with the

U.S. Department of Homeland Security, that it will not adequately

advance innovative ideas. And the administration’s recent budget

proposal just compounds my concerns. The budget, the way I understand it, reads or uses the NTIA funding to offset the administration’s proposed $1 billion cuts in public safety grants.
51

So the administration’s budget is completely contrary to Congress and Congress’s intent for providing a new funding and new

approach to the old issue of interoperability. We have been talking

about interoperability ever since the Air Florida crash in 1982. So

with the budget process here and this Memorandum of Understanding, I am fearful that the twin goals, more money and new

ideas, interoperability will not work or will not become a reality.

So Mr. Kneuer, why do you think Congress gave your agency the

grant program to administer and not the Department of Homeland

Security right off the bat?

Mr. KNEUER. I would assume it was in some recognition of the

communications expertise that we have within the Department of

Commerce, but I would also point out——

Mr. STUPAK. So then why would you go to this memorandum? If

you have the expertise, why would you shift it to the Department

of Homeland Security?

Mr. KNEUER. Because the express guidance included in the management report was that we would work closely with the Department of Homeland Security on a number of areas. The Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Homeland Security

is largely a procurement of services. The ultimate decision making

remains within NTIA, in the Department of Commerce. It is an acquisition of their grant making apparatus. It would be grossly inefficient for us to recreate a grant making apparatus for a period to

run and expire.

Mr. STUPAK. Well, then what is your vision and goal, then, of the

program, then, if you are just going to use them because they know

how to do grant programs? So what is your vision, NTIA’s vision,

of how we are going to do this program here? It is $1 billion.

Mr. KNEUER. Our vision would be to give localities, States, the

ability to leverage the most effective and efficient solutions possible

to fill in the identified gaps in the scorecards that have been identified and the State plans that are going to be completed.

Mr. STUPAK. Where are the scorecards coming from? Have they

been completed? Are they back to your agency?

Mr. KNEUER. These scorecards were completed and have been

submitted to the Department of Homeland Security; we have reviewed them, as well.

Mr. STUPAK. So where is the biggest gap in interoperability

based on these scorecards?

Mr. KNEUER. The scorecards identify gaps across the SAFECOM

continuum, which includes governance and other issues that aren’t

explicitly related to the SAFECOM link. This program, however, is

focused by the statute on the communications functionality.

Mr. STUPAK. OK. Will there be matching fund requirements?

Mr. KNEUER. There is a 20 percent matching requirement.

Mr. STUPAK. Will States like Michigan that have gone ahead and

put forth, basically, statewide interoperability, will Michigan still

be eligible to access this grant program even though they, the taxpayers, have gone ahead and tried to put forth interoperability in

Michigan?

Mr. KNEUER. To the extent there are still identified gaps in the

URASI regions and in the statewide plan that is submitted, yes,

they would be eligible.
52

Mr. STUPAK. All right.

Mr. KNEUER. And I would also point out that those contributions

that the States are making, those contributions should satisfy the

matching requirement.

Mr. STUPAK. All right. In this memorandum it says NTIA, and

I am talking about in cooperation with DHS, I am on page 4 of it

in case you have it with you, identifies specific meaningful and obtainable investment goals for improving communications interoperability through this grant program. Could you explain that a little

bit further, and how are you trying to meet that goal? It is on page

4, subsection (b).

Mr. KNEUER. I don’t want to burn up more of your time while

they are gathering the MOU so I have it in front of me, but if we

can get to other questions.

Mr. STUPAK. All right. Well, while they doing that, let me ask

you this. Are you familiar with CoCo Communications that is going

to be on the second panel?

Mr. KNEUER. Yes, absolutely. Mark Tucker serves on my Federal

Advisory Committee on spectrum.

Mr. STUPAK. What do you think of service-based software products such as theirs?

Mr. KNEUER. I think, as I said, with a lot of these solutions there

are a host of new technologies that can solve this problem and that

is why we want to make sure that the public safety community is

aware of these efficient and effective solutions and that they have

the eligibility to take advantage of them, but at the same time we

need to be mindful and vigilant that we are making sure they are

deploying effective, proven technology. I don’t want firemen with a

beta system responding to an incident. They need to know it is

going to work.

Mr. STUPAK. Well, will grants be available to pay for these service based interoperable solutions today?

Mr. KNEUER. We are finalizing our grant—my expectation would

be the report language tells us to do this in a way that is not inconsistent with the ongoing SAFECOM programs, but I want to be a

complement to that and make sure that we go beyond that and

look at the most effective, efficient solution, so I would certainly expect to try and meet those needs.

Mr. STUPAK. So your answer is yes, then?

Mr. KNEUER. Yes.

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your

time.

Mr. KNEUER. And I am sorry we didn’t have this document. I am

happy to follow up on the MOU.

Mr. STUPAK. Thanks.

Mr. MARKEY. Gentleman’s time has expired. I may just ask you

one final question. Why were the minority media ownership reports

that the NTIA used to do stopped?

Mr. KNEUER. I think it was largely a recognition that that data

is really the FCC’s data and that is where it resides. What we have

recently agreed to do with the Commission, the last report that we

did sort of became the authoritative baseline of what the level of

minority ownership looked like at that snapshot in time. We have

now worked with the FCC collaboratively to say OK, let us use this
53

as a baseline, and now you can go to all of the changes in control,

since the last one, and fill in the gaps so that there will now be

a lasting living document that can be updated. Every time you

have a change in control, you just update the existing database and

you don’t need to periodically start from scratch and create a new

study.

Mr. MARKEY. OK. Well, we are going to be asking you to start

up some kind of a program to make sure that we have accurate

data working with the FCC that is usable by the committee so that

we can have some idea of what the minority ownership is.

Mr. KNEUER. And that is the objective we are trying to meet with

that collaborative effort.

Mr. MARKEY. We thank you, Mr. Kneuer, and we expect to be

having you back on a frequent basis. You can obviously see the intensity of interest in your agency and the issues that you have responsibility for. With the thanks of the committee, you are now excused.

Mr. KNEUER. Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you. Now we will move to the second panel,

and the second panel is a very distinguished one. It includes Harlin

McEwen, who has served in law enforcement for over 49 years. He

is the chairman of the International Association of Police Chiefs

Communications and Telecommunications Committee and serves

as vice chair of the National Public Safety Telecommunications

Council; Morgan O’Brien, who is the co-founder and chairman of

Cyren Call Communications, which we will hear much more about

shortly; Dr. George Rittenhouse, who has a Ph.D. in physics and

a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science. He was one

of the driving forces behind the creation of the Wireless Emergency

Response Team; and Mark Tucker, who is a lifelong technology entrepreneur, who started the first of four companies at age 18, focusing on developing software for the distribution industry. After analyzing the communications problems encountered by first responders on 9/11, Mr. Tucker launched CoCo Communications, which

uses Internet protocol solutions to create interoperability between

legacy systems and forward-looking systems. So we thank each of

our witnesses on this panel for being willing to participate.

Mr. Rittenhouse, we are going to recognize you first for 5 minutes. If, Mr. O’Brien, you could pass that microphone down to Mr.

Rittenhouse and Mr. Rittenhouse, if you could make sure that that

microphone is on, we would appreciate it. You are now recognized

for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE RITTENHOUSE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION, BELL LABS, ALCATELLUCENT BELL LABS

Mr. RITTENHOUSE. Good morning, Chairman Dingell, Chairman

Markey, Ranking Member Barton, Ranking Member Upton and

members of the subcommittee. My name is George Rittenhouse. I

am vice president of technology integration for Bell Laboratories at

Alcatel-Lucent, one of the world’s largest suppliers of telecommunications and networking infrastructure. It is a pleasure to be here

today and talk about a critical issue for our public safety community, namely interoperability.
54

We appreciate the efforts of the chairman and this committee to

ensure that the 700 MHz commercial auction proceeds as quickly

as possible. We also appreciate the steps the FCC has taken in reviewing the utilization of the upper 700 MHz band and ensuring

its timely availability through the auction process. I have a brief

opening statement, and then I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

Prompt deployment of a national interoperable mobile communications capability is essential for the public safety community to

respond effectively to today’s emergencies. This capability must include seamless interoperability across multiple jurisdictions and

among all types of first responders, including police, fire, medical

personnel and others and support advanced high-bandwidth data

applications. Interoperability must also be accomplished cost effectively and use the public safety spectrum efficiently.

The deployment of an interoperable broadband network shared

by multiple public safety agencies in the public safety 700 MHz

band will achieve each of these objectives. It is important to note

that such a network is already being successfully deployed right

here in the National Capital Region, across 18 jurisdictions in

Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. NCR is implementing a

regional broadband wireless network in the 700 MHz public safety

band.

These efforts demonstrate that it is possible, through the deployment of a single shared regional network, for multiple public safety

agencies across multiple jurisdictions to achieve cost-effective

broadband interoperability in a spectrally efficient manner.

Let me spend the next few minutes discussing three key ingredients to making this happen. Using the right spectrum, employing

the right technologies and centralizing what are now disparate networks. The 700 MHz spectrum is ideal for this deployment. It is

already allocated for safety use, thereby avoiding the need for

lengthy regulatory proceedings. After the broadcast television licenses expire in February 2009, it will also be unused. As a result,

the new network infrastructure can be deployed across the bandwidth without disrupting existing users and without requiring public safety officials to disregard what they have already put in place.

Now let me turn to the technology piece. By leveraging the

economies of scale and the R&D investments of the massive commercial market, broadband technologies are extremely cost-effective

in urban, suburban and rural deployments. Commercial broadband

is uniquely suited to provide first responders with technically superior high-bandwidth data capabilities that are both interoperable

and highly cost-efficient.

Compared with wideband solutions and other older technologies,

broadband offers spectral efficiencies that approach the absolute

theoretical limit, producing superior data rates, a longer range and

higher user throughputs. As a result, broadband can carry more

than 10 times the data than a wideband network with the same

bandwidth. Quite simply, this enables more first responders to

send and receive much more data than their current spectrum.

Thus, with commercial broadband, public safety will benefit from

decades of innovation, as well as substantial economies of scale.
55

Finally, regarding the network itself, this committee and our Nation’s public safety community understand that as a Nation, we

need to shift from the prevailing model of regionally coordinated,

individually owned and operated public safety networks to networks shared across multiple jurisdictions. While the decentralized

approach provides flexibility to individual agencies, this flexibility

has had the unintended consequence of fragmenting the use of public safety spectrum and creates a patchwork of incompatible systems that has restrained the development of communications

across the regions and across users.

The bottom line is that our Nation’s first responders deserve immediate access to interoperable broadband communications capability. The best way to accomplish this goal is by ensuring that the

public safety community has access to and the ability to deploy

broadband technologies that are already available in the commercial marketplace. The FCC’s recent waiver allowing NCR to bring

broadband communications capabilities to our Nation’s first responders and the public safety 700 MHz band is an important and

productive step towards achieving this goal.

We would welcome members of this committee to see for themselves what we can accomplish today with commercially off-theshelf available technology. I would like to extend, also, an invitation to visit Bell Laboratories and witness some of the advanced research behind this technology. With that, I am happy to answer

any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rittenhouse follows:]

TESTIMONY OF GEORGE RITTENHOUSE,

Good morning Chairman Dingell, Chairman Markey, Ranking Member Barton,

Ranking Member Upton and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is George Rittenhouse. I am the vice president of Technology Integration for Bell Laboratories at

Alcatel-Lucent—one of the world’s largest suppliers of telecommunications and networking infrastructure. Thank you for the opportunity to be here with you today to

speak about this issue, which is so critical to the support of our public safety community. I would like to thank the Chairman and this committee for your efforts to

ensure the 700 MHz commercial auction proceeds as expeditiously as possible, as

well as the FCC for the steps taken to date in reviewing the utilization of the upper

700 MHz band. As you may know, Bell Labs has a rich background in wireless technologies—having first invented the concept of cellular networks back in 1947, and

continuing through today with a leading edge research and innovation program in

all major areas of wireless networking. I have a brief opening statement, and then

I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

Prompt deployment of a national interoperable mobile communications capability

is essential to the ability of public safety agencies to respond effectively to emergencies. This capability must include seamless interoperability across multiple jurisdictions and among various types of first responders (e.g., police, firefighters, emergency medical personnel and others) and support advanced and high-bandwidth

data applications. Further, such interoperability must be accomplished cost effectively while using the public-safety spectrum in an efficient manner. The deployment of an interoperable broadband network shared by multiple public safety agencies in the Public Safety 700 MHz band will achieve all of these objectives.

Such a shared network is being successfully deployed in the National Capital Region (NCR), which incorporates 18 different jurisdictions in Maryland, Virginia, and

Washington, D.C. NCR is in the process of implementing a regional broadband wireless network in the Public Safety 700 MHz band. These efforts demonstrate that it

is possible, through the deployment of a single shared regional network, for multiple

public safety agencies across multiple jurisdictions to achieve cost-effective

broadband interoperability in a spectrally efficient manner. Let me spend the next

few minutes discussing three key ingredients to making this happen: using the right
56

spectrum, employing the right technologies and centralizing what are now disparate

networks.

I. The Public Safety 700 MHz Band Is Ideally Suited to Accommodate

Interoperable Broadband Public Safety Communications on a National

Basis

As the committee is aware, the Public Safety 700 MHz band is ideally suited to

support interoperable broadband communications. The spectrum already is allocated

for public safety use, thereby avoiding the need for lengthy regulatory proceedings

to identify and allocate appropriate spectrum resources. Further, after the broadcast

television licenses expire in February 2009, it will be unused. As a result, new network infrastructure can be deployed across the bandwidth without disrupting existing incumbent users of the spectrum and without requiring public safety officials

to discard that which they have already put in place. Moreover, 700 MHz spectrum

offers favorable radio frequency propagation characteristics that enable enhanced

coverage over large geographic areas as well as superior building penetration. This

results in substantially lower deployment costs for wide-area deployments when

compared with higher frequency public safety spectrum allocations, such as the 4.9

GHz band. In addition, the close proximity of the Public Safety 700 MHz band to

commercial spectrum bands on which broadband technologies already are, or soon

will be, deployed will facilitate the sharing of commercial network infrastructure

and technology between first responders and the private sector, which has the potential to substantially reduce the public safety community’s deployment costs.

II. Broadband Technologies Offer Superior Performance at a Lower Cost

and Therefore Should be Adopted by the Public Safety Community for Nationwide Interoperability

Now let me turn to the technology piece of the equation. Most importantly, by

leveraging the economies of scale and research and development expenditures of the

massive commercial wireless market, broadband technologies are extremely cost effective in urban, suburban and rural deployments. Commercial broadband technologies are uniquely suited to provide first responders with technically superior

high-bandwidth data capabilities that are both interoperable and highly cost efficient. Compared with wideband solutions and other older data technologies that

have been considered by the public safety community for use in the 700 MHz band,

broadband offers spectral efficiencies that approach the theoretical limit, superior

data rates, long range and higher user throughputs. In addition, all commercial

broadband technologies are inherently designed to offer enhanced voice and data

interoperability, as well as backward compatibility across prior generations of equipment.

Increased Spectral Efficiencies. Broadband technology allows first responders to

make much more efficient use of their existing spectrum. Specifically, broadband

technologies enable all available channels to be used in every cell throughout a

broadband network, i.e., frequency reuse of one, where the same radio frequency

channel is reused across an entire network. As a result, a broadband network can

carry more than ten times more data than a wideband network with the same bandwidth, thus allowing more simultaneous users to send and receive more data. Thus,

broadband is ideally suited to accommodate the large number of first responders

that are likely to respond to a major catastrophe. As a result of broadband’s higher

aggregate capacity, more data-intensive applications can be accessed by each first

responder and a larger number of users can be supported in a coverage area than

is possible with other wide area public safety wireless technologies. Moreover, the

single-carrier frequency reuse enabled by third-generation broadband technologies

eliminates the need for detailed frequency coordination between local, state, and regional jurisdictions.

Higher Data Rates and Throughputs. Broadband technologies also offer the high

data rates required to support the advanced, data-intensive applications required by

today’s first responders. All current commercial broadband technologies offer reliable data rates in excess of 500 kbps. These data rates far exceed the capabilities

of currently deployed public safety communications systems and are superior to

other data technologies under consideration by first responders. Further, given sufficient spectrum resources, much higher data rates can be supported by the most recent generation of broadband technologies as new higher-bandwidth advanced applications are developed.

Turn-Key Interoperability. Seamless interoperability across both geographic deployments and multiple generations of technology are hallmarks of commercial

broadband technologies. In fact, such capabilities are demanded by the commercial

wireless market. Accordingly, first responders will be able to travel anywhere in the
57

country with confidence that their communications equipment will be fully compatible with the networks of other jurisdictions. In addition, because commercial

broadband technologies provide a high degree of backward compatibility across prior

generations of equipment, public safety agencies will be able to upgrade their communications equipment without stranding previously deployed equipment, disrupting existing users, or reducing overall interoperability. Further, broadband technologies provide native support of packet-switched Internet Protocol (IP) technologies and hence are interoperable with other IP-based communications technologies.

Leveraging Commercial Markets to Reduce Costs. Adoption of commercial

broadband technology will enable the public safety community to benefit from the

decades of innovation funded by the private sector, as well as the substantial economies of scale available to the commercial markets. Driven by the competitive need

to deploy new, revenue-generating services, commercial wireless providers and their

technology vendors continually push the cutting edge of wireless technology. By

adopting commercial broadband technologies, first responders can leverage the private sector’s research and development expenditures, thereby spreading the cost of

innovation over a user base that is orders of magnitude larger than the public safety

community standing alone. Not only can first responders leverage what commercial

providers have developed to date, but they can continue to benefit from the ongoing

technology improvements in the fiercely competitive commercial space by aligning

themselves with commercial technologies. Also, the standardization required by

commercial wireless providers results in massive economies of scale, which can dramatically reduce the cost of network infrastructure and each of the individual components that comprise user devices. Such continually decreasing costs have transformed commercial wireless service from a luxury item affordable by very few in the

1980s to a commodity enjoyed today by over 230 million American consumers. A

substantial portion of these economies of scale will benefit the public safety community if commercial broadband technologies are adopted by first responders, thereby

providing the greatest benefit to the American people for such efforts as search-andrescue.

III. The Public Safety Community Should Shift From the Prevailing

Model of Regionally Coordinated, Individually Owned and Operated Public

Safety Networks To Networks Shared Across Multiple Jurisdictions

This committee understands, as do those in the public safety community, that as

a nation we need to shift from the prevailing model of regionally coordinated, individually owned and operated public safety networks to networks shared across multiple jurisdictions. To date, first responder networks generally have been deployed

and operated at the local level using a ‘‘stove pipe’’ model in which each local public

safety entity manages its individual network and pool of frequencies. Such a decentralized approach does provide flexibility to individual agencies. However, this flexibility has had unintended negative consequences. Most notably, fragmented use of

public safety spectrum and a patchwork of incompatible systems has restrained the

development of interoperable communications across geographic regions and among

various agencies. Further, it has resulted in inefficient use of spectrum. Accordingly,

a shift to public safety networks shared across jurisdictions is necessary to promote

interoperability.

Our Nation’s first responders deserve immediate access to interoperable

broadband communications capabilities. The best way to accomplish this goal is by

ensuring that the public safety community has access to, and the ability to deploy,

broadband technologies already available in the commercial marketplace. Such technologies offer a turn-key solution to the Nation’s ongoing interoperability challenges,

while also providing the public safety community with the ability to support the

most advanced communications applications, i.e., greater spectral efficiencies, higher

data rates, and higher throughputs. Further, by deploying shared networks using

commercial broadband technologies, public safety can make the most efficient use

of its limited financial resources. Such shared broadband networks can enable the

public safety community to move from today’s disparate and disconnected communications capabilities to an advanced, fully interoperable system seamlessly accessible by numerous agencies and across multiple jurisdictions nationwide. The FCC’s

recent waiver allowing the NCR to bring broadband communications capabilities to

our Nation’s first responders in the Public Safety 700 MHz band is an important

and productive step towards achieving this objective.

Thank you for your time and attention. I appreciate the opportunity to share with

you the work that Alcatel-Lucent and our partners are doing to secure the National

Capitol Region. Additionally, I would like to invite all Members of this committee

to come and kick the tires to see what we can accomplish today with commercially
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available off-the-shelf technology. With that, I am happy to answer any questions

you might have.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Rittenhouse, very much. Next we

are going to hear from, again, Mr. Harlin McEwen, who is the vice

chairman of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council. Welcome, sir.

STATEMENT OF HARLIN MCEWEN, VICE CHAIRMAN,

NATIONAL PUBLIC SAFETY TELECOMMUNICATIONS COUNCIL

Mr. MCEWEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished

members of the committee for the opportunity to appear before you

today and to talk to you about a one-time opportunity to dramatically improve public safety communications. I am nursing a cold,

so I am a little gruff. I am the retired police chief of the city of

Ithaca, New York, and I am also retired as a Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI in Washington, DC. I serve as the chairman of

the Communications and Technology Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a position I have held for

more than 28 years.

I also serve as the communications advisor for the Major Cities

Police Chiefs, the National Sheriffs’, the Major County Sheriffs’ and

today I am also speaking on behalf of the Association of Public

Safety Communications Officials and the National Public Safety

Telecommunications Council.

I am pleased to have the chance to discuss with this subcommittee an exciting new opportunity for Congress to take steps that will

pave the way to reducing the dependence on local and Federal tax

revenues to maintain modern public safety communications systems. That is a proposal for a 700 MHz nationwide public safety

broadband network. This proposed network can become a reality

only if Congress authorizes creation of a public/private partnership

controlled by the public safety community to hold a nationwide license for 30 MHz of spectrum in the upper 700 MHz band and to

further authorize public safety to deploy this network pursuant to

a public sector/private sector partnership model.

The wireless voice systems that public safety personnel use today

are among the most important tools they have to do their job in

a safe and efficient manner. However, these systems have, in many

cases, been under-funded, poorly maintained and generally not refreshed. As we look to the long-term future, we need to look at new

and better ways to improve public safety communications. The implementation of a nationwide public safety broadband network can

be the beginning of the end to the problem of public safety interoperability.

We have been asking for funding support for years to help us upgrade and replace mission critical land mobile voice systems that

are built by different manufacturers, are of different vintages and

are generally incompatible, and in many cases, not compatible,

with the P25 standards, which are the only recognized national

digital standards for land mobile public safety communications

interoperability.

Those who argue that public safety already has enough radio

spectrum to meet current and projected mobile requirements are
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purposely ignoring the facts concerning public safety spectrum allocations and first responder communications requirements. The

facts on spectrum allocations are that public safety has 47 MHz of

spectrum that is usable for wide area networks, while the commercial allocations for wireless communications add up to 528 MHz, an

amount that is more than 10 times that for public safety.

In regard to the Ninth Notice of Proposed Rulemaking recently

issued by the Federal Communications Commission, we have many

concerns about the concepts set forth in that proposal. That proposal suggests that a nationwide broadband network could be built

using the 12 MHz of spectrum currently allocated for local licensing of public safety wideband systems. This would take away from

local licensing control the spectrum long promised for use by local

agencies.

In addition, we believe the proposal is seriously flawed by failing

to acknowledge the need to have enough spectrum to attract investors to participate in the public/private partnership where private

funds would be invested to build such a nationwide network.

I have dedicated most of my professional career to the advancement of public safety communications, and from that perspective I

believe this Congress has an extraordinary time sensitive opportunity. Approval of the Public Safety Broadband Trust and a public/private sector partnership will catapult public safety to its rightful place in the forefront of communications capability, while at the

same time delivering broadband service to communities, including

the rural parts of America that continue to be bypassed by the

commercial telecommunications services.

I hope you will share my belief that this is an opportunity that

must be seized for the benefit of the entire American public and

take quick action to enable it to happen. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McEwen follows:]
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Mr. MARKEY. Thank you very much, Mr. McEwen. Next we are

going to hear from Morgan O’Brien, who is the chairman of Cyren

Call Communications Corporation. Welcome, Mr. O’Brien.

STATEMENT OF MORGAN O’BRIEN, CHAIRMAN, CYREN CALL

COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION

Mr. O’BRIEN. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Markey,

Ranking Member Upton and members of the subcommittee. My

name is Morgan O’Brien, and prior to forming Cyren Call last year,

and Cyren Call is a combination of professionals from the wireless

industry and from the public safety community, prior to that I was

the co-founder of Nextel Communications.

I am here today to ask for your commitment to the creation of

a 21st century state of the art broadband network for the first responder community across America, and here is why. Someone here

in this room will need public safety to save their life one day, and

possibly someone here in this room already owes their life or knows

someone who owes their life to a first responder. And tragically, we

probably all know someone who didn’t make it, despite the valiant

efforts of a policeman, a firefighter, a paramedic or some other

emergency responder.

After having consulted with public safety for many years and listening to what they need, last April Cyren Call submitted a proposal to the FCC to create a nationwide network for public safety

with heavy emphasis on providing a network that would put public

safety in control, in the driver’s seat; creating a funding mechanism

to build and maintain that network and giving first responders not

only a state of the art broadband communications network but a

network that is based on a platform that would evolve to support

future technological breakthroughs in telecommunications. In plain

English, a system that ensures that public safety and first responders have all that they need when they need it.

The debate on the matter of public safety communications has

been vigorous, and I think that is saying the least, over the last

couple of months. But if we step back for a moment, I would like

to draw your attention to a critical point. Among nearly all parties

who have voiced an opinion of this subject, there is now broad consensus on the solution for public safety, and that collective wisdom,

from a number of voices, agrees that (1) public safety needs must

come first; (2) public safety must have a network that meets their

communications requirements; (3) there needs to be one national licensee of that spectrum and that any solution must include collaboration between the public and private sectors.

For us it is truly amazing to have seen this evolution of thought

and how the public safety community has united around this broad

consensus. However, as you undoubtedly know, there are important

points that have not been settled which you, as Members of Congress, must come to understand, as well. There is no way to guarantee that this network will be built according to the needs of public safety unless public safety is placed in a position of ultimate authority over the network. And the only meaningful way that this

can happen is if public safety is made the licensee of the spectrum

assets.
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In addition, unless Congress is willing to pay for the construction

of this network, the construction of the network, its maintenance

and its evolution, and that will cost tens of billions of dollars; unless Congress is willing to pay for that, then I suggest you must

include, in your deliberations, considerations that exceed providing

just the spectrum. This matter is about spectrum and money; the

money to pay for the network that public safety needs. And we believe the Public Safety Broadband Trust Proposal, which is complex

and is laid out in detail in our testimony, addresses both of these

important issues, the spectrum and the money, and if you don’t

have both, you don’t have a solution.

Let me just take the last moment of my time and make the following point about tense. In the past tense, lives have been lost.

Unqualified truth, lives have been lost. It is unanimously believed.

Lives have been lost because of failures of public safety communications systems. Past tense, we can’t escape it. Present tense,

today as we sit here, throughout the country, public safety and the

public that they are sworn to protect are at risk because these systems, despite our knowledge of the history of failures, continue to

fail and continue to be far less than technology can provide today.

The future. The future is literally in the hands of this committee.

This committee has a one time only opportunity to solve this problem. And don’t listen to me. My voice is unimportant. The voice to

listen to is public safety, which has, in an amazing way, formed a

consensus behind this proposal and in a way that I have never

seen. Chief McEwen and the other leadership of public safety has

endorsed this proposal, this solution. I thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. O’Brien follows:]
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Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. O’Brien, very much. Our next witness is Mr. Steve Devine. He is patrol frequency coordinator for the

Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Communications Division,

and he is chair of the National Association of Regional Planning

Committees. Welcome, sir. Whenever you are ready, please begin.

STATEMENT OF STEVE DEVINE, PATROL FREQUENCY COORDINATOR, MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL COMMUNICATIONS DIVISIONS AND CHAIR OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REGIONAL PLANNING COMMITTEES HIGHWAY PATROL, GENERAL HEADQUARTERS.

Mr. DEVINE. Good morning, Chairman Markey, Ranking Member

Upton and members of the committee. Thank you for providing me

the opportunity to share my thoughts today on the important topic

of communications interoperability and how important it is to our

Nation’s first responders. I have been employed by the Missouri

State Highway Patrol in their Communications Division for over 21

years and serve as their patrol frequency coordinator. My main

duty, at the State level, is to support the communications needs of

Missouri’s first responders, coordinate their use of radio spectrum

and promote the cause of effective spectrum management and regional planning throughout the State.

Missouri, like many other States, has diverse public safety communications needs due to sparsely populated rural areas and heavily populated urban metropolitan areas. It is from this experience

that I hope to convey to you some of the reasons public safety interoperability is so difficult to achieve, why we are where we are

today with regard to interoperability and immediate cost-effective

steps that can be taken to further this goal. There are three points

I would like to share with you today that Missouri thinks can be

important to furthering interoperability.

First, flexible software-driven technologies are on their way to

assist in repairing some of the legacy disparate frequency band allocations that currently exist in public safety. Public safety radio

licensing and spectrum acquisition can be a complicated process

with many choices. Actually, many feel that there are too many

choices for local agencies when it comes to meeting their communications needs and having that number of choices has contributed,

to some degree, to a lack of interoperability.

While agencies may have coverage requirements that are dissimilar, if they build systems in different radio bands today they

would not be able to communicate with each other without additional tools. In addition, agencies strive for, as mentioned earlier,

operability initially in their communications goals, which is the

ability for them to communicate effectively with their own personnel before they even consider what agencies around them are

doing.

With multiple radio frequency bands to choose from, quite often

the choice for each frequency band an agency builds their communications needs on is based on cost and historical perspective and

not necessarily on what band would be the most technically suitable or one that best promotes interoperability within a community. This process leads to the creation of independent, stand-alone

networks that cannot intercommunicate and islands of non-inter-
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operable systems operating on disparate bands, which lead to the

inability of first responders within a community to communicate.

There are at least nine existing public safety radio bands that

can be licensed on today by public safety. In some instances, agencies that use the same band as another can also be obstructed by

a manufacturer’s proprietary protocol, blocking agencies from communicating with each other when necessary. Hopefully, the acceleration of the Project 25 standards process will eliminate the proprietary issues and result in clearly defined terms for what the

interoperability platform should be and the new frequency agile

software based radios can soon be utilized as a tool to bridge existing gaps between frequency bands.

While both these issues can be addressed, there will be no rise

in the interoperability quotient within these communities using

these devices unless they are accompanied by an overarching strategy and a regular interoperable dialog at the Federal, State, county

and local level. The Department of Homeland Security has rightly

required statewide interoperability plans to be developed and provided to them by the fall of this year from each State and territory.

The requirements for such plans is a much needed move in the

right direction, since any nationwide interoperability plan using

the system of systems approach will really become a national book,

with each State and territory providing its own chapter of that

book.

These plans will begin to provide a snapshot of the overall national interoperable landscape that is long overdue. No one initiative can provide more of the information required in facilitating

interoperability than the Federal Government requiring each State

to document and make available its interoperable vision and corresponding communications initiative. This national architecture

can have several benefits. It can require local agencies to acknowledge a State’s wide area strategy when applying for grant funding

and also provides them information as to what communications initiatives their neighboring communities utilize.

In Missouri, for example, with Missouri having eight adjacent

States, it is critical Missouri’s plan be shared with its neighboring

States: Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa, to ensure across border interstate response and to acknowledge differences and consistency between

bordering agencies. The NTIA, with support from the Department

of Homeland Security, should also provide State spectrum management training consistent with conclusions reached from a June

2004 NTIA report that identified the lack of prioritization on public

safety spectrum planning at the State and local level.

Achieving a degree of interoperability we all feel is necessary requires planning and long-term commitment, accompanied with responsible and realistic equipment purchases. Interoperability is as

much a human problem as it is a hardware problem. In the past,

NTIA provided State spectrum management training, which is no

longer offered to State and local users but remains in place to provide spectrum management to developing nations. In many areas,

providing States this training will allow good, consistent interoperable best practices to be distributed across the Nation and will lay
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the foundation necessary for interoperable communications to flourish within a long-term interoperable strategy.

Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program

funding is dedicated to interoperable communications and should

be dispersed to local agencies only after it has been proven and

agreed upon by both the State and DHS that the application works

with and recognizes the same goals and objectives consistent with

the respective State interoperability plan.

With the public safety grant awards due by September 30, and

the States required to submit plans at the same time, there is a

fear in the public safety communities there will not be sufficient

time to ensure the applications submitted with the wide area plan

developed in that State.

I know I am out of time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope the

rest of my testimony can be submitted.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Devine follows:]
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Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Devine, very much. And all of your

testimony will be included in the record. I will advise the panel

right now that there are three roll calls on the floor of the House

of Representatives at this time, so I will have to recess this hearing

for approximately 25 minutes, at which point we will reconvene,

and we will recognize you, Mr. Tucker, for your opening statement,

and then we will go to questions of the panel from the subcommittee members. So the panel stands in recess until approximately 10

past 12:00.

[Recess.]

Mr. MARKEY. We have a little bit of a window right now, but I

think we can use it to complete the hearing. We will next hear

from our final witness and then go to questions from the subcommittee members. That witness is Mark Tucker, who is chairman of CoCo Communications from Seattle, Washington. Welcome,

Mr. Tucker. Whenever you are ready, please begin.

STATEMENT OF MARK L. TUCKER, CHAIRMAN, COCO

COMMUNICATIONS

Mr. TUCKER. Thank you, Chairman Markey, Ranking Member

Upton and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me

here today. My name is Mark Tucker, and I am CEO of a company

called CoCo Communications. In the interest of time, I will submit

my written testimony and just provide a summary, summary remarks.

Over the past 5 years it has been my privilege to lead the effort

to CoCo in developing new technologies for the public safety community and deploying solutions that solved interoperability problems. I am happy to announce that today there is a live network

in operation in Dallas, Texas, connecting local, State and Federal

responders together that is always on, and it is emergency and disaster ready.

The significance of this network is that it is a subscription service. Users pay a small monthly fee to connect their existing radios,

cell phones and computers together. There is no need to replace

equipment, and there is no additional spectrum required. Using

this innovative approach, a cost-effective national solution to the

interoperability problem is at hand. Thank you, and I look forward

to answering your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tucker follows:]
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Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Believe it or not, you have

just won the award for the shortest testimony of any witness in the

history of Congress. The Chair will recognize himself for questions.

Mr. O’Brien, can you talk about the nexus between your plan,

local first responder interoperability, and coordination with regional or Federal agencies? In a flu pandemic, for example, take a

flu pandemic and walk us through what your system would be able

to do.

Mr. O’BRIEN. In a flu pandemic, once our network, as proposed,

was constructed and operating, all of the responders to that flu

pandemic, without regard to whether in advance of the pandemic

it was identified who needed to be part of the response group or

how many response groups there needed to be, would automatically

be intercommunicating at whatever level was considered desirable.

An important point to make is with the system, the broadband

system that we are proposing, that communications would not be

limited, as is today usually the case, just to voice, it would include

the ability to transfer data files at high speed and also to transmit

video from person to person anywhere, from anywhere to anywhere. So the vision is a broadband network capable of supporting

the highest quality of video, data and voice services to anyone from

anyone at device prices that would be a fraction of what today’s

public safety devices are.

Now, to make sure we make an important distinction, most of today’s current public safety systems, of which there are many thousands, are voice centric, and they are mission critical voice. The

need to have those systems interoperate, such as the kind of technology that Mark Tucker was just describing, that is not rendered

moot by our type of system, certainly not in anywhere like the near

term timeframe, so there is a necessity, there seems to be an urgent necessity to connect existing mission critical voice systems

even as a next generation network, such as the one we proposed,

begins to come online.

Mr. MARKEY. OK. Mr. Tucker, how would you respond to that?

Mr. TUCKER. I would respond to that, at scale, the network that

we have live down in Texas, if that were a nationwide system and

actually CDC is a participant on that network, what the network

allows is for cell phones to talk to radios, radios to talk to laptops,

and it supports voice, video and data. And so the authentication

mechanisms happen whenever there is an agency that turns something on, they have got ticker access.

For example, in this pandemic example, whoever noticed the

pandemic, whether it comes from a hospital, which we have a number of hospitals coming online, would issue a particular ticker just

like you see on CNN, except for it is private and used for a responder, used to communicate between responder groups. And so

just having that notification ability could allow other hospitals

around the country to basically start looking out for these types of

flu symptoms earlier, as well as they can start to issue data communications for what to do; where you are going to start setting

up triage centers.

Is the VA going to become involved and what is the National

Guard going to be called into play and so the ability to have a nationwide vision, and the ability to have communications which are
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interoperable both at the voice level but also at the data level and

the video level is very important so that information can flow up

from the local to the State to the Federal, as well as information

disseminated down from the Federal, State to local. So that is exactly what our system allows.

Mr. MARKEY. All right, thank you. Mr. Devine, Mr. McEwen, you

are the public safety people on the panel. The FCC is considering

several plans for the spectrum the broadcasters are vacating, the

so-called broadband optimization plan, the Frontline plan and others affect the frequency band plan or license requirements for the

700 MHz auction. Do you support any of these plans? Do you agree

that the FCC should decide these issues prior to the auction?

Mr. MCEWEN. Well, you have asked about two different proposals. One is the broadband optimization plan. Let me address that

first. The public safety community that I represent, all of the national organizations have strongly endorsed that plan because of

the benefits to the public safety community.

There are issues along the Canadian border that need to be addressed, that that does a good job of solving, so there are many different reasons, I won’t go into them in great detail, but the

broadband optimization plan is something we feel would be very

beneficial to public safety. That has to be acted upon by the FCC

fairly soon because of the implications it would have with the auction that is coming up.

Now, on the Frontline proposal, I will just answer that one. We

have not taken a position on that because it has just been recently

proposed, and we are still studying that. In fact, some of us met

with the Frontline people just yesterday.

Mr. MARKEY. OK. And do you want the FCC to resolve these

issues before we auction off the spectrum?

Mr. MCEWEN. I don’t see any way around it. I mean, I think they

have to be. Keeping in mind, now, that our proposal for the Public

Safety Broadband Trust is dependent upon there being a change in

the auction rules, so of course, that again has to be resolved if you

are going to do that.

Mr. MARKEY. I apologize to you, Mr. Devine. My time has expired. Let me turn and recognize the gentleman from Michigan,

Mr. Upton.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you all. Mr. McEwen, just to follow up on

that, we heard from the FCC, I believe it was last week, and they

are beginning to write these rules and that they are hoping that

they will be in place in just a few months so that they can actually

go to market and be able to get the interest that they think that

they need to do.

Mr. Tucker, Mr. Rittenhouse, I just want to follow up a little bit

on what Mr. Markey said and that is Mr. O’Brien stated in his testimony that 12 MHz would not be enough capacity to accommodate

the broadband usage, and I just wondered if you agree with that

or not. Mr. Tucker, Mr. Rittenhouse.

Mr. TUCKER. Yes, capacity is always good, so the more capacity

that you have out there for public safety, the better. Is that enough

for broadband? I guess that depends if you could leverage existing

other broadband technologies. And in the case of a system like

CoCo, you can leverage Verizon Wireless system, Cingular system.
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You can leverage Clearwire system, and so as you begin to aggregate the amount of bandwidth, the actual amount increases for

usage, and so that is kind of our position, more bandwidth is good

and more capacity is good. As it relates to the statement of is it

enough or not? I am not quite sure how to answer that.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Rittenhouse.

Mr. RITTENHOUSE. Yes, I would just further state that mapping

this into a spectrum issue is again complicated, but just as a point

of reference, most wideband data networks today that are commercially deployed, supporting the entire country, do it within about 5

MHz. That is just a reference point.

Mr. UPTON. And Mr. O’Brien, I did appreciate the visit that we

had a couple weeks ago, and we had covered a lot of ground then.

I just have a question. Under your plan that would have the Congress authorizing this, since this is the new plan, the $10 billion

in Government-backed loans, what happens if there is a default?

Mr. O’BRIEN. We think one of the great advantages of our plan

is that the license stays in the hands of the Government throughout the process, and therefore you never have any of the horribles

that stem from those kinds of situations. When licenses fell into

the bankruptcy process, such as the Nextwave, the point I want to

stress is that we are looking at, in the case of legislation that we

have been working on with public safety, we are looking at doing

everything necessary to offset the budget shortfall that would take

place if this spectrum were moved into the Public Safety

Broadband Trust and to use proceeds from raising funds in the

capital markets but looking for Government loan guarantees to

keep those borrowing costs to the lowest possible number, getting

the right balance of Federal assistance in what we think is a

worthwhile plan and using the capital markets which are so abundant at this point with capital.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you. I yield back.

Mr. MARKEY. Gentleman’s time has expired. The gentleman from

Washington State, Mr. Inslee.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. Mr. Tucker, thanks for making the trip.

I make it every Monday and Friday, so I appreciate you coming

out.

Mr. TUCKER. Thank you very much.

Mr. INSLEE. I am sorry I came in in the middle of your testimony, but could you expand on what sort of you see as the Federal

need to allow this service-based, subscription-based interoperability

to occur? Is it a designation of a particular standard? Is it a registration process? What is it, from the Federal Government, that

could assist that development?

Mr. TUCKER. Well, I think that just market forces and the cost

effectiveness of allowing a service where you don’t have to make

additional capital infrastructure investments will win out over the

market over time. But I think what the country needs to do is come

up with a national vision for interoperability, a direction that is a

national direction set by the Federal Government to say this is the

direction and this is the vision where we are headed.

I think that will benefit all solutions. I think it will benefit State

and local folks. Not so overreaching that an individual police department or a fire department can’t make their own choices for
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their main communications, but something that governs or provides a direction so that everybody can move towards the ability to

talk with each on a local, State and Federal basis. So I think that

allowing this billion dollars to be used for innovative approaches

and to really measure what the outcomes are is something that the

Federal Government can do and something that this committee is

looking at and is very instrumental.

And I believe that at some stage where technology lies, where

the state of infrastructure lies and the state of communications,

that it is going to require Federal, State and local leadership, collectively, to solve the problem.

Mr. INSLEE. And where would that manifest itself most, most

concretely, with the Federal Government? I mean, a vision statement, we can pass a bill, here is our vision. How does it actually,

where the rubber meets the road, where would that be implemented?

Mr. TUCKER. And this is my opinion. Just looking at the different

agencies, because we are talking about not only Homeland Security

agencies, we are talking about DoJ agencies, we are talking about

transportation agencies. HHS is involved. I think with Assistant

Secretary Kneuer is a great place to put that responsibility, to

come up with a vision statement to basically say this is the direction for interoperable communications.

I think Homeland is doing a good job at focusing on OK, what

do responders need, how do we get there. But I think that what

we are really dealing with is we have got these islands of communication, that are these radio systems that aren’t connected. It

looks just like the Internet did when it started. It looks just like

the cell networks, where there were pockets of coverage.

And what the U.S. Government did a good job of is providing not

competition, but a road map to basically allow competition to flourish and to allow a direction so that eventually technology could create connectivity across all these islands. Basically, we need interoperability to build bridges between all these separated islands

right now. And I think that there needs to be somebody who is setting that vision, federally.

Mr. INSLEE. I noticed in your testimony you indicated this is

most, the biggest penetration is in Texas.

Mr. TUCKER. Yes.

Mr. INSLEE. Why is that? Is it happenstance?

Mr. TUCKER. That project was actually born in the Office of

Homeland Security out of the Office of the CIO, and they took a

look at the CoCo protocol with its advanced features to create an

open architecture out of the existing parts, and they decided to utilize a test bed somewhere in the country, and for whatever reason,

Dallas was selected because there was an airport very close to a

city, and we could basically utilize the network for a number of

critical infrastructure points as well as for first responders, and the

governor of Texas got behind it, and that trial was successful, and

that has led to the launch of the service network down in Dallas,

which is expanding.

Mr. INSLEE. Can you give us some idea how many services are

involved right now? How many police departments or fire departments?
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Mr. TUCKER. There are about nine different local, State, Federal

groups involved, connecting about 5,000 local devices and then

statewide, about 10,000.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. Thanks for being here.

Mr. TUCKER. Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr. Devine, let

me ask you a question. Do you believe that the National Interoperable Public Safety requires a single network, or should it be a network of networks that all work across each other?

Mr. DEVINE. I think, Mr. Chairman, the system of systems approach is what SAFECOM and DHS had identified early on that

in order to really get our arms around this, we were going to have

to acknowledge what exists today and realizing we just can’t wipe

the slate clean and go out and build something. It doesn’t happen

overnight, and physically, it is probably not in our interests, as

well, at least to some degree. But I think a system of systems approach is necessary, and like I indicated, there is multiple bands,

there is multiple protocols.

But I think what we have to focus on is the end capabilities, not

what all of those systems are made up of, but what comes out of

them and that to be consistent nationwide is what we have to look

at. If what comes out of the systems is consistent and interchangeable and subsequently interoperable, how they do it internally becomes still critical to the end goal but less important because right

now we don’t have that.

Mr. MARKEY. So you are saying even if more spectrum is provided, there is no guarantee that there will be seamless interoperable communications amongst all of these networks? Or is it guaranteed? Is there a guaranteed result that the more spectrum we

put out there the more likely it is seamless and working across?

Mr. DEVINE. It is not my opinion that throwing spectrum at a

problem is the sole solution. As I indicated, I think anybody who

does anything without acknowledging that existing landscape that

exists is not going to be successful. You have to acknowledge where

everybody is. We have to be committed and aggressive and say

here is our vision, here is our end point. Everybody is going to arrive at it from a different perspective. Here is where we are going

to be. It is going to take X number of years, and we are going to

commit ourselves to it and go there. And during that, we make

sure the capabilities, not the frequency bands or the protocols or

any of the other specifics are the driving factor, it is the capabilities in the end use.

Mr. MARKEY. OK, great. Let me ask each one of you.

Mr. MCEWEN. Could I respond to that, too?

Mr. MARKEY. Yes.

Mr. MCEWEN. Quickly. I think the answer to your question is obvious. I mean, for the last, since 9/11 you have been throwing

money to us, at our request, and we have been trying to solve that

problem of tying together the systems, the systems of systems approach, and we have made some progress, but it is a long ways off

from a solution. And I think you just got to recognize the fact that

many of us have realized that this just isn’t going to ever get to

where you want to get, and that is why I am suggesting a different

approach.
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Mr. MARKEY. OK, great. Here is what I am going to ask each one

of you, to give me your 1-minute summation of what it is that you

want our committee to remember as we are going forward over the

next several months. We will go in reverse order of the opening

statements. You didn’t give one, Mr. Tucker, but if you would,

please give us your 1-minute summary.

Mr. TUCKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that the billion

dollars in interoperability grants are very, very important to the

country. I think it is important that these be distributed for innovative approaches, and I think that getting them into the field this

year on schedule is extremely important, so anything that can be

done to assist that would be great. I think that long-term, we have

got to set a national vision for interoperability. I don’t think you

can just say give us your plan and let us look at your plan. I think

there has to be some vision that is set so that people understand

how to adopt and how to get from here to there. And I think that

if the committee could take a look at how to do that, I think that

would be time well spent. Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Mr. Devine.

Mr. DEVINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with Mr. Tucker.

I think a vision has to be set. We have to be ready to endure all

of the difficulties in arriving at it, but I think we have to set that,

and we have to work towards it. We can’t let the expenditures from

this billion dollars lead towards the paradigm which has brought

us to today. We have to make sure that these dollars are spent towards what moves us forward to our eventual end point. With regard to what the FCC is working with with band realignment,

Chief McEwen and myself were part of the original committee that

created the band and put it in its place when the DTV transition

was uncertain.

Now if we had to do it all over again and that was a certain date,

we would aggregate those channels and make it more cost-effective

and make the technologies more conducive to each other, so that

with regard to the broadband optimization plan, we feel that that

is conducive to that. So I think that the FCC’s broadband vision

should be consistent with the deployment of these grant funds. And

thank you again.

Mr. MARKEY. OK, great. Mr. O’Brien.

Mr. O’BRIEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Without question and

without any hesitation, each day entrusts ourselves and our lives

and our safety and loved ones to public safety first responders. We

suggest that this committee do the same thing for public safety

communications going into the future and listen to the voice of public safety, and it seems to us that voice is clear that a new approach is necessary; the old approach does not work. And if this

committee fails to take action and the one and only spectrum opportunity that is on the horizon escapes us, then by inaction the

committee will have made a decision one way or the other. The decision is clearly yours, the decision to listen to the voice of public

safety and address this concern in a way that combines spectrum

and funding. And without that combination there will be no

progress. Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. O’Brien. Mr. McEwen.
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Mr. MCEWEN. I think several members of this committee, today,

this morning, indicated that they are looking for a nationwide solution for interoperability, and I think that is the basis for what I

have been talking about here today. We are only asking for half of

the spectrum that is to be auctioned, that is 60 MHz is to be auctioned; we are asking for half of that. This would be managed by

the public safety community. That is a very critical issue because

from our perspective, the only reason that we support this is because we would be in control, not Morgan O’Brien, not some commercial company.

The spectrum that we are asking for would still be owned by the

Government. Mr. Upton has asked a very good question, that is

what happens if this falls out? You still own the spectrum. If it all

failed, if everything failed, which I don’t believe it will, you own the

spectrum, now you can auction it and still make the same amount

of money, maybe more. But the point is that that is your fallback.

And the last thing is that this is a taxpayer relief proposal. I

mean, we have been asking you for funding for years, and we are

suggesting there is a different paradigm. Let us go to somebody

like a Morgan O’Brien or whoever and let them invest their money

to build the solution and take that monkey off your back and our

back. Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. McEwen. Before I recognize you,

Mr. Rittenhouse, I have to leave the hearing right now. I am going

to turn the chair over to Congresswoman Capps from California for

her to ask her questions, and then the hearing will adjourn, but

we thank all of you for your testimonies today. Mr. Rittenhouse,

please give us your final.

Mr. RITTENHOUSE. Sure. Thanks to the leadership of this committee, we all recognize the importance of public safety. The two

things that I want to leave you with are first of all, to give our first

responders the same type of technology capabilities that are enjoyed by most Americans today. That is the least we can do for the

public safety community. The second thing I want to leave you with

is interoperability. In the commercial market we face interoperability every day. Of course, when you leave here and arrive at another airport, you expect your cell technology to work. It has always been interoperable, not just geographically, but across generations, as well. Technology continues to move forward, and we

have to maintain that backward compatibility. So the issues that

are perhaps new to public safety are not new to the commercial

providers, as well. Thank you.

Mrs. CAPPS [presiding]. Thank you, each of you, and I know you

have given your summary statements, but since I wasn’t able to

come until now, I beg you to extend your time another few minutes

so that I can enter into this discussion. I am really pleased with

this panel’s presence here today to talk about these very important

concerns of public safety. I have been involved in public safety all

my life.

I am particularly interested, Mr. Tucker, and I know you delved

into this a little, but I am hopeful that you can explain now, for

a few minutes, a little more about the software-driven interoperability service that your company has developed in Dallas. I found

it very intriguing, and as I understand it, CoCo Communications
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actually does connect local, State and Federal public safety agencies and even Southwest Airlines.

Mr. TUCKER. That is correct.

Mrs. CAPPS. And I think this is remarkable that you have a subscription service that is a network of networks so they can talk to

each other and don’t even have to buy any new equipment. This

sounds, to me, too good to be true. Maybe you can use a couple

minutes to talk about that.

Mr. TUCKER. Great. Well, thank you very much. In a nutshell,

what is going on is we have got these islands of communication

that don’t communicate together, just like before the Internet we

had all these computer systems that didn’t talk together. They

were islands of computer networks. And so what the Internet allowed is it allowed a service; you put in a DSL, you put in a cable

box and you can connect your network to, call it a cloud of

connectivity and you can have communications from one computer

network to another.

The same thing is possible in what’s running down at Love Field

using the CoCo protocol, which is a new technology that is optimized for communications at the edge dealing with DoD grade security so National Guard can connect to a local fireman. And the

key is, is to allow this same type of connectivity to occur that occurred that built the Internet, which basically created a master

connectivity system where all the systems can now talk together.

And so that is what is live now in Dallas, and the service model

is such that instead of rip and replace or pulling systems out and

rebuilding with new systems, you can take your existing system,

just like you could take your existing computer networks, back before the Internet, and you could basically just provide a service to

connect them.

It is a little bit more complicated than just connecting a computer service because you have got radios to deal with, you have

got the ability to have the secondary device of a responder, which

is a cell phone, to communicate to the radios and then have both

of those devices communicate back to laptops and the computer

networks. And so the ability to share voice, video and data that

allow interoperability on all three of those levels is what has been

achieved.

And so the impact of what that is, is it is basically, you can create a nationwide system of systems approach using subscription

model where service providers can go out and provide that

connectivity just like an ISP, an Internet Service Provider, would

go out and provide connectivity to a commercial entity.

Mrs. CAPPS. I can ask you a lot of questions just about how that

works, but I want to get specific in terms of its applicability. What

would happen when there is an interruption in Internet service or

something goes wrong and also, in addition to that, would this system work in a chaotic situation such as, I come from earthquake

country out in California, or God forbid, something as drastic as 9/

11?

Mr. TUCKER. Right. And that is why it is a little bit harder than

just connecting to the Internet and connecting computer networks,

and so the key is convergence; convergence of the infrastructure assets where you take different radio systems that allow convergence
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through the terrestrial backbone, phone companies’ networks, but

you also need to be able to be emergency ready, which means you

need to use the cell carrier networks, as well as the radio assets,

and if you start to see networks going down, which is what the

CoCo protocol controls, the routes and the change basically occurs

so that communication can happen.

So even if you lose your terrestrial networks, you can still put

a laptop up, connect radio to that laptop and you can have your

radio devices that are battery powered, even if all power is out, still

communicate on the scene. And then if you have any satellite link,

the protocol will direct things to a satellite link and connect back

to another part of the country that still has power. And so the key

with public safety is to deal with connectivity, not just on a terrestrial basis, but that is important, but also allow for a convergence

to happen wirelessly, locally and also at the service level.

Mrs. CAPPS. Is this what you mean by self-healing?

Mr. TUCKER. That is correct.

Mrs. CAPPS. So that all three of those levels, if one is disrupted,

then the other two carry on while that one disrupted fixes itself?

Mr. TUCKER. That is correct. Now, when all the batteries are

gone and the power is out and every network is down and your last

battery runs out of your radio and your power goes down, your generator goes down, connecting to your satellite, there is going to be

no communication, but what this network allows is the strength of

allowing different networks to fail and still enable emergency communications and be disaster communications ready.

And the other key is, is that the network is always on so that

it doesn’t take, on the scene of an incident, to connect the radios

together and say OK, all five responder groups can now connect locally. It allows the network to always be on so that information

sharing can occur on a day-to-day basis, which is what is happening down at Dallas.

Mrs. CAPPS. I know that my time is up, and since I am in the

chair, I have no excuses for extending, but I was hoping, maybe

just for half a second, Mr. McEwen or Mr. Tucker or Mr. Devine

would like to comment on this and not pushing one product as

much as on the system that is being discussed. Or anyone? Then

we will close.

Mr. DEVINE. Yes. As a general idea, I think the proposal, the concept is interesting. My question would be, and I have never met

Mark, but would ask if there is a standard specifically for that protocol or is that a proprietary device, and it is very possible that it

is. And from a market perspective, I don’t know how that will

work, but the idea of leveraging some of the other assets that are

existing around you, when your radio doesn’t work, you will be able

to borrow that, is certainly a noble one.

Mrs. CAPPS. We will have to go into that at another time. Anybody else have a final comment on that or a question or a concern

about it?

Mr. MCEWEN. Not in half a second.

Mrs. CAPPS. I know. I apologize, but I think we do have a fruitful

discussion to start another hearing on, and with this, we will have

this hearing adjourned, and thank you all for your participation.

[Whereupon, at 12:54 p.m. the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Assistant Secretary for Communications

Washington, DC 20230

March 1, 2007

THE HONORABLE ELIOT ENGEL

House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Representative Engel:

Thank you for sharing your concerns about section 3006 of the Deficit Reduction

Act of 2005, Public Law No. 109–171, and the manner in which the Department of

Commerce will administer the Public Safety Interoperable Communications (PSIC)

grant program created and funded by this section. The Department recognizes the

significant investment the city of New York has made in improving public safety

communications and interoperability.

As you note in your letter, section 3006 directs the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to Establish and

implement a grant program to assist public safety agencies in the acquisition of, deployment of, and training for the use of interoperable communications systems that

utilize, or enable interoperability with communications systems that can utilize, certain frequencies in the 700 MHz band. NTIA does not view this language to limit

the grant funds only to 700 MHz systems investments. Rather, NTIA is committed

to exploring the use of all available technologies to advance overall public safety

interoperability, so long as those technologies will enable first responders to interoperate with 700 MHz band in the future.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg also raised similar concerns about the PSIC program,

and on February 22, 2007, I visited New York City to meet with the New York Police Department. The meeting provided valuable information about the public safety

needs and interoperability concerns of New York.

NTIA, in consultation with the Department of Homeland Security, intends to design the PSIC program as a one-time grant opportunity that will achieve a meaningful improvement in the state of public safety communications interoperability and

provide the maximum amount of interoperable communications systems with a minimum of impact to or replacement of existing state, tribal, and local radio communications assets. NTIA expects to make PSIC grant awards no latter than September 30, 2007, as required by the Call Home Act of 2006, Public Law No. 109–459.

During these days of heightened security and awareness, public safety agencies

are required and expected to serve their citizens as effectively as possible. The Department of Commerce shares your commitment to improving the state of communications interoperability among our Nation’s first responders.

JOHN M.R. KNEUER

Assistant Secretary for Communications

U.S. Department of Commerce

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