Criterion Report Analyzes Alternative Approaches to Improving Public Safety Communications, Finds Flaws with Cyren Call Proposal

February 6, 2007

Washington, DC:  A Criterion Economics report released today, "Improving Public Safety Communications:  An Analysis of Alternative Approaches," finds that adoption of modern technology and creation of a national framework for managing public safety spectrum are the keys to improving the interoperability of public safety communication systems and providing first responders with much-needed broadband communications capabilities. The report shows that the Federal Communications Commission and public safety agencies are moving in the right direction on both fronts.

The paper also finds that a proposal by Cyren Call Communications suffers from serious flaws, and that its adoption would not result in more effective communications solutions for public safety.

Specifically, the report finds that the Cyren Call plan is likely to delay improvements in public safety communications and harm consumer welfare. It would disrupt the carefully crafted DTV transition, delaying indefinitely the availability of additional spectrum and funding to solve interoperability; be likely to fail economically, as it assumes private industry would pay more to use the system than the competitive market would support; force public safety agencies and the Federal government to bear the entire risk of failure, including a government-backed loan guarantee of $5 billion; and deprive consumers and taxpayers of other benefits of the DTV transition, including advanced wireless services made possible by the newly available spectrum, and $7 billion in deficit reduction.

A better approach, according to the paper, is adoption of a new national model for managing public safety spectrum to ensure effective emergency communications. The paper concludes that current interoperability problems and inefficiencies in public safety communications systems are the result of the traditional fragmented approach to managing public safety spectrum, and that a national framework that leverages the use of modern technologies, such as that recently proposed by the FCC, would provide inherent interoperability and advanced capabilities, while maximizing spectrum and economic efficiency. It also finds that public safety agencies themselves, including specifically agencies in the New York City area and in the National Capital Region, are demonstrating such an approach can work, as they are already cooperating to put in place highly capable broadband communications systems based on modern technologies – and doing so without additional spectrum allocations.

Overall, the paper concludes that "the Cyren Call proposal is neither workable nor desirable. The steps needed for rapid improvements in public safety communications are already in motion, and Cyren Call's plan would do more to disrupt this progress than to promote it."

The paper was co-authored by Criterion economists Jeffrey Eisenach, Allan Ingraham and Hal Singer, along with Wiley Rein engineer Thomas Dombrowsky and economist Peter Cramton. It was prepared on behalf of the Consumer Electronics Association and the High Tech DTV Coalition.

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