Sprint Nextel pitches $2B plan to provide public-safety communications

Sprint Nextel has pitched to the Obama transition team a $2 billion plan to provide first responders with emergency interoperable wireless communications anywhere in the country within four hours, a model based on the use of fleets of trucks equipped with cellular gear and satellite backhaul. The public-safety proposal, which could be funded out of the $825 billion economic stimulus package in Congress, is separate and radically different from Federal Communications Commission efforts to auction a national license or a set of regional licenses for public-safety and commercial broadband communications. Sprint Nextel, the nation's No. 3 mobile-phone carrier, which is struggling to keep pace with industry leaders Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility, said its public-safety proposal — capable of supporting voice and light data — could be deployed in about a year at a fraction of the expenditure implicated in the FCC's 700 MHz D-Block plan. However, it does not appear that Sprint Nextel's concept would offer the kind of broadband connectivity that first responders say they need and that was contemplated in D-Block plans championed by outgoing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.