Cyren Call proposal gets chilly reception.

Byline: JEFFREY SILVA

The Senate Commerce Committee greeted Cyren Call Communications Corp.'s public-safety broadband plan with a non-committal mix of interest, skepticism and outright hostility, a reaction compounded by an industry-funded study that concludes the initiative is a risky business proposition and could actually undermine first-responder communications.

Democratic and GOP lawmakers voiced support for improving public-safety communications interoperability and better equipping first responders generally. But none expressed explicit support for a plan widely backed by major public-safety organizations that would require Congress to remove from the auction block half of the 60 megahertz at 700 MHz and put that spectrum in the hands of a trust to oversee the construction of a national public-safety broadband network by the private sector for shared use with police, firefighters, medics and others. First responders-represented along with Cyren Call Chairman Morgan O'Brien at last Thursday's hearing-would have priority access to the network.

Perhaps even more worrisome for Cyren Call and public-safety groups was the virtual silence during the hearing of the lawmaker who called it, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), and the absence of the high-profile lawmaker who promised to champion the cause.

After delivering an opening statement highlighting his bipartisan bill to improve a $1 billion public-safety interoperability grant program run by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and President Bush's administration's alleged attempt to use NTIA grant money to hide a $1.2 billion budget cut to homeland-security grants, Inouye remained relatively quiet for the rest of the hearing.

Meantime, Senate Commerce Committee ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.), who on Jan. 31 announced plans to introduce legislation giving public safety the 30 megahertz it seeks and authorizing a public-safety broadband trust to serve as licensee, did not attend last Thursday's hearing. McCain's press spokeswoman did not return a call seeking comment.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), vice chairman of the committee, was opposed to the idea of tampering with a 2006 law finally making 24 megahertz at 700 MHz available to public safety and authorizing grants for public-safety interoperability ($1 billion), enhanced 911 ($43.5 million) and emergency alert and tsunami warning systems ($156 million). The earmarks are predicated on anticipated receipts from 60 megahertz of spectrum set for auction by the Federal Communications Commission later this year. Congress ordered TV broadcasters to return the 700 MHz spectrum in February 2009 as part of their transition to digital technology. The 700 MHz auction could raise between $10 billion and $15 billion, according to congressional budget experts.