FCC Wants Nationwide Wireless Public Safety Network

A nationwide wireless public safety network is part of the FCC's National Broadband Plan. the plan will ask Congress to set aside $16-$18 billion over a 10-year period to help build and operate the nationwide public safety network.

"The private sector simply is not going to build a nationwide, state-of-the-art, interoperable broadband network for public safety on its own dime," Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communication Commission said.

While recommending that the nationwide public safety network access the entire 700-MHz band, Genachowski said as much as 80 megahertz should be set aside for public safety use. But even that's not enough spectrum, he indicated, adding that the plan will propose "a medium and long-term strategy to obtain additional spectrum resources for broadband use," he said. "I am committed to identifying additional spectrum resources for public safety broadband as the need for broadband grows over time."


(Indiana Data and Communications System, an in-car computer network)

The FCC should take a look at how this idea is used in Charles Stross' 2007 novel Halting State; Stross uses the phrase copspace to denote a network set aside for use by police officers that is accessed wirelessly via overlay specs:

CopSpace sheds some light on matters, of course. Blink and it descends in its full glory. Here's the spiralling red diamond of a couple of ASBO cases on the footpath (orange jackets, blue probation service tags saying they're collecting litter.) There's the green tree of signs sprouting over the doorway of number thirty-nine, each tag naming the legal tenants of a different flat. Get your dispatcher to drop you a ticket, and the signs open up to give you their full police and social service case files, where applicable... This is the twenty-first century, and all the terabytes of CopSpace have exploded out of the dusty manila files and into the real world...
(Read more about copspace)

From Information Week.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/16/2010)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion (Back On) ( 2 )

Related News Stories - (" Computer ")

Fujitsu Touchscreen Mixes Real And Virtual Worlds
'His hands flashed over the keyboard - it had not been there a moment before, but it was operative...'- Frederik Pohl, 1965.

Nanowire Memristor Networks Form 'Brains'
'He had constructed ... a brain, of metal... whose atomic structure he claimed was analogous to the atomic structure of a living brain.'- Edmond Hamilton, 1926.

US Census Will Be Online In 2020
'Most would be in English, but some would be in Spanish, some in Amerind languages, some in Chinese...'- John Brunner, 1975.

Wireless Brain-Computer Interface
'I used my implant to tell MILLIE [a mainframe computer] what we wanted and she took care of it," Art said.'- Pournelle and Niven, 1981.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

 

Current News

German Firm Seeks To Recruit Autistics
Not a deficit, but a strength.

NASA Supports Pizza Printer
Is it extra with printed pepperoni?

Could Ground-Based Lasers De-Orbit Space Junk?
'Then their lasers vaporized the smaller satellites...'

'Hello, Computer!' Google Now Highlighted at IO13
'Hello, computer!'

MIT Robot Cheetah Video Shows Gait Transition
'The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's.'

TrackingPoint Smart Rifle
Not your typical 'smart bullet' approach.

Sky City's 220 Stories Are Go
'It rested among green parklands and... stood in total isolation, a glittering block of whites and flashing windows dotted with colors.'

CARMAT Bioprosthetic Total Human Heart Replacement
'George Walt's corporate existence proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs...'

Personal Sniffer Robots
'...The ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound.'

Physical Exam? We've Got Apps
See the future of handheld, personal medical devices.

The Interplanetary Internet, Vint Cerf Speaking
'This was the center of Interplanetary Communications.'

Drosophila Robotica, The Mechanical Fly
'... the Scarab [flying robot] buzzed into the great workroom as any intruding insect might...'

Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'

Japan's Nursing Home Robot Plan
Let's make the Roujin Z-0001 Robotic Bed!

Samsung Smart TVs With Gesture Control
'He waved his hand and the circuit switched abruptly.'

Swiss HCPVT Giant Photovoltaic 'Flower'
'...leaning against one of the slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.