Sending out an S.O.S.: public safety communications interoperability as a collective action problem

Federal Communications Law Journal, June, 2007 by Jerry Brito

B. Where Are the Entrepreneurs?

There are ways that a collective action problem can be overcome or avoided altogether. Mancur Olson posited that members of a latent group could be induced to rationally act in a group-oriented way only through a "separate and 'selective'" incentive. (59) By this he meant that a new incentive would be required that "operates, not indiscriminately, like the collective good ... but rather selectively toward the individuals in the group." (60) Olson called latent groups that acquire a collective good through selective incentives "mobilized" because they have been stimulated into action. (61)

Consumers who want to utilize wireless communications could conceivably license spectrum and build their own radio systems. If they did this they would have to coordinate their actions in order to talk to each other. However, this is a non issue because rational consumers have an incentive to simply subscribe to an existing wireless network, both because it is cheaper than building a new system from scratch, and because subscribing to a network gives you access to everyone else on that network. Any collective action problem is thus avoided because the individual rationality (choosing the cheapest and most effective alternative) coincides with the collective rationality (interoperability). The individual incentive in this case is provided by commercial wireless carriers who themselves have an incentive to offer the right mix of price and quality to consumers.

As the case studies in Part III will show, it is technically and practically feasible for a private firm to create a network on which it leases communications capacity to public safety agencies, much like commercial wireless phone carders sell subscriptions to consumers. A public safety agency might join such a network if it was offered a selective incentive, such as lower costs, better quality, or some other benefit that it could internalize. Public safety agencies that subscribe to the same network would be interoperable by virtue of being on the same system. If this is the case, why haven't we seen the emergence of national interoperable commercial public safety networks like we have seen in the consumer wireless market?

Spectrum allocated for public safety cannot be traded. (62) That is, agencies cannot sell their licenses to willing buyers. An entrepreneur looking to build out a national interoperable public safety network. therefore, cannot buy public safety licenses and patch them together. (63) Instead, an entrepreneur would have to purchase spectrum that is allocated for more flexible use and which will likely have more lucrative alternative uses. (64)

Even assuming that an entrepreneur makes a public safety offering over "private" spectrum (perhaps by also allowing commercial subscribers on the network), she must still provide a selective incentive that will induce public safety agencies to switch from their current systems. That could be a price below an agency's existing operating costs or some other sufficiently offsetting benefit. However, because public safety agencies are given spectrum that they cannot trade, their operating costs are artificially low.