WASHINGTON — Morgan E. O'Brien is used to jolting the wireless industry. Now the Nextel co-founder is back in the start-up business and again aiming to shake up the airwaves.
In the 1980s and '90s, the former Federal Communications Commission staffer helped stitch together a nationwide network from mobile radio frequencies once used only by taxi drivers, truckers and pizza deliverymen. The result, Nextel Communications Inc., rose to challenge the major cellular companies, then merged with Sprint Corp. in 2005.
This time, the 62-year-old entrepreneur is pitching a controversial plan to transform public safety communications while also extending high-speed wireless Internet service to hard-to-reach rural areas.
His attempt to gain federal approval for his idea may be his biggest challenge yet. Supporters laud him as a visionary. Detractors brand him a profiteer.
But successful or not -- and the odds are against him -- O'Brien has renewed debate in Washington about the communications needs of public safety.
"He has always pushed the limit, thus far extremely successfully," said Alan Tilles, a Maryland attorney who represents private radio operators and has dealt with O'Brien. "That takes a lot of nerve."
So does his latest plan.
O'Brien wants Congress to turn over a large chunk of valuable public airwaves -- a multibillion-dollar swath of spectrum coveted by wireless phone companies -- to a nonprofit trust operated by public safety officials in partnership, he hopes, with his new McLean, Va.-based company, Cyren Call Communications Corp. Together, they would build a state-of-the-art, high-speed network covering more than 99% of the U.S. population.
The main purpose is improving the ability of law enforcement officers to talk with one another and to share maps, video and other digital data that are crucial at emergency scenes.
There's a side benefit: extending commercial wireless service to isolated parts of the country that aren't well covered by cable or digital subscriber line Internet connections. Supporters see that as the lure to get the private sector to build and operate the estimated $20-billion system, with the stipulation that customers would give local, state and federal authorities priority whenever they need it -- the way drivers must pull over when a fire truck wails behind them.
"We ask somebody to go into a burning building, and we know that the device they're taking in there could be doing so many more things to make them safer, more effective," O'Brien said.
