Dingell to Examine Financial Relationship Between PSST, Cyren Call

Deal Between Public Safety Spectrum Trust, Outside Contractor Catches House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman’s Eye

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/16/2008 3:37:00 PM

House Energy & Commerce Committee chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) wants to take a closer look at the financial arrangement between the Public Safety Spectrum Trust and outside contractor Cyren Call.

Cyren Call has a contract to consult for the trust on the building of a public/private national network that must be shared with first-responders.

The trust is managing a 10 mHz block of former TV spectrum that is to be paired with a similar-sized block the Federal Communications Commission is trying to auction to a commercial entity that will agree to combine the two blocks to create a national broadband network that will be operated commercially but available to first responders for interoperable communications in an emergency..

At a Hill hearing this week looking into the reauctioning of the spectrum, Dingell expressed his concern about Cyren Call's participation.

“Every dollar spent on paying advisors to the Public Safety Spectrum Trust is a dollar that could be spent reducing the cost to public safety for using its broadband network,” Dingell said, according to an e-mail from the committee pointing out his concern. “There are many interesting facets to this relationship, and I look forward to learning more about the agreement between the PSST and Cyren Call and determining whether this arrangement serves the public interest.”

The chairman asked for copies of any agreements between Cyren Call and the trust, as well as Cyren Call and any venture-capital firms. He was particularly concerned about reports that the company and the PSST demanded that potential bidders for the spectrum pay a $50 million lease fee.

Cyren Call chairman Morgan O'Brien has said in no uncertain terms that those reports were untrue. “Anyone stating or implying that I or any member of Cyren Call or the Public Safety Spectrum Trust Corporation ‘demanded’ a spectrum lease payment is lying," he said of the reports.

Dingell said he is concerned about "Cyren Call’s role in loaning money to the PSST when that money was supplied to Cyren Call by venture-capital firms.”