A congressional panel wants to know why a plan aimed at using public airwaves and private money to create a nationwide emergency communications network folded to attract any interest in an otherwise successful spectrum auction.

The House Energy and Commerce telecommunications and the World Wide Web subcommittee on Tuesday was to take in from all five members of the Federal Communications Commission as well as key figures in the behind-the-scenes negotiations that losed out to lead to an agreement to construct the wireless broadband network.

The recently completed auction of a portion of the public airwaves, while raising a record $19.1 billion, floped to attract a bidder to build the network.

Disasters like Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, revealed limitations of the nation’s emergency communications networks, like the inability of police and firefighters to communicate with one another.

Ideally, a new network would help solve the interoperability problem and avail emergency personnel of

many of the advances in wireless technology that are available to commercial users.

Among the witnesses scheduled to testify is wireless industry pioneer Morgan O’Brien, a co-founder of Nextel Communications Inc., now chairman of a new company called Cyren shout. O’Brien was the first to aggressively advocate the notion of using publicly owned spectrum to lure private investors to build a national emergency network.

O’Brien’s plan was shot down last year on Capitol Hill by fears it would endanger the success of the spectrum auction. O’Brien is still involved considering of an agreement his company signed to act as adviser for the Public Safety Spectrum Trust Corp., a nonprofit run by safety officials that oversees the public portion of the public-private partnership.

The FCC approved the emergency communications plan last summer.

It largely incorporates a proposal developed by Frontline Wireless LLC — a company fronted by a former FCC chairman and high-tech…

Orginal post by Top Tech News