INTEROPERABILITY FOR PUBLIC SAFETY STRESSED AT APCO CONFERENCE
President Bush is expected to issue Executive Order “very shortly” directing Office of Management & Budget (OMB) project called Safecom to accomplish its goal of interoperability for federal public safety systems, said William Speights, public safety program mgr. at NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management. Speights spoke at Assn. of Public- Safety Communications Officials (APCO) Homeland Security Summit in Washington Wed. at which continued lack of interoperability of some public safety systems was among key themes. Wireless Public Safety Interoperable Communications Program, called Project Safecom, is OMB e-govt. initiative designed to accelerate readiness of public safety wireless systems for homeland security for federal agencies. Public safety community is important part of federal Project Safecom, said Mike Byrne, senior dir. for response and recovery in Office of Homeland Security. It “isn’t about the federal government telling state and local jurisdictions how they need to do things,” said Byrne, former N.Y.C. firefighter. “It’s about a bottom-up approach in terms of local [agencies] and the states determining and helping to craft what the right solution set for communications is.”
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Several speakers at daylong summit, which included many attendees who were part of emergency response in N.Y. and Washington Sept. 11, stressed that period following terrorist attacks had elevated profile of public safety needs. Rep. Weldon (R-Pa.), chmn. of bipartisan Congressional Fire Services Caucus, said many of same interoperability problems that surfaced during 1993 bombing of World Trade Center hadn’t changed as of Sept. 11 attacks. “It’s frustrating to me because we knew what we should have been doing prior to Sept. 11,” Weldon said. He said 1996 report of Public Safety Wireless Network (PSWN) program, which is run jointly by Depts. of Treasury and Justice, had singled out spectrum needs of public safety. “We knew that technology from our military wasn’t being transferred over to our emergency response units,” he said. Weldon said that year after PSWN report outlining public safety spectrum needs was issued, Congress passed legislation that would postpone availability of public safety spectrum. “We didn’t have an effort in place so that counties, states and local towns could buy the kind of equipment that was needed to implement the public safety recommendations,” he said. Weldon and others said there still were cases in which emergency responders from different jurisdictions that arrived at same scene must exchange information through pieces of paper relayed by runners because equipment isn’t interoperable.
Weldon said important decisions such as funding still were needed to make interoperable equipment available: “None of that is going to happen unless you shake this city by the neck. Now is the time to do that because September 11 awakened America.” Of $3.5 billion that Bush has called for this fiscal year for domestic national security efforts, Weldon said he wanted money to go to local decision-makers for purchases such as new equipment. He said there was need to give more coordination authority over federal agencies to Homeland Security Dir. Tom Ridge. “It’s moving in that direction but it’s not there yet,” Weldon said. On 700 MHz spectrum availability, of which 24 MHz has been allocated to public safety, he called on public safety operators to help federal lawmakers by coming up with integrated communications response systems that can use spectrum. “If it means we have to take frequency spectrum away from other uses, so be it,” he said. “You have to design it for us. We in Washington have to respond to your recommendations.”
On public safety interoperability challenges, D'wana Terry, chief of FCC Wireless Bureau’s Public Safety & Private Wireless Div., said future technology developments might help. She gave example of software-defined radio technology, which allows wireless phones to receive intelligence from software rather than hardware, meaning radios could be changed quickly to transmit on different frequencies and in different formats. Terry said such capability eventually could be helpful to public safety users, which operate on diverse range of bands that aren’t adjacent to each other. SDR technology could give public safety user at 400 MHz potential of communicating with operator at 800 MHz without changing radios, she said. Constraints on SDR use by public safety licensees involve cost as well as need for further technological developments, she said. While funding always is concern for public safety users planning changes in their systems, Terry said future sources of money might be coming available, citing Safecom program.
Federal officials have described Safecom, which is supported by agencies such as Federal Emergency Management Agency and Treasury Dept., as focusing on implementation of narrowband technology, interoperability efforts and other improvements to public safety wireless communications systems. Project includes assistance to federal and state agencies, including focus on federal-to-state interoperability links. At recent Public Safety Wireless Network and Federal Law Enforcement Wireless Users Group meeting, Tom Wiesner, dir. of wireless programs at Treasury Dept., said one component under consideration was creation of federal public safety wireless executive committee that would include staff responsible from land mobile and wireless divisions of different agencies.
Byrne stressed extent to which Homeland Security Office was interested in examining public safety issues such as interoperability as part of “bottom-up approach” driven by user needs. On Project Safecom, he said: “The public safety community is coming to be an integral part of that… These are not simple questions to answer.” Byrne said his office was interested in coming up with communications plans before selecting particular technological solutions. “We have to recognize that there is tremendous investment already out there in radios and communications capabilities,” he said: “We can’t just throw all those away. We have to recognize that many of you have the capability to communicate now.”