Details of Interoperability Response Center Unveiled by FCC
A proposed Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC) would be housed at the FCC in the Public Safety Bureau and would come under a Public Safety Advisory Board, according to a concept paper posted on the FCC website. Meanwhile, public safety groups and companies that serve them said they liked what they heard at Thursday’s FCC meeting about public safety recommendations coming in the National Broadband Plan -- especially a recommendation on the need for a next-generation 911 network.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
ERIC’s responsibilities will include adoption of technical and operational requirements and procedures for nationwide interoperability “to be implemented and enforced through FCC rules, license and lease conditions, and grant conditions,” the paper said. ERIC would also adopt authentication and encryption requirements for public-safety broadband applications and network use and “coordinate the interoperability framework of regulations, license requirements, grant conditions, and technical standards with other entities” including other federal agencies.
The Department of Homeland Security and the National Institute of Standards and Technology are to be involved, the paper said. “DHS would participate in the areas of grant administration, public safety outreach and technical assistance, and best practices development,” the paper said. “NIST would participate in the areas of standards development, verification, testing, and validation.” The Wireless Bureau will hold a workshop March 2 on ERIC.
Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett said at the FCC meeting that the plan will take up the importance of protecting the nation’s Internet infrastructure and discuss how broadband can make emergency alerts more effective and help people seek urgent assistance.
Broadband can also improve communications among first responders through creation of an interoperable wireless network, Barnett said. “This network offers the greatest promise that we will see in this generation for addressing the problems of interoperability that plagued us long before Katrina and 9/11 -- problems which still affect us today,” he said. “But as I have stated to you before, the public safety broadband wireless network is not inevitable, nor is interoperability on such a network.”
There are three requirements for the network to meet the FCC’s goals, Barnett said. They include a framework that requires interoperability, to be overseen by the proposed ERIC, and funding to cover public safety needs that won’t be provided by a commercial network, such as rural and in-building coverage, hardness and redundancy. “Finally, there must be extraordinary quickness, speed to action,” he said. “We get one at-bat and one swing. If we do not execute this network with alacrity, we will miss this once- in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
The broadband plan will stress a need to “transition” to a next-generation 911 system, said Deputy Bureau Chief Jennifer Manner. “The record was very clear that over 50 percent of 911 call centers, or what we call PSAPs, do not have any access to broadband communications today,” she said. “It was clear that this is an issue that needs to be studied and analyzed and, perhaps, funding needs to be appropriated to help.” Varying regulation of 911 could slow development of next-generation networks, she said. “One of our working recommendations is to enact a federal regulatory framework to ensure nationwide standards.”
The broadband report will also focus on next-generation emergency alerts, Manner said. “The record was fairly clear that there hasn’t been a lot of exploration in this area by the commission itself. So one of the working recommendations would be for the FCC to actually initiate an inquiry. Another area that was clear from the record that there are some overlapping jurisdictional issues with regard to alerting issues that should probably be rectified and clarified.”
“It is clear from today’s presentation that the recommendations in the plan will appropriately emphasize the critically important role that broadband will play in the next generation of 911 and emergency communications systems,” NENA said in a statement late Thursday. “It is essential that the National Broadband Plan include recommendations designed to facilitate the transition of … 911 and emergency communications systems to broadband-enabled, IP-based platforms. It appears that the Plan will do just that.”
“Intrado believes that the FCC should continue to move aggressively to establish a plan for a national framework that facilitates the transition to a next generation IP 911 emergency communications network,” the company said. “Without the inclusion of next generation 9-1-1 into the plan, our nation’s public safety emergency network will continue to lag behind consumer communications technology and fail to meet citizens’ expectations regarding their use of text, photos or videos.” Motorola Co-CEO Greg Brown said he’s pleased that the FCC is making public-safety communications a high priority in the plan. “Public safety must have the resources necessary to deploy and operate a nationwide interoperable public safety broadband network capable of meeting the unique needs of first responders,” he said.