[Scan-DC] Gov't struggles to put wireless in homeland defense

[Alan Henney]

RCR Wireless News
 August 26, 2002, Monday
 SECTION: Pg. 1
 HEADLINE: Gov't struggles to put wireless in homeland defense
 BYLINE: JEFFREY SILVA WASHINGTON
 BODY:

    As the nation approaches the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, the Bush administration and Congress find themselves struggling
over how to integrate wireless technology into the new, sprawling homeland
security regime.

    Funding and implementation problems are just the start. Key policy
questions-such as information sharing between the government and the
high-tech  sector-are in heated debate.

    Meanwhile, the wireless industry-desperately fighting to stay
financially afloat as it attempts costly upgrades to networks that are
Internet- and wiretap-friendly-is being forced to shoulder more
responsibility on top of existing federal mandates that carriers claim are
unnecessary.

    While progress has been made on several fronts, obstacles are
everywhere.  Some critics even go so far as to say the government has lost
ground. The  challenges are far and wide, touching wireless carriers and
public-safety agencies, as well critical infrastructure sectors-like energy,
water and railroad industries-that depend on private-wireless spectrum for
internal communications and operations management.

    The administration's $73 million funding request for wireless priority
access  service has been slashed in the House and Senate. Moreover, the
National   Communications System likely will not meet its goal of achieving
WPAS nationwide capability by the end of the year.

    Next month, the National Security Telecommunications Advisory
Committee-a presidential advisory panel-is expected to send a letter to the
White House underlining the importance of fully funding a wireless priority
access initiative the administration considers a key element of homeland
security. The funding covers technical modifications in wireless networks to
guarantee mobile-phone access for government officials and first responders
during emergencies.

    Last month, Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association President
Thomas Wheeler wrote Congress seeking support for the president's WPAS
budget request.

    ''The wireless industry did not seek this imposition, but out of a sense
of national purpose has been working with the NCS to develop a voluntary,
workable and efficient system to provide the capability,'' stated Wheeler in
a July 25 letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd
(D-W.Va.).  ''Achieving this goal will require significant enhancements to
commercial networks in order to accommodate the rapidly growing government
demand for Wireless Priority Access Service.''

    Today VoiceStream Wireless offers wireless priority access in
Washington, D.C., and New York.

    NCS did return a call for comment on whether it has revised its timeline
for WPAS deployment. The funding problem is said to have more to do with
committee jurisdiction than with congressional commitment to the program.
The wireless industry will ratchet up lobbying efforts after lawmakers
return next month from
Congress' August recess.

    On another front, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments was
to
showcase location-based wireless emergency alert service in the nation's
capital this fall. But funding uncertainty has put the demo in doubt.

    At the same time, lawmakers on Capitol Hill and the rest of the federal
work force are refining evacuation plans that make liberal use of cellular
handsets, satellite phones, pagers, Blackberrys and other wireless gadgets.

    That has Douglas Weiser, former president of the Cellular Emergency
Alert Services Association and a dogged advocate of wireless reverse-911
technology, angry.

    ''Miffed that it took over 45 minutes to be alerted (on Sept. 11),
Congress quickly took action and quietly implemented a Blackberry-based
personal warning system for federal workers. However, to date, not one
nickel of the $44 billion homeland defense tax dollars has been spent on in
improving the public warning system,'' stated Weiser.

    Weiser and others question the Federal Communications Commission's
decision late last month to discontinue a federal advisory committee that
for years had advised the agency on the nation's Emergency Alert System.

    Linda Blair, deputy chief of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau, said the
functions of the now-defunct EAS advisory panel have been folded into a new
Media Security and Reliability Council. The FCC announced the creation of
the new group in March, but said nothing publicly about its decision not to
renew the charter of the EAS federal advisory committee.

    Critics see the move as a continuing a trend at the FCC that they claim
has left EAS with few resources and visibility.

    Unlike the EAS advisory committee, which was staffed with engineers, the
Media Security and Reliability Council is top-heavy with industry
executives.

    ''There are lots of problems with EAS and no one is facing up to it,''
said Peter Ward, head of the Partnership for Public Warning and lead author
of a Clinton administration report that advocated incorporating new
technologies-like wireless and Internet-into an emergency alert system today
entirely dependent on broadcast and cable TV and developed during the Cold
War.

    ''There is a controversy,'' said Richard Rudman, immediate past chairman
of the federal advisory committee to the EAS. ''If warnings are important to
the American public, then support of the warning system should be clearly
tasked and funded.

    Elsewhere, the FCC has failed to craft a plan to address
private-wireless spectrum requirements of critical infrastructure
industries, despite the administration's acknowledgement that frequencies
for that sector are needed.  A report issued by the FCC last month was not
received well by utilities-big users of private wireless spectrum.

    ''We have none (spectrum) of our own. And that fact was completely
ignored'' in the FCC report, said Jill Lyon, vice president and general
counsel of the United Telecom Council. Lyon said utilities need dedicated
spectrum for a nationwide, interoperable communications.

    Interoperability of public-safety radio communications for police,
firefighters and medics also remains a big challenge a year after the
terrorists attacks.

    ''The interoperability issues flowing out of Sept. 11 are still
unresolved.  There's been a lot of discussion to date, but not a great deal
of action,'' said Robert Gurss, a lawyer who represents the Association of
Public-Safety Communications Officials.