Emergency Communications

NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association submitted comments to the Federal Communications Commission in response to the In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete request for comments. NTCA's remarks focused on the "elimination, pruning, or streamlining of regulations that are outdated, unnecessary, unduly burdensome, or inconsistent with their governing statutory authority." Notably, NTCA recommended the elimination of digital discrimination rules adopted in November 2023. The Association also opposes the addition of proposed broadband label requirements, including multilingual labels.

On January 7, 2025, fires erupted across the city of Los Angeles, California. The Eaton Fire burned through the eastern side of the city, burning through the Altadena, Pasadena and Sierra Madre communities and causing 18 deaths, destroying 9,400 structures, and scorching 14,000 acres of land. In the west, the Palisades Fire led to twelve deaths, destroyed over 6,000 structures, and covered over 23,000 acres in the Pacific Palisades, Topanga and Malibu. The Hurst, Kenneth and Hughes fires also burned through parts of northwestern and central LA.

As Myanmar remains shaken by a devastating earthquake, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives, a lack of connectivity is proving to be an obstacle to relief and rescue work. Htaike Htaike Aung, a leading digital rights advocate, is monitoring the situation in the most-affected areas. Myanmar’s Sagaing region, the quake’s epicenter and a battleground between the military and resistance forces, remains under a strict communications blockade.

The Federal Communications Commission proposed rules to help ensure that emerging Next Generation 911 networks are reliable and interoperable, which will help first responders save lives. The nation is transitioning from legacy 911 technology to NG911, which will use Internet Protocol-based infrastructure to support new 911 capabilities, including text, video, and data.

The Federal Communications Commission proposed improvements to its wireless 911 location accuracy rules, which reduce emergency response times and ultimately save lives by enabling 911 call centers and first responders to quickly identify the location of people who call 911 from wireless phones. In a Sixth Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the FCC is proposing measures to address concerns  about precision while balancing the needs of industry and promoting technical flexibility and innovation, including seeking comment on:

Over Valentine's Day weekend 2025, parts of Appalachia, many still recovering from the impacts of Hurricane Helene just 5 months earlier, were battered by another round of heavy rain and flooding.

Sometimes, less is better. That applies to the assets Verizon brought to the Los Angeles (CA) area during the devastating wildfires these past couple weeks. Verizon often deploys its Tactical Humanitarian Operations Response (THOR) vehicle when reacting to disasters like hurricanes and wildfires. But not so in LA.

Former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms submitted her letter of resignation from the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) Board to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, effective on January 20, 2025. Mayor Bottoms was appointed to the FirstNet Authority Board and designated the Board Chair in October 2024. Until the incoming Secretary of Commerce appoints a new Board Chair, the FirstNet Authority Board Bylaws direct Vice Chair Renee Gordon to perform the duties of the Board Chair.   

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel dedicated the final meeting of her chairwomanship to hearing presentations from Bureau, Office, and Task Force leaders highlighting Commission efforts from the past four years and thanking Commission staff for their exceptional work. Over the last four years, efforts to promote network security and reliability and strengthen emergency alerting have included: 

At the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state officials, the Federal Communications Commission has boots on the ground through the deployment of spectrum survey teams to assess the impact to cellular communications in Los Angeles County. This data is used to identify communications gaps, which informs emergency response activities and identifies where communications assets are needed.