Emergency Communications

The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which administers the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) through which all Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) are authenticated, validated, and delivered to participating Commercial Mobile Service Providers, has informed the Federal Communications Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau that IPAWS will not be ready to support certain improvements to WEA as of June 10, 2019, as previously expected. Accordingly, until such time as IPAWS will support and deploy the State/Local WEA Tes

In the wake of an earthquake in Peru, Alphabet's Loon unit was able to quickly restore temporary internet access using its balloons. This was due, in large part, because it had already been in talks with Telefonica to bring its service to parts of the country and had offered its service in 2017 after flooding. Loon delivered the first service to Peru's earthquake-hit areas within 48 hours, as compared to the 4 weeks it took to deliver the first Loon-based connections to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Loon served about 20,000 unique users in the first 2 days of service.

When Verizon throttled firefighters during last summer’s deadly wildfires, the FCC did nothing to help. Without net neutrality rules in place, the agency’s hands were tied and the firefighters were forced to go to the media to plea for help. This is outrageous. We’re heading into another wildfire season, and nothing has changed. Net neutrality hasn’t been restored, and the FCC still lacks the authority to intervene when telecom companies abandon our nation’s first responders. We need Congress to pass the Save the Internet Act.

In our latest Annual Report to Congress, the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) outlines the significant progress made in fiscal year (FY) 2018 to deliver on Congress’s vision of creating a truly nationwide, interoperable broadband public safety network.  It was a landmark year for public safety, as the FirstNet network deployment began ahead of schedule following the decisions of all US states and territories and the District of Columbia to participate in the deployment of the nationwide public safety broadband network.

After Hurricane Michael wreaked havoc on Florida in 2018, AT&T restored wireless service more quickly than Verizon because it relied on well-trained employees while Verizon instead used contractors that "did not have the proper credentials," according to the Communications Workers of America, a union that represents workers from both telecoms. The Federal Communications Commission recently found that carriers' mistakes prolonged outages caused by the hurricane. Many customers had to go without cellular service for more than a week.

The week was jam-packed with broadband news [Seriously, see the Quick Bits and Weekend Readsbelow]. There was an oversight hearing of the Federal Communications Commission, Rep.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) raised concern at the Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing about the agency’s response to “major consumer problems,” suggesting the commission had been deferring to corporate interests when it comes to fixing things like “robocalls or widespread communications failures after disasters like Hurricanes Maria and Michael.” The criticism came days after the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau issued a report detailing “the unac

House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and all 31 Democratic members of the committee introduced the the Leading Infrastructure For Tomorrow’s (LIFT) America Act, a comprehensive infrastructure package aimed at combating the climate crisis, expanding broadband internet access and protecting public health. (See

The American Public Power Association, American Water Works Association, Edison Electric Institute, National Rural Electric Cooperatives Association, and the Utilities Technology Council -- which together represent almost all of the nation's utilities, water, and wastewater facilities -- wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, warning him about the FCC moving too quickly to open up 6 GHz midband spectrum currently used by those utilities. The utilities say they need the spectrum for their mission-critical communications and that the FCC's proposal to open it up for unl