Emergency Communications

The report condemns the Federal Communications Commission for failing to adequately respond to the September 2017 hurricanes, which knocked out 95 percent of all cell sites, 97 percent of radio stations and all local television stations. The report calls out the agency’s failure to hold wired and wireless carriers to account for neglecting to build resilient networks or respond in a timely or sufficient fashion to restore communications to the islands’ residents.

Hurricane Michael demonstrated starkly how some wireless providers in the Florida Panhandle were able to rebound from this devastating storm through foresight and appropriate planning, while others stalled in their efforts to restore full service. Some providers, working in the same area and facing the same challenges as others, were back in service considerably sooner than others. The poor level of service several days after landfall by some wireless providers cannot simply be attributed to unforeseeable circumstances specific to those providers.

In the summer of 2018, Verizon Wireless triggered a major controversy in the public safety community when it temporarily reduced Internet service to firefighters in Santa Clara (CA) greatly diminishing their ability to provide emergency services while fighting the Mendocino Complex fire — one of the largest in state history.

CTIA, the US mobile industry's top lobbying group, is opposing a proposed California state law that would prohibit throttling of fire departments and other public safety agencies during emergencies. CTIA recently wrote to lawmakers to oppose the bill as currently written, saying the bill's prohibition on throttling is too vague and that it should apply only when the US president or CA governor declares emergencies and not when local governments declare emergencies.

I am honored to be here on behalf of the Federal Communications Commission. Chairman Pai extends his warmest appreciation to our regulatory friends in the Caribbean. And he is excited to support the launch of the US-Caribbean Resilience Partnership. In these brief remarks, I’d like to talk about three topics: (1) the FCC’s role in disaster preparedness; (2) a few key lessons learned from the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season; and (3) what the FCC can do to support a working group for the U.S.-Caribbean Resilience Partnership

On Oct 3, 2018, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in coordination with the Federal Communications Commission and the National Weather Service, conducted a nationwide test of both Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) and the Emergency Alert System (EAS). The nationwide test demonstrated that WEA is an effective alerting tool to rapidly disseminate emergency information to the public.

Rural Kansas residents are angered by bad cellphone connection in Conway Springs (KS) due to only one service provider working in the area. "It's kind of a monopoly as far as the cellphone service goes," said Clay Murphy, superintendent of Conway Springs schools. A map released by Gov Laura Kelly (D-KS) showed the broadband connection throughout the state of Kansas. In rural Kansas areas it was the lowest, including Conway Springs. "Even the one's that have the carrier depending on where you're at in town or on the edge of town, you can't get service," Murphy said.

Here are the Federal Communications Commission's priorities for the next year:

When you signed up for cellphone service, I bet you didn’t expect that your exact location could be sold to anyone for a few hundred dollars. The truth is, your wireless carrier tracks you everywhere you go, whether you like it or not. When used appropriately, this tracking shouldn’t be a problem: location information allows emergency services to find you when you need them most.