Emergency Communications

Here at the Federal Communications Commission, the 16th anniversary of the September 11 attacks reminds us that we must do all that we can to improve emergency communications. As it happens, September is also National Preparedness Month. So there’s no better time to recognize that effective communications can be the difference between life and death—whether emergency personnel are responding to a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake, flood, or tornado....

But despite the value of social media in times of disaster, our experience with Hurricane Harvey also underscores the importance of not confusing social media as a substitute for calling 911. During the disaster, for example, some public safety entities warned that social media was not the best means of communicating emergency rescue requests. All of this points to the need for best practices about how to communicate effectively both about 911 outages and during 911 outages.

I believe what we need now is a Federal Communications Commission report on these storms. We need to know what worked, what didn’t, and where we can improve our communications infrastructure. Once we know the facts, we need a full plan for fixing the communications vulnerabilities we are finding, including what you are discussing today—how to deal with the impact on 911. This report also will need to include a framework for rebuilding so that the communities with damaged communications facilities are not permanently relegated to the wrong side of the digital divide. Because one thing is for sure—Mother Nature’s wrath is sure to visit us again. It is incumbent on us to learn from these disasters to improve emergency response and infrastructure recovery.

I’m going to talk about what the Federal Communications Commission is doing to promote innovation and investment across the Internet ecosystem. Along with security, people primarily look to government leaders to help create the conditions that make it easier for the private sector to deliver economic growth, jobs, and personal opportunity. And to grow our economy, create jobs, and expand opportunity in a world that’s gone digital, we need world-leading Internet infrastructure that serves as a platform for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai visited Houston and Austin (TX) this week to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey and meet with local, state, and federal officials engaged in recovery efforts. The Chairman was particularly focused on the performance of communication networks during and after the storm, and how the FCC can better enable Americans to communicate and learn critical information in an emergency.

The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (PSHSB) of the Federal Communications Commission has announced the activation of the Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) in response to Hurricane Irma. DIRS is a voluntary, web-based system that communications providers, including wireless, wireline, broadcast, cable and Voice over Internet Protocol providers, can use to report communications infrastructure status and situational awareness information during times of crisis. Communications providers are reminded that for providers that participate in DIRS, the separate Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) obligations are suspended for the duration of the DIRS activation with respect to outages in the counties where DIRS has been activated. Reports are requested beginning at 10:00 a.m. on September 7, 2017, and every day after that by 10:00 a.m. until DIRS is deactivated.

[Commentary] It’s time to stop the regulatory foot-dragging and require the mobile phone industry to use its technology’s capabilities to deliver safety alerts with the same accuracy that delivers a taxi and the same functionality that delivers video. Immediately after the installation of the Trump Federal Communications Commission, the mobile carriers filed a petition to stop the implementation of the earlier decision on Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) improvements that were strongly advocated by the Center for Missing and Exploited Children as well as public safety managers across the country. The Trump FCC magnified the failure of the current system by not acting on the WEA improvements proposed last September. The new FCC majority even removed wireless alerts form the charter of the public safety and industry working group that made the original recommendations.

If the Obama FCC regulations and recommendations were in effect, geo-targeting could deliver the precise message to specific audiences; those messages could contain links to maps and other important information; and the ability to link with users would allow the collection of information from victims, providing a rapid triage among survivors and targeting the delivery of rescue and other services. Instead, in Houston, victims overloaded the 911 system and public safety officials had to resort to social media. The FCC must learn from what happened in Hurricane Harvey.

[Tom Wheeler is a visiting fellow with the Governance Studies, Center for Technology Innovation, and former Chairman to the FCC.]

AT&T earlier in 2017 was awarded a contract to build a nationwide public safety network by FirstNet, the organization put in charge of that network by the US government. But as a FirstNet spokesperson explained, individual states must decide whether to opt in or opt out of FirstNet plans submitted by AT&T. “In an ‘opt out’ scenario, the state assumes all responsibility for deploying, operating and maintaining the radio access network component of the nationwide public safety broadband network in the state in accordance with FirstNet’s network policies, including requirements to interoperate with the FirstNet/AT&T core network,” the spokesperson said. “This ensures the nationwide network remains interoperable for all public safety users.”

As of Sept 1, 20 states or territories had chosen to have AT&T build and operate their public safety networks and no states had opted out of the AT&T plan. As part of its FirstNet contract, AT&T was awarded spectrum in the 700 MHz band, known as Band 14, for use on a priority basis by public safety. As the FirstNet spokesperson explained, however, if a state were to opt out (and its alternative plan was approved by the FCC), the state would enter into a spectrum capacity lease with FirstNet in order to use the Band 14 spectrum.

As we begin to assess Harvey’s horrible toll on human life and property, we will need to take stock of what worked, what didn’t, and how we can improve when it comes to our communications infrastructure. As we have done in disasters in the past, the Commission will need to study this hurricane and issue a report. That report must include a full plan for fixing the vulnerabilities that we are finding–from overloading 911 systems to out-of-service cell sites. It should also include a framework for rebuilding so that the communities that have been impacted are not permanently relegated to the wrong side of the digital divide. Above all, we need to get started. We don’t have time to waste–because we know that weather emergencies can occur anywhere at any time–and learning from what happened with Harvey can help strengthen our communications networks and save lives.

As flood waters began swallowing roads and homes during Tropical Storm Harvey, panicked Houston residents did what everyone in the US is programed to do in an emergency. They dialed 911. But the emergency number struggled with record high call volume. At the peak of the storm, the service received around 80,000 calls in a 24-hour period. The Harris County area typically gets around 8,000 calls a day. Some people were unable to get through at all, and those who did were put on hold while a recording -- which promised the call was being processed -- looped. Desperate residents took to social media to post their addresses in the hopes that someone would get the information to the right authorities or a friend with boat. The requests went viral, leaving many wondering why 911 wasn't able to do more. Like most 911 systems in the U.S., Houston's is based on outdated telephone network technology.

[Commentary] As one of the few remaining members of the Kennedy administration who participated in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, I was an eyewitness to the crucial role that telecommunications played in averting nuclear disaster.

As chairman of the Federal Communications Commission at that time, we created a “hotline” with the Soviet Union in the belief that improved communications would help avoid conflicts between nations in the nuclear era. Today, telecommunications have improved in ways we could not have imagined. They are faster, stronger, clearer, more accessible and higher resolution. News on television, radio and the internet is far more comprehensive, multisourced and instantaneous. Some of those new technologies have undermined the very tools President John F. Kennedy needed to avert war. President Kennedy once gave me a top-secret assignment. The Russians had jammed the Voice of America. My job was to enlist eight American commercial radio stations whose signals reached Cuba to carry key messages from Voice of America to the Cuban people. Before confiding in the stations, I asked each station owner to swear that they would not share the information with their news division until the embargo was lifted. Every one of them agreed and kept their word, ultimately playing a useful role in averting nuclear war. Would broadcasters today be willing to do the same?

[Chicago attorney Newton N. Minow was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 1961 to 1963]

(Aug 27)