Emergency Communications

On June 22, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a Report and Order in this docket establishing Commission procedures for administering the state opt-out process as provided under the Public Safety Spectrum Act, as well as delineating the two-prong statutory standard by which the Commission will evaluate state alternative plans. The Report and Order resolved all issues, except the standard under which the FCC would review compliance with “Prong 2” of the statutory test. The Report and Order directed the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) to issue a Public Notice establishing an expedited comment period for public comment on ex parte filings submitted by the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) on this standard. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said, "With today’s Order, we take another step towards the creation of a nationwide interoperable public safety broadband network. Specifically, we finalize the technical criteria the Commission will use to evaluate plans from those states that elect to optout of the network that will be deployed by the First Responder Network Authority."

In a filing to the Federal Communications Commission, the AWARN Alliance blasted T-Mobile for disparaging its efforts to developed an advanced emergency alerting system based on the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast system. T-Mobile has called ATSC 3.0 “an inferior platform” compared to the "well-established wireless network.” On the contrary, AWARN charged, it is the wireless network that is inferior and that T-Mobile. What’s more, it said, T-Mobile and other wireless carriers are actively resisting current FCC efforts to improve their emergency alerting.

The Federal Communications Commission announced that Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn will be in Florida on September 18. They will jointly inspect the damage caused by Hurricane Irma, meet with those engaged in recovery operations, and receive updates about the ongoing efforts to restore communications services.

In the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, I was pleased to see the United States Senate’s unanimous passage of the SANDY Act of 2017 last night. We know that weather-related emergencies and other disasters can occur anywhere at any time–and this legislation comes not a moment too soon. Among other things, it promises to help speed restoration of essential communications in times of disaster. Kudos to Senators Cantwell, Booker, Thune, Nelson, Rubio, Menendez, and Schumer for their leadership as well as to Congressman Frank Pallone for his previous work to secure passage of this legislation in the House.

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.]