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and Advanced Communication Research Institute |
The
Space & Advanced Communications Research Institute
(SACRI) at George Washington University, assisted
by its outstanding industry advisory committee, was
pleased to organize the National Conference on Emergency
Communications (NCEC) held in Washington, D.C. on
December 12-13, 2005. This event was hastily assembled
in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.
It was supported by such Gold Level Patrons as Booz
Allen Hamilton, Northrop Grumman, Intelsat, and Raytheon
and by volunteers and corporate sponsors drawn from
Arrowhead Global Solutions, Assured Power & Communications,
Bearing Point, Globalstar, Iridium, SAIC and XTAR
and individuals representing professional institutes
and standards-making bodies, universities and professional
associations. Dozens of informed speakers from the
relief community, Federal, State and local governments,
as well as the satellite, wireless, and telecommunications
industry presented a wealth of information and assisted
in the development of a White Paper that summarized
the key information and set forth a follow-on action
agenda.
The top five recommendations of the White Paper developed
from the notes taken by the conference organizers
and distilled by the SACRI team that worked on the
Conference at George Washington University are as
follows:
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Recommendation
No. 1
Priority attention must be given to
enhanced training, simulation, modeling, and
“broadband information access” programs
as reinforced by a uniform national statement
of “best practice” guidelines.
All of this training plus information access
processes must operate on a day-to-day “train
as you respond” basis and in conformance
with integrated professionally agreed standards
These training programs must apply to the provision
of emergency relief by first responders, operational
personnel and relevant strategic planners and
decision makers. Professional coordination of
best practices among police, fire, EMT and telecommunications,
power, infrastructure, and utility personnel
plus strategic planners is key.
Recommendation
No. 2
There is a need for a federally-led
and integrated approach to coordination of emergency
communications that ultimately becomes a fully
accepted “National Doctrine” for
recovery processes based on continually upgraded
and improved communications capabilities.
To be effective, this initiative (as coordinated
within DHS, NTIA, FCC, DOD and NSTAC) must work
in tandem with the professional organizations
of fire fighters, police and EMT organizations
as well as national associations of U.S. cities,
counties, tribes, states, mayors, governors,
and other interested entities. A clearer definition
of the particular roles within the various U.S.
agencies should be clarified by either a Presidential
directive or Congressional action. In this process
the implementation of SAFECOM must be accelerated
to achieve more rapid implementation. Further,
the NTIA ICE demonstration program for emergency
communications should be strengthened through
additional funding.
Recommendation
No. 3
There should be a concerted attack on
the continuing unsolved problem of interoperability
among first responders, operational personnel
and military personnel as well as the issue
of spectrum allocations to support emergency
communication systems. This effort must address
the acceleration of the planned conversion to
700 MHz and narrow-band radio channels, as well
as effective switching between and among the
legacy emergency communications systems.
Open and compatible air interface standards,
open gateway and interoperability standards
will be needed. Also, issues of compatibility
of Voice over IP as well as “below-IP”
network protocols, and incompatible software
applications must be considered.
Recommendation
No. 4
It
is equally important to develop more effective
emergency communications systems for the general
public. Such systems need to be flexible,
resilient and pervasive. Expanded provision
of reliable and up-to-date information can be
achieved via wireless systems. WLANS (i.e.,
Wi-Fi, and Wi-Max), satellite radio and direct
broadcasting networks, Internet messages via
PDAs and broadcast wireless systems, conventional
radio and television stations and fiber networks
are examples. This expanded reach to the public
and to businesses is essential so that citizens
can ask for help and obtain instructions and
receive news. The types of information will
be different from that available to first line
responders but still sufficient to avoid panic
and allow informed action.
Recommendation
No. 5
We must continue to devise and implement
balanced, modular, flexible and scaleable technologies
as well as restorable power systems that can
significantly improve emergency communications.
This development agenda will include the deployment
of cost effective and reliable new 700 MHz,
narrow band emergency radio communications systems,
easy to deploy VSAT and micro-terminal based
satellite communications systems, new ground-based
wire and wireless capabilities, airborne relays/cells
(on UAVs or HAPS), software defined radios,
and hybrid (ground-air-satellite) solutions.
This effort must allow a transition to working
within universal IP protocol systems and rapid
access to interoperability switches. Finally,
it must address the availability of restorable
power systems for emergency communications.
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Many
other findings and conclusions are provided in the
White Paper highlighted in this issue of the Journal
and in the wealth of information contained in the
various power point presentations. The state of the
art system available for the first time in the On-Line
Journal of Space Communication allows you not only
to see the graphics, but also to go through the presentation
listening to the speakers’ actual words on a
slide-by- slide basis. For these new interactive multimedia
features one must particularly thank the production
team at Ohio University and in particular Prof. Don
Flournoy and recent Ph.D. graduate Ziad Akir, who
is shortly assuming a new teaching/administrative
position at Western Illinois University.
Finally we must give a special thanks to all of the
NCEC panel chairs, co-chairs, speakers, organizers,
patrons and sponsors that made this event a significant
success. We can only hope that those in government,
standards-making bodies and first responder organizations
will not only read the considerable information contained
in this on-line journal but also assist in the implementation
of the recommendations and actions items found in
the White Paper. If there are questions about the
contents of this journal you can contact us at: jpelton@gwu.edu
or neil.helm@verizon.net.
Joe
Pelton and Neil
Helm
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