Subject: Re: [earlywarning] [CAP] Definition of Warning Categories

From: "David Aylward \(Comcare\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:25:04 -0400

Rex:

Very insightful comments.  Certainly you are pointing in the right
direction.  Many of us are working with alliances to make sure that safety
uses are part of this stimulus.  The law and regulations call for safety to
be part of the mix.  

However, our enthusiasm should be tempered a bit by the emphasis the
recently issued rules make for use of the funds.  With a relatively small
amount of money (a one time shot of $7 billion is small potatoes compared to
something like $35-40 billion annually in industry capex), many of us had
hoped that the rules would leverage this one time investment by focusing on
building integrated demand, i.e. get safety, healthcare, etc sharing
information and thus using broad band more and more.  

However, the predominant designated use for the first tranche of the
stimulus funds (only 1/3 of the NTIA amount) is digging trenches for fiber
into rural America. Nothing inherently wrong with that if someone has a
future business model to support the capex.   

But the problem in the safety/healthcare eco-system is not primarily access
to IP communications trunks, but application layer capability and
interoperability issues.  Part of the first part of the stimulus funds are
devoted to "Innovative and sustainable uses of broadband".   Hopefully more
will be in the future.  

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Rex Buddenberg
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 12:55 PM
To: Bob Robinson
Cc: IAEM List; EM Groups; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; Art
Botterell
Subject: Re: [CAP] Definition of Warning Categories

Bob,

You point into a very interesting parallel development out there in the
world.

In the stimulus bill last spring was $7.2B in grant money that went to
USDA ('broadband' and 'reach to rural') and NTIA in Commerce
('broadband' and 'reach to underserved').  The FCC was also charged with
drafting a 'national broadband plan'.  
	FCC published a Notice of Inquiry, for which the comment period just
closed last week.  About the first comment they sought was a definition
of 'broadband'.  (For paper coming from inside the beltway, this NOI is
pretty good stuff, IMHO).  Whatever your definition of broadband, you
can look behind it and see 'extension of the internet'.  And you should
recognize that extension of internet to rural and extension of internet
to emergency services has a whole lot of overlap.  
	Just to complete the federal nethead - bellhead list of players, DHS
and DoJ are still in circuit-switch.  ... and didn't get this batch of
grant money.

What you ought to get out of this is is that
	- emergency services vehicles will soon be routinely on the
internet.
	- the citizenry that emergency services exists to serve will
increasingly be on the internet.
	This observation is progressively true in any event -- the netheads
always win -- but the stimulus subsidies are probably going to be a
substantial accelerant.... Santa Ana winds behind a California
wildfire.  

On Sun, 2009-07-12 at 17:50 -0700, Bob Robinson wrote:
> Art,
> 
> Very good analysis.  In fact I think the question of user (consumer)
disconnect can be put to the broader field of general emergency management
communications and in fact it can be a very important part of any attempt to
build "standards" that are to be applied across groups/agencies/etc.
involved in emergency management.  But what  the heck, that's just my
nickels worth based on 25+ years of EM experience.
> 
> Bob Robinson
> 
> --- On Sun, 7/12/09, Art Botterell <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> > From: Art Botterell <[email-masked]>
> > Subject: Re: [CAP] Definition of Warning Categories
> > To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
> > Date: Sunday, July 12, 2009, 2:23 PM
> 
> > I'm wondering whether it might be
> > simpler, at least in the near term, to let consumers
> > subscribe to selected sources rather than to topical
> > categories.  That pushes the question of message
> > authoritativeness / jurisdiction  /credibility out of
> > the CAP infrastructure and into the larger field of
> > inter-agency and inter-jurisidictional coordination, where
> > it more properly belongs.
> > 
> > Taxonomies tend to be culturally loaded and can never be
> > guaranteed to be complete.  Thus there's a real risk of
> > "categorical disconnects" leading to missed alerts either
> > because of differing interpretations of categories or of
> > unforeseen events that don't fit our preconceived
> > categories.  Maybe someday we'll have a reliable
> > taxonomy of the unexpected, but right now a degree of
> > deliberate imprecision seems to be the best we can do... and
> > I sometimes wonder whether even that is more helpful than it
> > is risky.
> > 
> > - Art
> > 
> > 
> > On Jul 12, 2009, at 7/12/09 11:58 AM, Hannes Tschofenig
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > I should provide a bit more feedback about the
> > background to my question.
> > > 
> > > If you only set the value in the category field for
> > the purpose of human
> > > consumption then there is not really an
> > interoperability issue.
> > > 
> > > Now, with the work on
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-rosen-sipping-cap-03
> > > we wanted to define an event package for SIP that
> > allows you to "subscribe"
> > > to certain type of events: you might indicate
> > something like location and
> > > the type of events you are interested in.
> > > 
> > > Now, the semantic of the category field suddently
> > matters. With the
> > > individuals-to-citizen emergency services we tried to
> > come up with a
> > > description of the emergency services categories, see
> > RFC 5031.
> > > 
> > > Ciao
> > > Hannes
> > 
> >
> _______________________________________________
> This list is for public discussion of the Common Alerting Protocol.  This
list is NOT part of the formal record of the OASIS Emergency Management TC.
Comments for the OASIS record should be posted using the form at
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/form.php?wg_abbrev=emergency
> CAP-list mailing list
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> 
> This list is not for announcements, advertising or advocacy of any
particular program or product other than the CAP itself.
-- 
Rex Buddenberg
Naval Postgraduate School
Code IS/Bu
Monterey, Ca 93943
831/656-3576

_______________________________________________
This list is for public discussion of the Common Alerting Protocol.  This
list is NOT part of the formal record of the OASIS Emergency Management TC.
Comments for the OASIS record should be posted using the form at
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/form.php?wg_abbrev=emergency
CAP-list mailing list
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This list is not for announcements, advertising or advocacy of any
particular program or product other than the CAP itself.

---

From: Rex Buddenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:55:12 -0700

Bob,

	- emergency services vehicles will soon be routinely on the internet.

On Sun, 2009-07-12 at 17:50 -0700, Bob Robinson wrote:
> Art,
> 
> Very good analysis.  In fact I think the question of user (consumer) disconnect can be put to the broader field of general emergency management communications and in fact it can be a very important part of any attempt to build "standards" that are to be applied across groups/agencies/etc. involved in emergency management.  But what  the heck, that's just my nickels worth based on 25+ years of EM experience.
> 
> Bob Robinson
> 
> > > Now, with the work on http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-rosen-sipping-cap-03
> This list is for public discussion of the Common Alerting Protocol.  This list is NOT part of the formal record of the OASIS Emergency Management TC.  Comments for the OASIS record should be posted using the form at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/form.php?wg_abbrev=emergency
> CAP-list mailing list
> This list is not for announcements, advertising or advocacy of any particular program or product other than the CAP itself.

---

From: Rex Buddenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:42:56 -0700

> uses are part of this stimulus.  The law and regulations call for safety to

In the FCC's NOI, there are a plethora of worthy applications.  Let's
pick on just a couple: education and schools always makes such a list.
And reach to rural has several sub-worthies including remote health
care, education, etc.  

Now look at the problem asking the questions 'what makes emergency
services different?'
	- the geographic coverage for 'reach to rural' and 'reach to emergency
services' is about the same
	- the driving requirement for emergency services is high availability.
This requirement makes 'emergency services broadband' a superset of all
the others.  
	- security (the FCC's NOI uses the term 'privacy').  And I'd point out
that authenticity is more important than privacy (you ever been
knee-deep in a situation and watched the rumor mill take off?).  The
point here is that these requirements belong in applications (like CAP)
and not in the comms plumbing.  

> information and thus using broad band more and more.  

My observation is that both emergency services and schools need
internet.  But every place I've looked, both are on different planning
tracks.  

> future business model to support the capex.   

One of the guys I discuss this stuff with is in a western state where
there's miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles.  His primary
concern is to provide coverage, both for emergency services and
motorists along the interstate highway that runs through the state.
Hmmm ... the highway runs parallel to the railroad and guess where the
trenches have already been dug and filled with dark fiber?  

Part of the problem is indeed capitalization expense, but that's at
least equaled by the need to get hitherto stovepipe comms industries
working together ... to extend the internet.  You can see the problem in
action by looking at the NPSTC working groups ... they immediately
equated 'broadband' with 'LTE', naively ignoring what the CATV companies
call 'broadband internet'-).  

> devoted to "Innovative and sustainable uses of broadband".   Hopefully more

David, you're right on target worrying about the sustainability (or at
least who you quoted is).  What doesn't make economic sense is to extend
the internet to those miles and miles ... twice.  Once for emergency
services and once for something else.  What makes a lot more sense is an
anchor tenant agreement that 1) meets the emergency services needs and
2) allows the commercial vendor to sell capacity above that
commercially.  

(apologies to Art et al for highjacking the CAP list)

---

From: Tony Rutkowski <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:39:18 -0400

> closed last week.  About the first comment they sought was a definition

Actually, a 25 June Order extended the Reply Comment date to
21 July.  So most Replies have not been filed, and you still have
time.

The proceeding is Docket 09-51, and you can access all
the material in the proceeding using ECFS.
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/comsrch_v2.cgi

--tony