Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Wireless industry working toward priority access plan

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 04:55:07 -0500

Wireless industry working toward priority access plan

By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 3/10/2003

ighteen months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and
Washington left public safety authorities struggling to connect to
overwhelmed cellphone networks, the wireless industry is making some progress
toward ensuring priority access for emergency responders.

But funding for the
nation's proposed $200
million priority access plan
has not yet been nailed
down in the federal
budget. And the largest
US carrier, Verizon
Wireless, continues to
negotiate with federal
officials on how and when
it would add a priority
access system to its
networks.

In the past month,
T-Mobile, the smallest of the six national wireless carriers, has expanded to Boston
and 14 other Eastern US markets an early version of a system it launched last
summer in Washington and New York. Last week, Nextel Communications began
selling priority access capability to safety and government officials on its
walkie-talkie ''Direct Connect'' network, for $10 or $15 per handset per month,
although that does not yet cover standard phone calls from Nextel phones.

Soon after the terrorist attacks, when key government, military, police, and fire
officials were unable to get service from overtaxed wireless networks, the Bush
administration committed to a rapid upgrade to ensure disaster-response officials
would get the first claim on available calling channels. A similar priority access
system was launched on the nation's wireline network in 1995.

As with the landline network, officials with the proper clearance would get special
coded access to the airwaves ahead of the general public. The system, designed by
the Federal Communications Commission, assigns five tiers of priority access, with
key federal officials, governors, and their aides at the top, followed by emergency
management, FBI, local police and fire, utilities, and field medical personnel.

Expansion of the system to carriers other than T-Mobile was stalled late last year
when $73 million initially earmarked in the Pentagon budget was cut, in expectation
it would be shifted to the $41 billion budget for the new Department of Homeland
Security.

John Graves, a senior official with the department's National Communications
System division, said Friday that officials are trying to find a way to fund this year's
$73 million installment of the planned five-year, $200 million budget to expand the
service to all six national carriers.

''Everybody recognizes that it's an important thing, but everybody recognizes that
$73 million is a lot of money,'' Graves said. ''It will have to be offset'' by a cut
elsewhere in the homeland security budget.

Kathryn Condello, vice president of industry operations with the Cellular
Telecommunications & Internet Association, the main wireless industry group, said
she is confident the system will be ready by 2005.

''I think everybody is working on getting it done, but you just can't tell where the
money is,'' Condello said.

Richard Sheirer, who oversaw World Trade Center recovery efforts as New
York's commissioner of emergency management, said wireless carriers ''all stepped
up to the plate'' and added temporary new capacity hours after the terror attacks.
But ''that first day, the first few days, were very, very difficult'' for cellphone
communications, said Sheirer, now a senior vice president with Giuliani Partners,
former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's consulting firm.

US Representative Edward J. Markey of Malden, the ranking Democrat on the
House telecommunications subcommittee, said the issue highlights the importance
of accelerating the delayed transition of US television stations to digital formats,
which is likely to miss a 2006 deadline.

Once they move from analog to digital transmission, the airwave spectrum used by
UHF television stations in channels 60 through 69 is to be reallocated for a new
nationwide public safety network.

''It's much better to have a dedicated swath of spectrum for first responders, but
that is going to take years, unfortunately,'' Markey said.

Verizon spokesman J. Abra Degbor said the company ''is continuing to work with
the federal government and the wireless industry'' to add the service, but is not sure
when it can be launched.

Peter J. Howe can be reached at [email-masked].

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/069/business/Wireless_industry_working_toward_priority_access_plan+.shtml

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From: Alan Dixon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 19:27:48 -0500

"Ensuring priority access for emergency responders"??  Don't bet the farm
on it.  Not for one moment.  Proponents* would have us believe that
nearly every firefighter, EMT, and police officer will have PAS.  Not
likely.  Only top brass in the highest echelons of federal and state
government will have this functionality.  And calling these guys
"responders" is stretching truth entirely too thin.

*"Proponents" - I haven't been able to identify any within the industry,
including lobbying and trade associations.  Oh yes, you'll see lots of
alleged proponents in press releases and in media accounts.  What these
exact same individuals and organizations say openly off-the-record is an
entirely different story.  PAS was destined to become a self-fulfilling
prophesy.  It exists because it can, not because it substantially
fulfills any tangible need.

Alan Dixon
"The Industry Iconoclast"
Contributing Editor
Popular Communications

[Please copy replies to: [email-masked] <n3hoe[a]juno.com>]

On Wed, 12 Mar 2003 04:55:07 -0500 Marcel <[email-masked]>
writes:

[E]ighteen months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and
Washington left public safety authorities struggling to connect to
overwhelmed cellphone networks, the wireless industry is making some
progress
toward ensuring priority access [service] [PAS] for emergency responders.

	<snip>

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/069/business/Wireless_industry_working_
toward_priority_access_plan+.shtml

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