FCC's Own Service America Medal Finalists

Posted May 7th, 2010 by Jamie Barnett - Chief, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau

The Service to America Medals, or Sammies, are presented to members of the federal workforce for public service to the Nation and significant contributions which are innovative, high impact or of critical importance to America.  I was very pleased to attend a celebration May 5th at the Senate Russell Office Building, where Joe Casey and Paul Coburn, both outstanding members of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, were named as Finalists in the Homeland Security category.  Tim Peterson, our Chief of Staff, submitted the nomination, which highlights Joe and Paul’s innovation during and after Hurricane Katrina to start an initiative called Project Roll Call.

As Tim described it,  is a system of receivers, spectrum analyzers, antennas, computers, and databases that enables the Commission’s staff to determine which radio-based systems in an area are operational and which are not.  This is a powerful tool for the Commission and the federal government to use during a major disaster, attack, or power failure.  Project Roll Call enables federal emergency response personnel to maintain real-time situational awareness of radio communications systems immediately after a crisis, thereby enabling federal and private emergency communications personnel to prioritize restoration of the communications systems that will be most critical to emergency rescue, restoration, and relief efforts.  Among the communications systems that Project Roll Call can track during a disaster are public safety land mobile radio systems, which first responders rely upon; broadcast systems, which are often the primary manner for government to communicate emergency information to citizens during a disaster; and commercial wireless systems, which citizens in a disaster area rely upon to communicate with family, friends, and neighbors regarding their situation and needs.  Before the development of Project Roll Call, the Commission could only determine the operational status of AM broadcasters,  and then only at night.  Project Roll Call thus represents a huge expansion of our disaster communications capabilities and provides a quick review of the spectrum in order to expedite restoration decisions and efforts.

Joe, Paul and other Project Roll Call team members developed this system using existing, well proven applications of technology.  The team members are experienced in using these technologies for law enforcement and interference resolution applications.  The unique thing about Project Roll Call's development is that the team recognized the value in combining the various technologies and applying the new combined tool to provide an important homeland security capability.

The FCC has several Project Roll Call units either deployed or ready for immediate deployment.  It has been used successfully in restoration efforts following Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, and Tropical Storms Fay and Hanna.  Although not designed for international use, Project Roll Call was recently deployed to Haiti to assist communications relief efforts of the Haitian telecommunications regulator, Conatel, and in coordination with USAID.  It was also deployed to the State of Washington to be on call for use during the Vancouver Winter Olympics.  

The event announcing the Sammies Finalists was inspiring.  We heard thirty-two amazing stories of excellence and service concerning the Finalists.  Federal employment provides a unique opportunity to make a difference for our Nation.  Joe Casey and Paul Coburn have certainly made such  a difference, and I am very proud of their contribution.  And I appreciate  the efforts of Ken Moran, Bill Lane, Jim Pierson and the Public Communications Outreach and Operations Division, as well as the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, past and present, for fostering innovation and new ideas.   Finally, I want to thank Tim Peterson for his efforts to recognize true merit, and the FCC’s Managing Director, Steve VanRoekel, for his encouragement.

Winner of February Public Safety and Homeland Security Photo Contest

Posted March 4th, 2010 by Jamie Barnett - Chief, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau

Congratulations to John W. Franks, of the Raleigh, North Carolina Emergency Communications Center, the winner of our February Public Safety and Homeland Security Photo Contest!   We received many great photos in response to our Photo Project/Contest to highlight and feature photos of first responders in action.  I'd like to thank everyone who has participated.  Mr. Franks' photo presents a vivid and compelling example of the importance of the work that first responders do for us, and we will be featuring it on our website.  We look forward to and encourage future photo submissions.

Creating Choices, Flexibility and Real Solutions for America’s First Responders

Posted March 2nd, 2010 by Jamie Barnett - Chief, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau

Working to Vastly Improve Public Safety Communications with a Wireless, Interoperable Broadband Network across the Nation

Past Experience Brings Home the Need

Our first responders deal with emergencies everyday, and on some days, those emergencies are truly disasters that test the limits of our systems and beyond.

These kinds of emergencies and disasters clearly demonstrate the importance of reliable, robust and interoperable communications for America’s first responders, based on the most advanced wireless broadband technology possible.

On Thursday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and I publicly rolled out highlights of the public safety goals and recommendations of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan (the Plan). A major set of recommendations is related to the creation of a nationwide interoperable wireless broadband network for public safety.

Maximizing Public Safety’s Choices and Flexibility

The FCC completed a thorough and exhaustive process that explored all of the options and developed a plan that is fact-based and data driven. With this in mind, the Plan offers a framework for ensuring a nationwide level of interoperability from the start and incredible flexibility and choice to public safety that we believe will lead to real solutions for America’s first responders. The following are highlights of the Plan’s recommendations:

• Creates a nationwide interoperable wireless broadband network for public safety. The network will be interoperable across America: in the big cities, the suburbs and to the rural counties;
• Maps out a path forward to build out a network for public safety in a cost-efficient way, hand-in-hand with commercial entities.
• Gives public safety choices, flexibility and control on how they would like to deploy and operate their 700 MHz broadband networks in coordination with commercial entities;
• Expands and enhances public safety’s access to the entire swath of the commercial 700 MHz band of spectrum, totaling 80 MHz. (Note: this provides a quantum leap in resiliency. If one network fails, public safety has at least one back up and maybe more!).
• Enables public safety to obtain priority access service on commercial spectrum at reasonable cost when spectrum is needed most. (Note: this isn’t your dad’s priority access, but a dynamic broadband priority access).
• Provides opportunities for roaming on commercial spectrum at reasonable rates for public safety, creating options for accessing additional spectrum.
• Ensures public safety’s access to cutting-edge technology, including devices, at consumer electronic prices.

How to Make This All Work

The Plan recognizes the critical need for public funding to build out the network and support upgrades and operations.  The recommended plan would auction the D-block spectrum and expand opportunities to utilize more spectrum for public safety and better leverage commercial resources. This is why it is necessary that we have a funding mechanism in place to support the nationwide interoperable wireless broadband network for public safety in concert with commercial networks and resources. The Plan will recommend that there be two public funding streams over ten years: approximately $6.5 billion would fund the construction of the public safety broadband network and approximately an additional $6 to $10 billion would be dedicated to operating and upgrading the public safety network. This will better enable public safety to expand upon commercial deployments and obtain the level of coverage they need. The end result will be an advanced, widely available, and robust wireless broadband network for the Nation’s first responders.

Finally, the Plan would create an Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC). ERIC’s mission would be to establish a technical and operational framework that will ensure nationwide operability and interoperability from the outset in deployment and operation of the 700 MHz public safety broadband wireless network.

As broadband standards and technology evolve, ERIC will:

• Adopt technical and operational requirements and procedures for ensuring a nationwide level of interoperability;
• Adopt and implement other enforceable technical and operational requirements and procedures to address, at a minimum, operability, roaming, priority access, gateway functions and interfaces, and interconnectivity of public safety broadband wireless networks; and
• Adopt authentication and encryption requirements for common public safety broadband applications and network usage.

Conclusion - Commitment to this Vision

From the beginning, I have had one goal: that we incorporate the public safety community’s requirements to design a truly nationwide, truly interoperable public safety broadband wireless network, one that is technologically sound, financially feasible and economically attractive to public safety’s potential partners. It must be one that can evolve with changing technology. It must be one that offers public safety agencies choices. This is the only plan I have seen that meets these stringent criteria. We have gotten this far by an amazing consensus and focus on the goal. This must continue if we are to succeed, and I am determined that we succeed.

[Cross-posted on Blogband.]

A Photo Project - Public Safety & Homeland Security

Posted February 23rd, 2010 by Jamie Barnett - Chief, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau

I'm pleased to announce that the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is conducting a Photo Project and Contest so that we can collect and feature public safety pictures on the PSHSB website.   We have put a lot of effort into making our Bureau's section of FCC.gov useful for the public safety community, and believe it would be an even more effective tool if we featured live action photos of first responders performing their duties.  We are hoping for an enthusiastic response to this initiative.

While I'm on the subject of our website, I'd also like to highlight our Clearinghouse, which has been a key component of our outreach to the public safety community.  The Clearinghouse provides a centralized resource for information about emergency preparation, response and recovery, and is a searchable online repository of over 270 documents from federal, state and local sources.  These documents relate to our target groups of First Responders, Public Safety Answering Points, the Health Care Sector, and Persons with Disabilities and include best practices, grant information, sample emergency plans, as well as original content developed by PSHSB staff.  I encourage you to visit our website and Clearinghouse.  We are always looking for new materials, as well, so if you wish to submit documents to be posted, please email us at: PSHSBinfo at FCC dot gov.