The carriers also need to have Awareness and Training Programs in place to educate and train employees regarding issues and disaster response programs. One more criteria I’ll touch on is Coordination with External Agencies. Katrina highlighted how important that communication is, so we want to make sure our companies have established procedures and policies for coordinating with government and public safety representatives.
As I said, ours is a 10 point program and those are just some of the areas, but it gives you a pretty good idea of how serious wireless companies take their responsibilities in terms of emergency preparedness.
Policy Council: You bring up an interesting point about coordinating with external agencies. What has the industry learned about working with outside agencies such as FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, and public safety groups in disaster response?
Mr. Guttman-McCabe: To answer your question, I’d like to touch on a couple of points. First, the wireless industry has always recognized its responsibility regarding homeland security and cooperates with numerous federal and public safety entities on multiple homeland security initiatives. We can look to Wireless Priority Service (WPS) as an immediate example of what can come from voluntary partnerships between the wireless industry and external agencies. WPS is a White House directed initiative and ensures key personnel are given access to wireless networks ahead of other users during disasters when communications networks become congested and emergency personnel need to communicate with each other. In addition to this being a valuable initiative, I think it’s also important to look at how it was formed. Congress cited the need for the service and provided funding. The industry then worked with the National Communications System to develop the requirements, and left it to industry experts to develop the capability. There wasn’t a mandate on how to do it, and what resulted was rapid deployment of an effective service.
My second point is about an issue being discussed right now at the FCC in the recently filed Katrina Report. The wireless industry does not have priority status for power restoration during such emergencies, and we believe that needs to change. Wireless communications are integral to providing critical information during times of crisis and should be given priority status along with other communications providers. We aren’t saying that wireless is the priority, but we certainly believe that we should at least be in a queue for priority restoration with other critical infrastructure.
