CTIA urged congressional appropriators to provide full funding of...

million for wireless PAS. National Communications System in April awarded contract to VoiceStream Wireless to provide priority access service for Washington and N.Y. metro areas, with agency planning to provide national capability for national security/emergency personnel by end of 2003. After Sept. 11 attacks, NCS and other federal agencies refocused on providing wireless emergency communications capability akin to Govt. Emergency Telephone Service (GETS) that already exists on wireline side. President Bush sought $73 million for wireless PAS effort, but Wheeler said “unfortunately, full funding has not yet been provided by either the House or the Senate Appropriations Committees.” He said wireless industry didn’t seek out PAS funding, “but out of a sense of national purpose has been working with the NCS to develop a voluntary, workable and efficient system to provide this capability.” Wheeler said that in May policy statement, Administration had cited wireless PAS program as critical element in homeland security effort and said its implementation shouldn’t be delayed. “The wireless industry agrees with NCS that failure to provide full funding of this request would hinder deployment and implementation of this initiative,” Wheeler said. Richard Clarke, special adviser to Bush for cyberspace, said Tues. (CD July 31 p4) that PAS was among issues he had discussed with CTIA executive board at meeting that day. Navy Capt. Katharine Burton, assistant deputy mgr. of NCS, said at wireless security conference Tues. that NCS still planned to have wireless PAS system fully operational by Dec. 2003 for both CDMA and GSM-based phones “to make sure whatever device an individual has, that that device has access to a wireless priority mechanism.” She spoke at conference sponsored by Center for Strategic & International Studies and ITAA. She was followed by Defense Dept. Chief Information Office John Stenbit, who told reporters Pentagon was poised to announce policy that would restrict personnel use of wireless devices based on security concerns. In other areas, Burton said NCS continued to work on Emergency Telecom Service (ETS), which is designed to provide emergency notification capabilities for next- generation networks, to ensure emergency capability in devices, whether pager service, Internet-capable PDA or other system. As public switched telephone network and Internet converge, “that’s going to bring about some new capabilities and new devices and we need to make sure those work together,” Burton said. Point would be to also make that capability available nationwide to designated users, she said. In emergency notification service, NCS is examining broadcast mechanism through different devices to transmit emergency messages quickly to users “within a relatively short time frame,” she said.