As of Dec. 1 the Govt. Emergency Telecom Service (GETS) had some ...
As of Dec. 1 the Govt. Emergency Telecom Service (GETS) had some 140,000 subscribers and the Wireless Priority Service (WPS) 40,000, said Peter Fonash, deputy dir. of the National Communications System, in Fri. remarks to the Practising Law Institute.…
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Fonash told us network improvements are needed. “What we need to do next is go to a next-generation network,” he said. NCS is starting to work with industry on the needed standard, he said. Both programs give first responders, govt. officials and other qualified subscribers immediate access to congested networks at minimal cost. WPS is accessed by dialing *272 and the destination number using a WPS-ready handset. GETS has been growing about 10% per year; WPS, 20%, he said. WPS is in a growth spurt with this year’s addition of Verizon Wireless to the program and Sprint Nextel’s pending addition. On Sept. 11, 2001, about 5,000 callers used GETS, compared to 40,000 during Hurricane Katrina, Fonash said. He wants the program grow faster, he said. “We have proved that it actually does work very well under disaster conditions,” he said: “What we need to do is outreach to more people. We always want to go talk to people and sign people up.”