GENEVA -- Better telecom equipment, more member states signing a new international convention, and possibly a unique U.N. country code in the international communications system are needed for disaster relief efforts and a full-fledged early warning system, U.N. officials said.
The U.S. govt. signed a long-term agreement with the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) to guarantee continuous geostationary satellite coverage of the continental U.S. and the Western Pacific, in case either agency experiences a spacecraft failure. Under the agreement, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and JMA will provide short-term emergency geostationary back-up and monitor typhoons and other severe weather that threaten both regions, officials said. If either agency’s spacecraft stops operating and has no back-up available, the partner agency would temporarily move one of its satellites toward the appropriate region and provide coverage for up to a year at no cost. Under an existing partnership, enacted in 2003, NOAA’s GOES 9 satellite has been providing coverage of the Western Pacific since JMA’s Geostationary Meteorological Satellite (GMS 5) experienced imaging problems and fuel shortages.
Fujitsu General America will introduce the first of its CableCARD-equipped plasma TVs this fall, as it begins a transition to integrated HD models, National Training Dir. David Fink said. While the sizes haven’t been set, Fujitsu showed a prototype 50W model at CES and the addition of CableCARD technology isn’t likely to carry a premium, Fink said Fri. It also will ship an 80W plasma TV this fall using a Samsung-sourced panel that features 1,920x1080p resolution.
Lack of funding and lack of awareness are the major obstacles to implementing the telecom service priority (TSP) program by the public safety, speakers said Thurs. during a TSP summit hosted by the FCC. The program has been in operation since 1988, when the FCC authorized telecom service providers to provide priority restoration of pre-designed circuits in times of emergency. But the panelists said that so far it has attracted less than 10% of PSAPs. For example, they said, there were still at least 20 states which local emergency centers had no TSP coverage. Okla. Corp. Commission Comr. Denise Bode estimated it would take $7.2 million to cover the uncovered circuits.
Nextel said Thurs. it expects to spend $900 million in 2005 as it begins to implement the 800 MHz rebanding plan, approved by the FCC last year, which will eat up much of the company’s projected $2 billion free cash flow. About $600 million will be spent on new capacity sites, filters and working with public safety radio systems and $300 million to relocate broadcast auxiliary users and microwave incumbents from 1.9 GHz to 2.1 GHz, Nextel officials said on a call with analysts discussing 4th- quarter results.
FCC Comr. Abernathy said the nation’s ability to identify threats to telecom infrastructures and maintain emergency communications when man-made or natural disasters strike have improved since the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001, but more still needs to be done. “We have addressed critical areas over the last three-and-a- half years, but it’s not enough,” she said. Speaking on a utility infrastructure security panel at the NARUC winter meeting, Abernathy said the FCC’s focus before 9/11 was on coping with natural disasters. “After this event, we evaluated and found serious lacks” in emergency communications and service restoration. She said the FCC since then has strengthened industry partnerships to improve E-911 and emergency communications for public safety entities. She said the FCC and industry worked to create priority service restoration rules for both landline and wireless service so emergency personnel get top priority for available network capacity. And the FCC established a homeland security policy council under the FCC Chief of Staff to coordinate ongoing agency efforts. To address the kind of radio interoperability problems that emerged from 9/11, where radio sets of different agencies couldn’t communicate with each other, Abernathy said the FCC set aside 97 MHz across 10 different radio bands for public safety use, but only for agencies whose radios meet interoperability standards. She also noted that as of Jan. 1, all new public safety radio equipment sold in the U.S. must meet interoperability standards. “We have the bandwidth and we have the technology in place. We should be able to achieve dramatic improvements” in emergency communications, cautioning that emergency service organizations aren’t under direct control of the FCC. She said 9/11 also revealed infrastructure interdependency vulnerabilities because communication depends on uninterrupted electric power, while electric restoration depends on communications: “We in telecom are only one piece of the total infrastructure picture. We need to better understand infrastructure interdependencies so we can plan for their effects.” In response to a question, Abernathy noted that the national radio/TV emergency broadcast system was designed for Cold War threats to the entire nation, not localized emergencies in a single city, state or region. She said the FCC is looking into various approaches using commercial and govt. radio services to broadcast localized emergency information to only the affected area. Other panelists described how national homeland security infrastructure protection initiatives have evolved to include state and local efforts. They urged state regulators to establish and maintain contact with the federal homeland security coordinator for their state.
State regulators on a NARUC panel on broadband over power lines (BPL) Tues. said there are many regulatory tools available to discipline the infant technology should it become unruly -- but the best approach now is to “spare the rod” and keep regulatory hands off BPL.
T-Mobile announced successful receipt and retransmission of emergency alert messages to select wireless phones, in a pilot study to improve the nation’s emergency alert system (EAS). The company said it and other service providers, including Cingular and Nextel, had joined with the Dept. of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which manages the national EAS system, to work on the pilot. The pilot program, called the Digital Emergency Alert System, last week tested a series of messages in the National Capitol Region, T-Mobile said. It said the pilot was to demonstrate how the federal govt. can use the digital public TV network to deliver emergency alerts to wireless phones, handheld devices and personal computers, including via text messaging. Pilot project participants also include the Assn. of Public TV stations and PBS. “Once the tests are completed, participants will share their technical results with FEMA,” which will “use this information to determine how and whether to proceed with an upgrade of the national EAS system,” T-Mobile said.
The proliferation of larger, more-capable satellites has caused a lull in the number of new commercial spacecraft being built, and companies must turn to mergers and specialization for survival, Frost & Sullivan analyst Max Engel said Thurs.
XM, like Sirius, has had “exploratory” discussions with Apple as it sought to expand its satellite-radio service to a variety of combo devices, CEO Hugh Panero told analysts Thurs. But also like Sirius, XM said Apple had no immediate interest in extending its iPod digital audio players beyond the company’s proprietary iTunes music download service.