Home   Archived News   Press Releases 2003

NCS Deploys Initial Wireless Priority Capability

ARLINGTON, Va. January 13, 2003 - The first step toward a nationwide wireless priority service for national emergencies is now in place.

The National Communications System (NCS) announced on January 13 the implementation of the Wireless Priority System (WPS) to areas of the Eastern United States and plans to expand to a full nation-wide capability through 2003.

A limited WPS service has been operational in the Washington and New York metropolitan areas since May 2002. The initial nationwide capability is now available in both New York and Washington, as well as in metropolitan areas surrounding Atlanta; Birmingham, Ala.; Boston; Jacksonville, Fla.; Louisville, Ken.; Memphis, Tenn.; Miami; Mobile, Ala.; Nashville, Tenn.; New Orleans; Norfolk, Va.; Philadelphia, and Richmond, Va. Additional markets will be added nationwide over the next few months, as will further enhancements to the capability.

The initial carrier for the WPS service is T-Mobile, which signed a contract on January 10 with the NCS through DynCorp, its Government Emergency Telecommunications Service and Wireless Priority integration contractor.

“We are very excited and proud that we now have the initial capability to provide the Nation's leaders, first responders and key critical infrastructure personnel with wireless priority communications during periods of emergency," said Brenton C. Greene, Deputy Manager of the National Communications System. "We've worked hard with T-Mobile and all of our industry partners to develop a program that meets the President's request for an emergency wireless communications service. This is a major first step."

Greene indicated there are more steps and more telecommunications partners in expanding WPS to cover the entire country. "T-Mobile is the first of what we hope will be a full slate of major wireless carriers ready to step up and support WPS nationwide," said Greene. "We are also working very hard to secure the funding and complete the work that will allow us to reach a full operating capability of WPS by the end of 2003."

“WPS is an important capability for U.S. national security and emergency preparedness said Gary Jones, Director of Standards Policy for T-Mobile. “NCS, the FCC, and others in the administration and Congress have worked to make WPS a top priority and to ensure it was implemented as soon as possible. With the initial stage of Nationwide WPS operational before the end of 2002, great progress has been made. T-Mobile is pleased to have been awarded a Nationwide WPS contract, and we know that is a capability that national security and emergence preparedness officials want and will adopt quickly,”

NCS officials predict that within the next two years, there will be as many as 50,000 WPS users in the country, depending on carrier capacity on a case-by-case basis. John Graves, program director for the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS) and the NCS manager for the WPS implementation, said that the number of users would increase as more carriers accept contracts to provide the service.

WPS is available only to designated leadership at all government levels: national security, emergency responders, and private sector critical infrastructure leaders and decision makers, as approved by Federal Communications Commission Rules and Requirements and the NCS. Further, WPS has been designed to have negligible impact on regular cellular users, providing priority access to vital decision makers without restricting the public’s ability to gain access to those same networks.

Graves said the NCS and its industry team designed the WPS capability to have minimal impact (about two percent) on normal consumers using cellular networks. He said this would balance emergency priority use and public customer access. The NCS hopes to add other global system for mobile communications (GSM) carriers – such as AT&T Wireless, Cingular, and Nextel -- in the near future. Plans also include adding code division multiple access (CDMA) carriers such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS as soon as funding allows.

When trying to make a call in times of emergency or natural disaster, national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) users will have the ability to gain priority access to the next available cellular channel to place their call. Authorized users with T-Mobile WPS access need only dial *272 and then their destination number. Graves said this service would greatly enhance a caller’s ability to complete wireless calls during critical times and communicate vital decisions and reports during emergency situations.

In concept, WPS is an extension of GETS, the NCS emergency communications program that currently provides wireline priority service to over 70,000 users. Under GETS, eligible users with GETS calling cards can call a designated access number, input their GETS personal identification number, then dial the number they need during an emergency. Users would then receive “priority queuing” on the public network – a process that gives emergency responders the first available phone line without pre-empting calls already in progress.

GETS – available to eligible users since 1995 – saw its greatest success in the events following the September 11th attacks and at a time when the program was reaching full operational capability. Of the thousands of GETS calls attempted by national leaders and emergency responders, over 95 percent were completed on the first attempt.

Future Funding

Graves said the Federal Government is funding the initial WPS capability, with a small amount coming through service charges with participating carriers. Money for the T-Mobile contract award originated from emergency funding following the September 11th attacks and has gone to research, development, and deployment of initial capabilities.

However, future funding for development and deployment of the full WPS operational capabilities was put in doubt last October when a Senate-House conference committee “zeroed-out” the NCS request for $73 million for WPS from the fiscal year 2003 Defense Appropriations Bill. With the NCS moving to the Department of Homeland Security on March 1, the WPS initiatives for FY 2003 relies on if the NCS can obtain funding in the new department’s budget.

Graves said the clock is ticking to obtain that funding, adding that delays and funding cuts mean delays in the software development necessary to more carriers on board, as well as producing upgrades necessary to begin the coast-to-coast full operating capabilities by the end of the year.

Although funding restrictions are delaying the CDMA development, Graves insists that WPS remains open and ready to develop CDMA technology for the WPS. “We’ve said all along that we want to have as many wireless carriers participating in the program as possible,” said Graves. “The goal is to provide emergency responders with priority access with a variety of standards that support a common goal – successfully completing emergency calls during an emergency. We believe all wireless carriers – GSM and CDMA – have a vital role in making wireless priority service a success.”

The NCS consists of 23 Federal member departments and agencies and is responsible for ensuring the availability of a viable national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) communications infrastructure.

Privacy Policy