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Providing Priority Communications Programs to Emergency Responders

Arlington, VA., November 20, 2006 - Hurricane Katrina brought home harsh realities last year that crisis events such as a terrorist attack or natural disaster, can inflict devastating damage on a specific region’s communications infrastructure. Although most carriers have backup systems in place, the loss of a single fiber-optic cable or the failure of a computer program can disrupt thousands of wireline and wireless channels and trigger congestion on the public telephone network.

This communications congestion could force police, fire and rescue workers, emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and other emergency response personnel to compete with the public for the same congested landline and wireless resources. Although it is important for the public to be able to communicate, there needs to be system that allows first responders obtain and maintain ongoing communications during a crisis event?

The National Communications System (NCS), part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Preparedness Directorate, provides priority telecommunications services that give first responders and other emergency organizations “priority” status over routine calls from the general public, thus ensuring essential communications for emergency response.

NCS Priority Telecommunications Service offerings include the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS), the Wireless Priority Service (WPS), and Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP) Program. These three programs anchor the NCS efforts toward ensuring that emergency response personnel are able to communicate with the Federal, State and local leadership for decisions involving emergency response.

The Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS) is a nationwide wireline priority telecommunications program currently serving over 132,000 users. GETS subscribers use a calling card to receive priority queuing in the local and long distance segments of the public telephone network during disasters or other emergency events. NCS designed GETS to make maximum use of all available telephone resources if outages occur during a crisis. GETS should be an essential part of every first responders’ communications tool kit.

Clint Sonier, Director of Information Technology Infrastructure and Telecommunications with the West Jefferson Medical Center in Louisiana, commented about their use of GETS during the hurricane disaster, “GETS proved to be essential for our continued operations in the aftermath of Katrina,” he said. “Outgoing trunks were jammed. Our local phone company lost two central offices which increased traffic even further and we lost our primary long distance carrier.”

Sonier said that without GETS, they would have been cut off from their surrounding areas, especially Baton Rouge where it was critical for them to keep in contact with the state emergency operations center. “GETS also allowed us to coordinate much needed supply shipments -- even weeks after the disaster we still had phone issues,” said Sonier. “GETS allowed us to continue doing ’normal’ things like supply purchasing via fax. I really do not know what we would have done without it!”

One advantage of enrolling in GETS is that is inexpensive to sign up and participate in the program. Eligible personnel and organizations have no initial sign-up fee or monthly recurring charge associated with GETS. Additionally, the cost of a GETS call varies from 7- to 10 cents per minute, depending on the carrier.
NCS officials documented over 32,000 completed GETS calls during the first 12 days of Hurricane Katrina.—recording a 95 percent call completion rate.

Wireless Priority Service (WPS) is wireless companion to the GETS program. WPS ensures NS/EP communications availability when wireless communications (cellular, personal communications services, satellite) users experience high levels of call blocking. In emergency situations which involve damaged wire line networks, cellular telephones often provide the primary means of communication, increasing congestion even further. WPS allows authorized NS/EP personnel to gain access to the next available wireless radio channel in order to initiate calls during an emergency. WPS users can invoke the WPS service by dialing *272 before the number.

WPS, when used in conjunction with GETS, ensures end-to-end call completion in both the wire line and wireless portions of the public telephone switched network. The use of WPS and GETS assures that emergency workers get connected and stay connected to one another and to people in need.

Current WPS carriers include T-Mobile, Cingular, Sprint Nextel, and Verizon Wireless. The cost for WPS is a $10 one-time activation fee, a $4.50 per month services fee, and 75 cents per minute for WPS calls. WPS charges are in addition to the basic subscription charges of the carrier.

NCS also manages and operates a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) program called Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP). In the wake of a crisis event whether it be a hurricane, earthquake, and other natural disaster, telecommunications vendors sometimes become overwhelmed with requests for new services and requirements for restoring existing services.

Under TSP, participating agencies receive priority treatment from telecommunications service providers for the restoration of damaged equipment or the installation of new communications equipment that is critical to disaster response, emergency preparedness or national security. Service vendors are bound by the FCC mandate to restore TSP-assigned telecommunications services before any non-TSP services.

TSP is invaluable to the emergency communications community. Whether responding to a natural disaster, supporting civil or military crises, or maintaining emergency communications networks, the TSP program is the only authorized mechanism to enable priority provisioning and restoration of NS/EP telecommunications services.

NCS priority telecommunications services have been instrumental in maintaining critical communications in many disasters. TSP -- along with other NCS priority telecommunications programs -- play a crucial role in the continuity of telecommunications services to support the efforts of first responders and other emergency management personnel as they deal with the aftermath of these disasters.

When Hurricane Katrina with Category 3 winds downed hundreds of telephone lines and cell towers, emergency workers were left with little means of communication. In the face of the massive recovery effort, there is a question of where services are restored first. TSP provides service vendors with an FCC mandate for prioritizing the services which are critical to NS/EP. A TSP assignment ensures that circuit will receive priority attention by the service vendor before any non-TSP circuit. There were 3,270 TSP provisioning requests processed for Hurricane Katrina and 121 requests processed for Hurricane Rita.

In addition to the priority telecommunications services, NCS provides other programs and services to support NS/EP efforts across Federal, State, and local government and critical infrastructure industry. One key program is the SHAred RESources (SHARES) High Frequency (HF) Radio Program. The SHARES Program has a mission to provide emergency communications to the Federal Government, using HF radio, when all other means of communication have failed or have been disrupted.

The NCS used SHARES heavily during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. For example, a telephone call that came into the SHARES Radio Room on September 1, 2005, from a civilian radio operator in Maryland. The person said that there were students stranded on the fifth floor of a building at Xavier College in New Orleans who needed to be rescued. SHARES coordinated with the Coast Guard air traffic control unit, in which was positioned in Mobile, Ala., at the time. They, in turn, passed the information to rescue flight helicopters in the New Orleans area. The Coast Guard was able to rescue 100 students from this location.

It is estimated that SHARES passed 3000 emergency messages and situation reports for the federal sector during the first 72 hours of the Katrina event. SHARES also worked closely with state and civilian emergency communications organizations to assist and facilitate approximately 50,000 emergency messages during the first week of Katrina

Participation in SHARES is open to all Federal, state, and industry agencies and departments and their affiliates on a voluntary basis. Organizations that elect to support the nationwide network, identify HF radio stations for entry in the SHARES Directory. These stations agree to use standard radio operating and message formatting when handling SHARES traffic and participate in national exercises conducted three times annually to ensure SHARES operational readiness. Today, SHARES has 96 Federal, state, and industry organizations involved in its operation and has over 1,100 HF radio stations in the program located throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Since its inception in 1963, the National Communications System’s mission has been to assist the President, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and now the Department of Homeland Security in assuring the availability of national security and emergency preparedness communications for all levels of government under all circumstances including crisis or emergency, attack, recovery, and reconstitution. NCS leads national communications efforts in critical infrastructure protection and in coordinating key government and industry entities for the nation’s well-being.

To learn more about all of the programs and services offered by NCS, visit the NCS web site at http://www.ncs.gov or call 1.866.NCS.CALL (866.627.2255).

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