WASHINGTON-Public-safety network operators should consider partnerships with commercial wireless businesses, said Timothy Donahue, executive chairman of Sprint Nextel Corp. and NRIC VII chairman.
Acting as chairman of the FCC’s Network Reliability & Interoperability Council, it was the only time Donahue questioned a presenter at the meeting last week. Directing his question to RoxAnn Brown, chair of the NRIC VII PSAP/first-responder communications task force, Donahue said there are opportunities for partnerships between public safety and commercial wireless.
“How did your focus group view partnering with commercial operators?” asked Donahue. “There is probably more of an opportunity than most believe for partnerships.”
Brown acknowledged that some jurisdictions use commercial systems but she said there will always be a need for public safety to have its own system-separate from the commercial wireless network.
“I don’t think I want to say to anyone that we are going to completely throw away the private networks because I don’t think that is where we are today,” said Brown, noting that such partnerships could create redundancy.
NRIC, made up of industry executives, has been meeting for more than a decade to collect data and examine solutions on network outages. Its portfolio of issues has increased and grown more important with the advent of homeland-security issues. NRIC is now focusing on wireless-enhanced 911 service, and for the first time a public-safety official is on the council. NRIC VII concluded last week.
A theme running through the meeting was the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina.
Recently, the Federal Communications Commission named Nancy Victory to head an independent panel to examine the effects of Hurricane Katrina on communications networks. The independent panel will be made up of public-safety and other communications industry representatives, said the FCC. No other panel members have been named.
While the FCC expects to convene another iteration of NRIC next year, NRIC VIII will be separate and distinct from the Katrina panel, David Fiske, director of the FCC’s Office of Media Relations, told RCR Wireless News. Charters for the two panels have not yet been developed, Fiske added.
FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said there are still difficult questions to be asked about the effects of Hurricane Katrina on communications networks.
However, John Stogoski argued that it’s still too early to develop recommendations based on lessons from Hurricane Katrina because many companies are still doing their own evaluations. Stogoski is the director of homeland security for Sprint Nextel Corp. and chair of the NRIC VII homeland-security infrastructure focus group. “Hurricane Katrina occurred so late in our cycle, we really didn’t feel we could include these in our best practices,” said Stogoski. “Companies are still doing after action” research.
