Subject: [NEXTEL-1] A Failure to Communicate

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2002 17:37:29 -0500

A Failure to Communicate

Most cities' radio systems flawed

By Thomas Frank
WASHINGTON BUREAU

December 8, 2002

Washington - On Sept. 11, New Jersey State Police grew so frustrated at their inability to
contact New York City authorities
that they had to take a boat across the Hudson River and find a police commander at Ground
Zero.

The episode illustrated how a crucial and seemingly simple task - talking - is
astonishingly difficult when it involves different
public-safety agencies during a major incident.

Emergency officials typically talk on two-way radios, but on Sept. 11 that was impossible
because New Jersey and New York
City authorities use different radio frequencies. Their systems, like those throughout the
country, are incompatible and designed
only for communication within one agency.

Even worse, the standard backup - telephone - was unreliable on Sept. 11 because
transmission lines and wireless networks
were overloaded.

The delay in making contact left New Jersey officials unsure of how to help or prepare for
a potential onslaught of injured
people.

"If there were more victims who needed to come to New Jersey hospitals, we may not have
had that information in a timely
manner," said Kevin Hayden, who was the deputy director of the New Jersey state Office of
Emergency Management.

Now authorities are warning that communications problems once considered merely
inconvenient could jeopardize the
response to an attack that draws dozens of agencies and downs phone systems.

A national homeland-security study led by former Sens. Gary Hart and Warren Rudman warned
in October that most cities
have inadequate radio systems and no backup. Local police and firefighters can't talk
directly to each other or to county, state
and federal officials "in virtually every major city."

At the terrorist bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City in 1995, city
police and firefighters had to send messages
by runner to each other because their radio systems were incompatible and cell phone
networks were overloaded.

"It was a terrible system," said Gary Marrs, Oklahoma City fire chief in 1995, "but it was
all we had."

The New York City Fire Department also had to use runners at the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing because of radio
failures, according to a federal report that said, "Communications were a serious problem
from the outset."

And incompatible radio systems hinder routine emergency work. Nassau County has 19 police
departments, each with its own
radio system. "They can't interact with each other, which is nuts," said assistant county
police chief Stephen McDonald. "If
Garden City is chasing someone, they have to call us on a telephone for help because we
can't hear them on their radios and
they can't hear us on our radios."

Improvements in emergency communications have been hindered by funding shortages, local
politics and, in one case, the
television broadcast lobby.

Broadcasters helped block a Federal Communications Commission plan to transfer channels
from them to give public safety,
which would create radio channels to connect agencies directly.

That also would ease congestion and delays on crowded emergency radio channels - a problem
on Sept. 11, when New York
emergency medical officials "had difficulty communicating over the radio due to the large
volume of radio traffic," according to a
report by city consultants McKinsey & Co.

The government's inaction has persisted even as the FCC said in late 1997 that "there is a
critical need for more public safety
spectrum." The FCC regulates the radio spectrum that transmits everything from TV signals
to cell phone conversations.

Since 1997, the need for additional spectrum has grown as public-safety agencies
increasingly use radio signals to send data
such as mug shots and fingerprints. A government study said that by 2011, public-safety
agencies would need nearly three
times as much additional spectrum as the FCC proposed giving.

But Congress blocked an FCC proposal to transfer spectrum from TV stations to public
safety by 2007, giving TV stations an
open-ended deadline so as not to force them off the air. Congress is now reconsidering the
2007 deadline amid strong
opposition.

"It's going no place," said Harlin McEwen of the International Association of Chiefs of
Police, which is lobbying for the firm
deadline. "The broadcast industry's got a lot of money and we don't have any."

Broadcasters say public-safety agencies can improve communications with technology that
compresses radio signals, making
more channels available. Some departments use computer systems that patch together radio
calls from different agencies.

"Why does the federal government point to the broadcasters when there is a tremendous
amount of spectrum the federal
government does not use?" said John Tollefson, vice president and chief technology officer
for Public Broadcasting Service.

A government official said the Defense Department, which owns the largest chunk of unused
spectrum, is "very reluctant" to
consider giving any up.

The technology solutions require money at a time when cities and states are broke and the
federal government is facing major
deficits. In August, President George W. Bush vetoed an emergency-spending bill that
included $50 million for public-safety
communications. An ongoing budget impasse in Congress has left unspent $1.5 billion sought
by Bush for first responders, a
large chunk of which would go to improving communications.

Inter-agency links are not the only communications problems for public-safety agencies.

Sept. 11 exposed huge flaws in New York City's emergency communications. Many firefighters
in the World Trade Center did
not hear orders to evacuate the north tower after the south tower collapsed for reasons
that are still not completely clear.

McKinsey, the city consultant, pointed to an outdated fire department radio system that
works poorly in high-rises and can't
receive reports from police and other agencies.

The city is seeking federal funds to put radio boosters in all 2,000 of its high-rises,
and police and fire chiefs are working to
improve radio communications between them and with outside agencies.

Some metropolitan regions and states have set up communication systems that link emergency
agencies. But many can't, partly
because spectrum isn't available for new channels, and partly because agencies don't want
to give up control of their own
system.

"If you don't have the attitude to share with your neighbors, then it ends there," said
Alan Caldwell of the International
Association of Fire Chiefs.

Donald Appleby, who runs Pennsylvania's emergency radio system, said that networks in the
post-Sept. 11 age must connect
"not only public-safety agencies like police and fire but also environmental protection,
National Guard, transportation."

Many experts have begun to call for a national emergency communications network. But
McEwen of the police chiefs is
skeptical after pressing federal officials for help. "They want to spend a million dollars
and say we've done it and go home," he
said. "It just doesn't work that way. These are things that are going to take years and
years and years."

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