[Senate Hearing 107-1025]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-25
THE NATION'S WIRELINE AND WIRELESS
COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE IN LIGHT
OF SEPTEMBER 11TH
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 6, 2002
__________
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SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina, Chairman
DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West TED STEVENS, Alaska
Virginia CONRAD BURNS, Montana
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts TRENT LOTT, Mississippi
JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas
BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine
RON WYDEN, Oregon SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
MAX CLELAND, Georgia GORDON SMITH, Oregon
BARBARA BOXER, California PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia
BILL NELSON, Florida
Kevin D. Kayes, Democratic Staff Director
Moses Boyd, Democratic Chief Counsel
Jeanne Bumpus, Republican Staff Director and General Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Communications
DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Chairman
ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina CONRAD BURNS, Montana
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts TED STEVENS, Alaska
JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana TRENT LOTT, Mississippi
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas
Virginia OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine
BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
RON WYDEN, Oregon GORDON SMITH, Oregon
MAX CLELAND, Georgia PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois
BARBARA BOXER, California JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia
JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held March 6, 2002....................................... 1
Statement of Senator Burns....................................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 11
Statement of Senator Inouye...................................... 1
Statement of Senator Wyden....................................... 13
Witnesses
Cangemi, Agostino, Deputy Commissioner-General Counsel,
Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.... 2
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Crotty, Paul, Group President for New York and Connecticut,
Verizon, Inc................................................... 33
Prepared statement........................................... 38
Harris, Gloria, Vice President of Operations--New York, New
Jersey and Connecticut, AT&T Wireless.......................... 41
Prepared statement........................................... 44
Herda, Larissa, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President,
Time
Warner Telecom................................................. 50
Prepared statement........................................... 53
McLean, Christopher A., Counsel, ComCARE Alliance................ 23
Prepared statement........................................... 25
Nash, Glen, President, Association of Public Safety
Communications Officials International, Inc.................... 29
Prepared statement........................................... 31
Souder, Steve, Director, Montgomery County, Maryland 9-1-1
Emergency Communications Center................................ 13
THE NATION'S WIRELINE AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE IN
LIGHT OF SEPTEMBER 11TH
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2002
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Communications,
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:31 p.m. in
room SD-253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K.
Inouye, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. INOUYE,
U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII
Senator Inouye. Before we proceed, I would like to
apologize to all of you for the lack of attendance. As some of
you may be aware, at this moment a special briefing conducted
by the Secretary of Defense and General Wheeler on the military
activities in Afghanistan is just about to close. That will be
followed by a special meeting with President Mubarak of Egypt.
So I do not expect too many members to be attending this
hearing.
However, because of the significance and importance of the
meeting, I will make certain that your testimony will be
studied and read by my colleagues.
In the wake of the tragic events of September 11th, a large
amount of Congressional attention has rightly focused on
matters involving the safety and security of Americans. Indeed,
in the last 6 months this Committee has already considered
proposals to improve the safety of our ports, our airports, and
our railways. In keeping with this theme, today's hearing
examines the safety and security of our Nation's communications
infrastructure. Through the testimony of today's witnesses, we
hope to assess both how our wireless and wireline networks
performed and responded to the events of September 11th and how
in the future we might improve the reliability and robustness
of these networks in emergency situations.
Before going further, let me first express my personal
thanks to the emergency personnel, government officials, and
the many communications workers who worked tirelessly both
during and after September 11th to restore voice and data
communications. Their relentless efforts, often in the face of
extreme adversity, deserve both our recognition and our
gratitude.
The events of that day placed an enormous strain on our
communications network in both New York City and Washington,
D.C. In New York City, damage to a Verizon central office
caused by the collapse of the World Trade Center cut phone
service to tens of thousands of businesses and residents in
lower Manhattan. In Washington, D.C., as individuals attempted
to contact their loved ones, wireless traffic demand spiked to
over 200 percent, leaving customers struggling to get a dial
tone. In both places, officials on the ground struggled to
communicate and coordinate among the various emergency response
teams dispatched to Ground Zero and the Pentagon.
While we in Congress, along with all Americans, hope and
pray that our wireline and wireless networks will never again
face so severe a test, we must continue to explore ways to
improve the resiliency and reliability of our communications
infrastructure. Moreover, because reliable communication is
critical to the success of emergency personnel, our efforts
should also include a consideration of ways in which new
technological tools such as location information, peer to peer
communications, reverse messaging, and broadband applications
can be utilized by emergency personnel in order to help save
lives.
Accordingly, I look forward to the testimony of the
witnesses and their responses to questions that may be posed by
Members of the Subcommittee.
We have two major panels. On our first panel I am pleased
to call the Deputy Commissioner-General Counsel of the cable of
Information Technology and Telecommunications of the City of
New York, Mr. Agostino Cangemi, and the Director of Montgomery
County, Maryland, 9-1-1 Emergency Communications Center of
Rockville, Maryland, Mr. Steve Souder. Gentlemen, welcome and I
appreciate your attendance here. Mr. Cangemi, welcome, sir.
Mr. Cangemi. Good afternoon.
Senator Inouye. You may proceed, sir.
STATEMENT OF AGOSTINO CANGEMI, DEPUTY
COMMISSIONER-GENERAL COUNSEL, DEPARTMENT OF
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Mr. Cangemi. Good afternoon and thank you for this
opportunity to tell you the story of our telecommunications
restoration efforts in New York City following September 11th.
I will tell you about the challenges we faced----
Senator Burns. Pull that microphone up so we can hear you a
little bit.
Mr. Cangemi. Sure.
Thank you for inviting me to tell you the story of the
telecommunications restoration efforts in New York City. I
would like to address some of the challenges we faced, what
worked, what worked well, the process we used, were there
opportunities to improve, what did not work so well, and what
we are currently doing in New York City to improve the
infrastructure going forward.
It has been 6 months. I did want to kind of couch this
testimony in terms of trying to take you back to that day. For
many of us in New York, it was an attack on the country, but
also an attack on where we go to work every day, as well as you
here in Washington. It was an attack on our families and it was
an attack on our colleagues. So there was a sense of anger,
anguish, and a desire to do something on the part of
telecommunications workers and government officials. We were
not at Ground Zero able to actually try to dig out the rubble,
but we tried to do as much as we could.
That kind of sense is what pervaded the efforts we had
along with the telecommunications providers in New York City,
that kind of cut through the clutter, cut through some of the
competitive issues that I had witnessed in the past. I had
personally been involved in things as mundane as area code
proceedings in New York City in front of the Public Service
Commission and those things can get pretty heated. But around
the time of September 11th that type of competitive edge and
clutter was not there and competitors were able to work
cooperatively together to restore service as quickly as
possible.
Let me first address the challenges that we faced. We in
downtown Manhattan had over 30 critical city government
buildings. About 50,000 voice lines went down. They were all
connected to one central office that had been severely damaged
due to the collapse of World Trade Center 7. We also had to
migrate our web site. My agency, the Department of Information
Technology and Telecommunications, is responsible for all data,
voice, e-government and web site initiatives, as well as we are
the local franchising entity in New York City. But voice
remained the biggest issue.
So what worked? What did we do? Back in the early nineties
we established something called the MARC, M-A-R-C. I noticed as
I got off the train here in Washington that ``MARC'' may mean
something else to you around here, but to us it means the
Mutual Aid and Restoration Consortium. In the early nineties,
New York City government officials along with
telecommunications providers created a consortium, an actual
contractual agreement as well, among the local
telecommunications providers to plan for the cooperative
resumption of voice and data traffic in the event of a
catastrophic situation. In fact, the broadband franchises in
New York City or the licenses--what we use franchises for are
the right to actually provide broadband services in New York--
require participation in this MARC agreement.
Although many competitive issues had kind of allowed this
consortium to wane a bit, we were able to immediately convene a
conference call of the 40 largest telecommunications providers
in New York City by early September 12th. This included the 18
franchisees doing data and voice services in New York City, as
well as the six primary wireless carriers, government
officials, equipment makers, some of them not officially
members of the MARC, but wanted to help as much as they could,
so they participated in our calls.
We convened twice-daily conference calls and had an open
bridge line, which allowed everybody to communicate and assess
the situation as quickly as possible. We shared information.
Much of the information was proprietary information that
competitors would not necessarily want to share with each
other. But it worked to restore service as quickly as possible.
Generally what the approach we used with MARC was the
commissioner of my agency would chair twice-daily conference
calls. We had a central Office of Emergency Management that
established what the priorities would be for restoration, and
that was critical because the telecommunications companies were
getting calls from everyone, calls if they could make the
calls. But they were getting contacted as much as possible, and
trying to assess what the priorities were from a New York City
government perspective was difficult for them and impossible
without this type of arrangement. So our Office Emergency
Management played that role and communicated to us what the
priorities were.
We would put out the request to the carriers on these calls
and they would offer to assess, do a field survey to find out
who can restore service as quickly as possible, as cost
efficiently as possible, but primarily we were concerned with
restoration of services as quickly as possible.
Verizon had dedicated much of their resources to getting
that central office back up and running, as well as working on
our police command center--they did a fabulous job there--as
well as our stock exchange, which was a priority set forth by
the President.
When we set out to do this, it involved having access to
the Ground Zero area. Without this MARC process in place, in
the early days it was our police department, our local
responders, that were controlling access to the area. It would
have been impossible for the competitive providers or many of
the workers of these companies to get to that area. So we were
able to coordinate through the MARC process access and that was
one of the most critical functions, and it served them quite
well.
I can tell you that diesel trucks that were necessary in
order to fuel the generators, the backup generators, in
downtown Manhattan did not look too inviting on the days of
September 12th and 13th and would not have been able to get
down there but for this MARC process in coordination with our
local police authorities.
What were the results of this process? Well, our Office of
Emergency Management had been in 7 World Trade Center and was
destroyed, but through the MARC and through working with the
local telecom providers we were able to have an interim
physical site established within 2 days. City Hall was restored
by September 14th. Our municipal building, which houses many of
the critical government agencies and comptroller's office and
other city agencies, was restored by September 15th.
What are some other things that worked besides the MARC?
Well, we had also developed and centralized much of the Y2K
pricing. The Y2K pricing books were in the Office of Emergency
Command Center, so many of them were lost. But we were able to
have some backup plans in place and wiped off a little bit of
the dust, and many of the scenarios that we had prepared for
Y2K we were able to kind of use the same processes that worked
quite well.
For instance, we had warehoused spare equipment that was
immediately available for our command center, as well as
cellular phones and telecom equipment that we had warehoused
and was accessible for Y2K planning. We were able to supplement
that with any of the vendors who were on the MARC calls. So as
far as access to equipment, we were able to procure that and
obtain that as quickly as possible.
Other things that worked with the Y2K planning was we had
an Internet-based communications process. Our Office of
Emergency Management had a process for essential personnel and
they were connected through Blackberries and wireless-based
Internet services, so they were able to communicate at Ground
Zero.
We also had a pretty effective GIS mapping process in place
that was able to develop maps for emergency workers, describe
the restoration process and access points for buildings. That
kind of information was critical and we were able to do that
remotely.
We implemented Voice Over Internet Protocols. That was
something that had been in the pilot phase. We did not have
time for the pilot any more. We implemented it and it worked at
City Hall as well as a number of other city buildings.
We greatly increased the wireless capabilities by
distributing Blackberries and similar types of equipment to
essential government workers and that was essential to
restoring services.
What are some opportunities for improvement? Well, the
destruction made it--the destruction of the central office
really created too big of a problem for the government. We had
much too many lines, 50,000 phone lines, addressed by one
central office without an alternative carrier in place.
The other things we did not think about were some of the
human and physical space factors in planning. Even though we
were able to restore service, we were not able to get the
personnel back into the buildings in downtown Manhattan for
sometimes over a week, sometimes 2 weeks, depending on where
they were. So that was an area of planning that we could have
improved upon.
Also on the wireless front, the wireless carriers were not
part of the MARC consortium officially, although they
participated in our calls. I think on that front they are an
industry not accustomed to local regulation as well as some of
the tariff providers who are more accustomed to dealing with
public service commissions and local regulatory authorities. So
that was probably an industry where we can see some improvement
in terms of disaster recovery planning.
Some of the lessons learned. We are going to be developing
a disaster recovery plan that includes some of the items I
discussed, such as human and physical factors, as well as
operations, communications, and technology, and factor in just
the stress and the trauma and even the death of some of the
critical resources that may be available. We need to focus
beyond the IT infrastructure to the relocation and work
resumption of business users that rely on that infrastructure.
We did learn that our Y2K plan worked and for other
municipalities and other jurisdictions across the country, they
may want to take a look at their Y2K plans and think of them in
light of the World Trade Center attack.
Lastly, you have to be creative. Voice Over IP, wireless,
land line, broadband, we used what worked, as quickly as we
could get it.
What I want to address is, quite briefly in closing, is
what my agency is doing on behalf of the City of New York to
improve our telecommunications infrastructure. I already
addressed our GIS application, our mapping application. We are
going to be mapping all of the broadband fiber in New York City
onto this GIS application. In the event of another service
outage, we will have at our fingertips knowledge as to where
all the fiber exists in our city streets, as well as who owns
that fiber and an ability to quickly deploy a plan to restore
service.
The MARC is something that can work in service outages not
as dramatic as something that happened at the World Trade
Center. We are going to try to use this with our downtown
financial businesses so that they know and they have confidence
in New York City's infrastructure and they know that there are
options to them to have a redundant, resilient,
telecommunications infrastructure in place and they do not need
to move their businesses elsewhere.
We are coordinating with those downtown businesses to do
just that, so that they have an understanding of what the
infrastructure is. We found out very quickly after September
11th that they really did not understand. They asked the kind
of questions about wireless, redundancy--they thought that if
they paid a bill to MCI WorldCom or AT&T that somehow they were
going to have five 9's types of redundancy. They did not
understand kind of the infrastructure that depended on going
through central offices and how a break point at that central
office could really bring down their entire operation.
As far as city government buildings are going, we are
actually developing an alternative fiber loop in an alternative
conduit system that will link all of the critical city
buildings in downtown Manhattan on a completely separate fiber
conduit path.
We are also--just trying to be creative, we found out that
we had water pipes that used to be used 100 years ago for
water. When firemen needed excess water pressure to fight fires
in downtown Manhattan, they needed these big pipes in downtown
Manhattan. They are just sitting there. They are in still
pretty good shape. We are trying to convert those old water
pipes for telecommunications purposes and we have seen a lot of
interest in having that kind of disaster recovery option.
We are going to be using our city-owned buildings for
siting of wireless facilities. In the past we shied away from
that--a lot of community concerns. Everybody wants their cell
phone to work, but no one wants any cell antennas in their
area. But we have made that choice. We are going to be using
our city buildings that actually exist in some of the most
critical areas to enhance coverage. We view it as both a public
safety initiative as well as there will be some revenue
perhaps.
The other thing we are trying to address is trying to
reduce the cost for telecommunications providers to get to that
last mile. In New York City, most of the fiber goes through one
central path of conduit that circles around downtown Manhattan
in the main area, but there are still hundreds of buildings,
large office buildings, that do not have broadband connections.
We are going to be issuing requests for proposals to try to
greatly reduce the cost of getting into the building through
mini-consortiums so that the construction costs of getting to
that building will be greatly reduced, and once folks have
broadband connections they will not be as reliant on copper
connections to a certain central office.
In conclusion, I think we suffered a great blow on
September 11th. We were knocked down. We are getting up. We are
doing exactly the kinds of things to improve our
telecommunications infrastructure that is necessary to get New
York City's industry and government back on its feet.
Lastly, if I may make a small plug. I hear that you are
interested in coming back up to New York perhaps. It has been I
think over 200 years, but it would be a nice shot in the arm to
see you come up to New York, certainly a welcome visit. So we
look forward to seeing you.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cangemi follows:]
Prepared Statement of Agostino Cangemi, Deputy Commissioner-General
Counsel, Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications,
City of New York
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am Agostino Cangemi, Deputy Commissioner and General Counsel of
New York City's Department of Information Technology and
Telecommunications (DoITT). On behalf of the City of New York, and
DoITT, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I
would like to touch on several issues related New York City
government's telecommunications restoration initiatives after the
September 11 attack: What happened; what worked; recommendations based
on lessons learned; and, finally, what the city is doing, and requires,
in order to improve its public safety telecommunications infrastructure
and preparedness.
WHAT HAPPENED
Clearly, September 11 had a devastating impact on New York City
government's communications infrastructure. Scores of buildings,
including police headquarters, City Hall, our main Municipal Building
and several other critical city government sites in lower Manhattan's
Civic Center were thrust into complete communications darkness. These
failures were a direct consequence of the severe damage to Verizon's
140 West Street central office caused by the collapse of 7 World Trade
Center.
As many as 50,000 telephones on the desks of City employees, and
thousands of links that provide data access for critical operational
tasks, were suddenly unavailable. Besides supporting most of the city
government's telecommunications infrastructure, Verizon's West Street
facility also housed the point-of-presence (POP) for the Internet
Service Provider of the city's ``e-government'' website, NYC.gov.
WHAT WORKED
Y2K Preparedness
DoITT managed restoration activities in close coordination with the
Mayor's Office of Emergency Management (OEM). As part of Y2K planning,
DoITT and OEM had already prepared for the possibility of comprehensive
failure in the city's communications networks, and had established a
framework for responding to such an event. Among other things, the
contingency plan included a protocol for providing essential personnel
with immediate access to wireless and Internet-based communications
equipment. It included warehousing ``spare'' telecommunications and
computer equipment that could also be immediately deployed. The
contingency plan included redundancy for the city's data network at two
separate locations. And it provided for the city's mainframe data
center to be remotely located and run as an always-on ``hot site.''
Mutual Aid and Restoration
Contingency planning for a potential telecommunications crisis in
New York City truly began in earnest in 1992 with the establishment of
the New York City Metropolitan area Mutual Aid and Restoration
Consortium (MARC). MARC arose out of the recommendations of a public-
private mayoral Task Force, which was charged with developing a plan
for voice and data traffic to be handled by alternative carriers in
case of a critical disruption to the telecommunications networks
supporting the city. Fourteen telecommunications carriers that served
the city's Metropolitan area were the original signatories to the MARC
agreement, essentially establishing a framework for cooperation among
competitors. Under the terms of the city's current franchise
agreements, new franchisees are similarly obligated to ``pursue avenues
involving mutual assistance,'' as set forth in the MARC agreement.
Clearly, the telecommunications landscape, with respect to
technologies, competition and the law, has changed dramatically since
MARC's inception. This evolution may have diminished signatory
enthusiasm for the MARC agreement somewhat. Nonetheless, on September
11, MARC was successfully convened as the primary vehicle for
delivering alternative voice and data services to essential City
government offices and operations. The accomplishments of this
cooperative undertaking came primarily as a result of the ability and
willingness of the city, MARC members, and participating non-MARC
members with telecommunications assets in the city to make spontaneous
adaptations to procedures that did not necessarily anticipate a
catastrophe on this nature and magnitude. Fundamentally, however, the
MARC-based framework worked, and worked as follows:
As envisioned in the MARC agreement, following the attack,
DoITT began chairing twice-daily teleconference meetings with
MARC members and non-MARC members with telecommunications
assets in the city to organize the restoration of voice and
data services to city government buildings.
Critical restoration sites were identified, and
prioritized, by OEM's Emergency Operations Center. The
telecommunications carriers participating in the
teleconferences were asked for proposals either to activate
existing carrier services in, or to bring new carrier services
to, buildings on the city's critical priority list.
Carriers who believed they had the ability to provide the
required restoration or provisioning services were invited to
undertake joint site visits and submit proposals. Vendor
selection was based on a carrier's commitment, and apparent
ability, to restore necessary services more quickly or more
completely than could other potential vendors. Vendors were
also required to include cost estimates in their proposals.
Finally, as also envisioned by MARC, DoITT used the teleconferences
to encourage and coordinate the pooling of telecommunications resources
among carriers to further facilitate the delivery of alternative voice
and data solutions. This took place while Verizon dedicated much of its
resources to getting their central office back up and running, while
working on restoring the city's Police command center (where they did a
tremendous job), and the stock exchange.
Ultimately, through the MARC process, alternate telecommunication
services were delivered to city offices by, among other measures,
physically bringing new fiber and equipment into the affected
buildings. These newly installed ``facilities'' permitted the provision
of voice and data services. As necessary, PBX systems were also
installed to support the restored voice communications. Notably,
however, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solutions more quickly
restored voice services (to such essential critical sites as City Hall)
than did the PBX systems. In other cases, fixed-wireless solutions
provided the most expedient route.
It should be noted that an array of critical activities supporting
the MARC process took place concurrently with the teleconferences.
Among them, DoITT actively compiled a database of functioning carrier
POPs and other network infrastructure elements to augment the city's
already existing geographic information system (GIS). The GIS maps
provided information on critical access points for emergency workers.
Additionally, this centralized inventory of knowledge facilitated a
more efficient coordination of carrier resource pooling during the
teleconferences.
DoITT worked with OEM and the Mayor's Office to help ensure access
for utility personnel to affected sites for field surveys and
restoration work. The field surveys were undertaken to develop a scope
for the specific set of services needed, and to assess the completeness
of the alternate carrier's proposed solution. Ensuring access to
``Ground Zero'' was not always a smooth process, due to the
unprecedented level of security in the area, and the presence of
emergency response, law enforcement and relief officials from a variety
of local, state and federal organizations. Nonetheless, in virtually
all cases, access was eventually secured without inordinate delay under
the circumstances. It is indeed questionable whether, for example, the
diesel trucks that were needed to fuel backup generators would have
been able to gain access at all but for the MARC process in
coordination with our local Police.
DoITT also initiated an unprecedented ``wireless MARC.'' To their
credit, all public and private sector entities transmitting in the
affected area voluntarily participated. The main purpose of the
teleconferences, which occurred twice daily at the outset of the
crisis, was to monitor and, if necessary, remedy any interference on
the 800 MHz emergency response frequencies. This undertaking was
especially important because of the many temporary wireless facilities,
including cells on wheels (COWs), being deployed. Although restoration
was not undertaken through wireless MARC, this could have been an
additional function of the initiative had there been such a need.
Results of Preparedness and Restoration Efforts
As a result of these efforts:
NYC.gov, which provided city employees and the public with
essential information during the crisis, was physically
rerouted by 10:40 p.m. on September 11.
OEM, which lost its building in the attack, utilized a
fully equipped mobile bus before establishing an interim site
also on the evening of September 11. Within 48 hours, a new,
fully operational facility was built.
City Hall's communication services were restored by
September 14. The Municipal building, including the city
Comptroller's office and many other city agencies were restored
by September 15.
Ultimately, by quickly restoring communications, the City of New
York was able to fulfill its core obligation of protecting public
health and safety. A less tangible, but highly important related
benefit was that the public was reassured as to the ability of their
government to do its job in the face of otherwise devastating
circumstances. Stated somewhat differently, the fact that we were not
only functioning, but soon operating at a fairly sophisticated level,
provided some comfort to a city under attack.
LESSONS LEARNED AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The foremost lesson learned, and my recommendation to other states
and municipalities, is to establish a comprehensive communications
recovery plan. Such a plan should at a minimum encompass an
``operational'' component, a ``resource component,'' and a
``contingency'' component.
Operational Component
Governments that have not done so, should consider establishing an
emergency management entity, like New York City's OEM, with core
responsibility for undertaking a communications risk assessment and for
linking this assessment to a business continuity plan. I would further
recommend consolidating information technology with voice, data, cable
and other communications functions into a single entity like the New
York City's DoITT. Such entity would provide centralized expertise to
the emergency management entity in its communications risk assessment
and business continuity plan.
With respect to risk assessment and business continuity plans, I
would further suggest:
Prioritize ``mission critical'' applications for
restoration.
Plan for the worst, including both physical and human
``loss.''
Rehearse and update the plan, especially as key resources
and partners change.
In an emergency, the emergency management entity plays the role of
quarterback under the Mayor's direction. It also provides an essential
link to other emergency management bodies, at other levels of
government, both in preparation for, and in times of, emergency.
Resource Component
As I noted, governments must prepare for the loss of physical and
human resources in times of emergency and, particularly, when under
attack. For example, the telecommunications and computer equipment New
York City had warehoused as part of Y2K planning were made immediately
available to OEM when its headquarters at 7 World Trade Center were
destroyed. These stockpiled resources, along with donated equipment,
were used to help establish an interim site for the agency within two
days.
In hindsight, however, we probably did not sufficiently plan for
``physical space factors'' (i.e., relocation). Even where the city was
able to restore telecommunications services, we were not always able to
get personnel back into buildings for two weeks or more. And in some
cases the city was forced to make very ad-hoc, and less than ideal,
arrangements for temporary work space.
Indeed governments should be ready not only to relocate employees,
but must prepare for the potential impact of stress, trauma, injury
and, even, death in their planning. One possible measure is to create a
``knowledge-oriented'' database that can be accessed if human resources
suddenly become unavailable.
Contingency Component
Finally, I would emphasize the critical importance of voice and
data backup and redundancies as perhaps the most critical elements of
contingency planning. In New York City's case, network backup and
redundancies made all the difference in data recovery.
Voice communication, on the other hand, was among our most critical
problems. I recommend having a contingency plan in place to access
alternate carriers, if possible utilizing alternate conduit, central
offices and technologies. A robust combination of landline, wireless
and VoIP technologies is invaluable for ensuring fast recovery. Such
combination provides governments with the flexibility to deploy the
fastest and best ``fit'' under unpredictable circumstances.
WHAT NEW YORK CITY IS DOING AND WHAT WE NEED
What We are Doing
Briefly, I would like to summarize the steps New York City is
taking in the wake of September 11, to improve our communications
infrastructure:
Geographic Information System--I have mentioned the city's
GIS, or mapping, application. We are going to be mapping all
the broadband fiber in the city, and who owns the fiber, on our
GIS. With this knowledge at the city's fingertips, in the event
of another service outage, we will be able top even more
quickly restore service through MARC.
MARC--The city is revising MARC based on this experience.
We are attempting to formalize participation in the consortium
by wireless carriers, and to improve the city's coordination
with federal and state regulatory and emergency management
authorities. In addition to running MARC restoration drills, we
will be reaching-out to our business community to determine
whether and how the private sector may benefit from MARC.
Supporting Business Community--The city is coordinating
with the downtown business community to assist in their
development of a redundant telecommunications infrastructure.
At the same time, the city intends to work with other private
sector representatives and telecommunications disaster recovery
experts to gain a comprehensive picture of private initiatives
already underway--at the corporate-level, industry-level and
business district level--to assess areas in which the city can
play a supportive, or complementary, role. We also want to
impress on businesses, based on DoITT's unique vantage-point as
a franchising agency, that they have options based largely on
the infrastructures already in place for redundant and
resilient service (and that they do not need to move their
businesses elsewhere).
New Fiber Loops--The city is issuing a request for
proposals to develop in an alternative fiber loop, that will
link all of the critical city buildings in lower Manhattan, on
a wholly separate fiber conduit path. Trying to be creative,
the city has also found that we have vacant water pipes, which
have been unused for 100 years, just sitting there in pretty
good shape. We are trying to convert these old pipes into
alternate conduit, and have seen a great deal of interest in
developing that additional disaster recovery option.
Wireless Facilities on City Buildings--In addition, city-
owned building will now be used for siting wireless facilities.
In the past, we have been reluctant on this front, due partly
to community concerns. Nonetheless, the city has determined
that it is in the public's best interest to proceed with an
initiative to use our buildings to enhance coverage in the most
critical geographic areas.
Reducing Last Mile Costs--We are also attempting to address
reducing the cost for competitive telecommunications providers
to get access to the last mile. In the City, there are still
hundreds of large office buildings that do not have broadband
connections. The city is going to issue requests for proposals
to try to greatly reduce the cost of getting into the buildings
(i.e., by constructing ``laterals'') through mini-consortiums.
This would greatly reduce the related construction costs, and
reliance of copper connections to a single central office.
What We Need
Channel 16--As first responders, the city Police, Fire and other
emergency services must be assured that they will have sufficient
bandwidth to save lives, and protect themselves, in emergencies. In
this respect, I can not overstate the importance to the city of being
provided with the permanent right to utilize the Channel 16 radio
spectrum (482 MHz--488 MHz).
The city will soon be petitioning the FCC to remove the conditions
under which it granted a waiver in 1995 to twelve metropolitan area
agencies for use of Channel 16 radio to construct a public safety radio
network. Under its original terms, the waiver was to last a minimum of
five years, after which time it could be terminated by the FCC for
digital television use.
The NYPD utilizes Channel 16 for its data communication needs, and
has completed installation of Channel 16 interoperability channels for
use by first responders in the Metropolitan area. City Emergency
Medical Services (EMS) uses Channel 16 to dispatch ambulance service.
And the Fire Department is in the process of deploying thousands of
``fire-ground'' radios to support firefighter communication
requirements at fire response sites. Following a comprehensive
consulting study, Channel 16 will be further built-out to support a
voice and data requirements of City agencies, including Police, Fire,
EMS and other critical agencies, and to provide interoperability
between first responders.
A permanent right to Channel represents our most critical post-
September 11 public safety spectrum need, which cannot be accommodated
via the overcrowded 800 MHz public safety spectrum, or by Channels 14
or 15. Ultimately, it represents a unique opportunity for the City to
develop a state-of-the-art communications system. Because City agencies
operate primarily in the frequency bands that encompass Channels 14 and
15, a permanent grant of contiguous Channel 16 spectrum would permit
interoperability, and enable the utilization of existing radio
equipment. This would avoid radio replacement costs running in the
hundreds of millions of dollars. Alternatively, the reallocation of
Channel 16 to broadcasters could create significant interference with
the City's operations on Channel 15.
Municipal Franchises
There appears to be a trend underway, both regulatory and
legislative, to ``deregulate'' local jurisdiction over
telecommunications providers in general, and the so-called
``information services'' offered by ILECs and cable companies in
particular. The city disagrees with the legal underpinnings for such
proposals, and we will be filing comments with the FCC making our case.
Today, from a policy standpoint, I would like to point out that the
city's experience demonstrates that franchises do not hinder deployment
of services. Moreover, franchise fees provide municipalities with fair
compensation for the use of public property. Most relevant to this
proceeding, however, an overlooked aspect of local regulation is that
it provides municipalities with leverage to guarantee carrier to
participate in coordinated restoration initiatives, like MARC. And it
also provides municipalities with leverage to gain access to critical
infrastructure information, such as that needed for GIS mapping.
Finally, there is a need for improvement on the wireless front.
Although wireless carriers participated voluntarily and commendably on
the city's MARC after September 11, they are as an industry not
accustomed to having any binding accountability to local government.
Since wireless plays such a critical function in emergency first
response, and in providing communications of last resort in an
emergency, it would be useful for the federal government to consider
how the industry can be better brought into the fold in disaster
recovery planning.
CLOSING
In conclusion, I would say that New York City suffered a
devastating blow on September 11. We were knocked down; but we are
getting up, I think, faster than anyone expected. We are doing exactly
the kinds of things to reevaluate and improve our telecommunications
infrastructure that are necessary to revitalize the city government and
private industry.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much, Mr. Cangemi.
Before I call upon Mr. Souder, Senator Burns, do you have
any statement?
STATEMENT OF HON. CONRAD BURNS,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA
Senator Burns. I have a statement, Mr. Chairman. I just
thank you for holding this hearing and I will just submit my
statement for the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Burns follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Conrad Burns, U.S. Senator from Montana
I would like to thank the Chairman for holding today's hearing,
which concerns a topic of critical importance to our national security.
Today's hearing will review the rapid response to the September 11
attacks by our public safety officials and commercial wireline and
wireless carriers, which required nothing short of heroic effort under
the most extreme pressure imaginable. Additionally, this hearing will
look to the future to determine how best to create a unified, robust
national communications infrastructure. The searing experience of
September 11 revealed the importance of redundant networks, multiple
facilities-based providers and priority access for public safety
officials. Additionally, as we venture into the complex area of
comprehensive spectrum reform, we should bear in mind the vital nature
of spectrum to those on the front line of homeland defense--our police,
fire, medical, public health and other emergency response agencies.
I want to draw particular attention to the very heart of our public
safety communications infrastructure, the 911 network. In the wake of
the attacks on America, the underpinning of our entire civil defense
effort is our ability to communicate during times of crisis. For this
reason, we must maintain our focus on building out the next generation
of wireless enhanced 911 services. Enhanced 911 is a key component of
our national emergency communications system and so is a top priority
for this Subcommittee. The tools that will prove most valuable in
responding to additional attacks will also save countless lives in
individual as well as mass emergencies.
The Subcommittee will certainly benefit from the expertise of our
distinguished witnesses as we grapple with these difficult issues. I
would like to particularly welcome Chris McLean, who will be testifying
today on behalf of the ComCARE Alliance. Chris has been a tireless
advocate for the building of the next generation of public safety
communications--an integrated, digital, nationwide emergency
communications system. I enthusiastically support this worthy goal and
look forward to working to implement ComCARE's ``E-Safety Program.''
The ``E-Safety Program'' calls for the support of state planning and
deployment of Integrated Emergency Communications Systems in Model
States, additional capacity for emergency networks and many other
positive ideas.
In 1999 Congress laid out a ``Road Map'' for Public Safety in the
digital age. As the Chairman of the Senate Communications Subcommittee,
I authored the e-911 bill, which thanks to the hard work and support of
many of my colleagues such as Sen. Wyden, was passed into law. The e-
911 bill did a couple of very important things, and recognized some
important needs in regards to the activity here today: It made 9-1-1
the universal number for wireless phones. No matter where you are in
America, 9-1-1 is THE number to connect to emergency responders via
your wireless phone. Wireless knows no boundaries. Safety and security
shouldn't either.
The bill also called for statewide planning and coordination.
America has over 60,000 emergency, law enforcement, or similar
agencies. Simply put, we can't go town by town, city by city to improve
our emergency response system. There is a need to bring folks together,
leverage investments and resources, cooperate with both the public and
private sector to establish an infrastructure that improves emergency
response.
In August of this past year, Montana did just that. Working closely
with ComCARE, we put together a tremendously successful e-911 summit.
The summit was attended by nearly 200 public safety officials, industry
representatives and interested citizens from around the state who came
together to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing emergency
response. The focus of both the Montana 911 summit and today's hearing
is on how to utilize the tremendous advances being made in wireless
technologies to make sure that our citizens have access to the best
public safety network possible.
While the passage of the e-911 bill was a tremendous leap forward
in the development of our nationwide emergency response capability, our
work is far from finished. In fact, much remains to be done. While the
carriers have made some progress on building out e-91I, their efforts
need to be expanded and accelerated. I was disappointed that they were
not able to meet the initial deadline of October I of last year, which
required them only to begin the process of providing automatic location
identification for cellphones.
On February 1st of this year, the wireless carriers reported their
e-911 deployment progress to the FCC. In those reports, two of the six
major wireless operators--Verizon Wireless and Sprint--reported that
they were on schedule. The other four carriers reported that they were
not on schedule, and two of those asked for waivers of the waivers that
the FCC gave them last year. While I understand that we are in the
midst of challenging economic times in the communications sector, every
effort must be made to build out these vital e-911 services.
Creating a 21st century, digital emergency communications network
will require constant effort and oversight. I believe that hearings
such as the one the Chairman is holding today are vital to this nation
reaching its goal. As Americans we are facing some great challenges in
not only improving our emergency response system but preparing for
future unexpected acts of aggression. Addressing these issues together,
in a unified approach, we have an opportunity to not only save an
individual's life, but enhance our ability to respond to events of any
magnitude. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inouye. Without objection, so ordered.
Senator Wyden.
STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very
brief. I think it is particularly helpful that you are holding
this hearing right now, Mr. Chairman, because I think this is a
question of making sure that we not lose the momentum. There is
clearly an opportunity to focus, and I am interested in working
with you on the issues.
In addition, as I think people from New York know as well,
I am going to be introducing legislation very shortly to create
what amounts to the technology equivalent of the National
Guard. We have found that there were a tremendous number of
people in the private sector, in companies, for example, like
Intel, that were willing to donate both personnel and equipment
to try to help to deal with these problems. As the folks know
from New York, there were some logistical problems in utilizing
all that talent, simply because we had never faced a challenge
of this magnitude. So I will have some questions when we get to
that point, Mr. Chairman. But I so appreciate your leadership,
because this is what it is going to take to keep the momentum
alive and really get some results.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder, I am one of your constituents. I live in
Montgomery County. So I thank you very much for the service
there. It is yours now.
STATEMENT OF STEVE SOUDER, DIRECTOR, MONTGOMERY COUNTY,
MARYLAND 9-1-1 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS CENTER
Mr. Souder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here. Really, although I do work in
Montgomery County, I was for the previous 16 years Director of
the Arlington County, Virginia, 9-1-1 center, during the period
of time of September 11th and really would like my testimony to
be testimony that is brought to the Committee really from my
public safety communications colleagues throughout the
metropolitan Washington area who collectively worked together
to mitigate the events of September 11th.
I am sure everyone in this room has indelibly etched in
your mind where you were in that fateful hour between about
8:45 and 9:45 on September 11th. But I would ask the question,
does anybody remember where they were 20 years prior to that on
the afternoon of January 13th, 1982? Probably not. But for
those that may recall, that was a snowy day in Washington,
D.C., and there was an airplane on the runway at National
Airport preparing to take off for a return flight to Tampa,
Florida.
That was Air Florida Flight 90. It took off in the midst of
a snowstorm that had blanketed the city and it was
unsuccessful. It crashed onto the 14th Street Bridge, into the
ice-clogged Potomac River, and all but five of the passengers
aboard perished.
Because that event happened where it did, technically in
Washington, D.C., less than 100 yards from the Virginia
shoreline, and coincidentally only one quarter mile from the
Pentagon, the same group of first responders responded to that
event that did the event at the Pentagon on September 11th--
Arlington County, Alexandria, National Airport, Washington,
D.C., Fairfax County, Montgomery County.
When they arrived, all of them well-meaning, none of them
could talk to the other agency, because 20 years ago they were
all operating on very divergent radio systems supported by
various portions of the radio spectrum. It was literally a
disaster within itself, because if you cannot communicate you
cannot effectively operate.
In this very room after that event, there were hearings
held about that event and the communications difficulties that
were encountered were highlighted and discussed. We are pleased
and you should be proud that because of those hearings the
needs of public safety were addressed, addressed in the fact
that the FCC opened up a portion of the radio spectrum
heretofore unavailable to public safety, commonly today
referred to as 800 megahertz. That 800 megahertz radio spectrum
allowed the Washington, D.C., area to, as a result of the
tragic events of January 13th, craft a plan, set a goal, for
being better prepared to address whatever might befall this
community in the future.
As a result of that, in over the past 20 years five major
communities within the metropolitan Washington area have
transitioned to 800 megahertz radio. By the end of this
calendar year, three more major metropolitan area communities
will do so. When combined to the communities that surround
Baltimore, Maryland, we virtually have a seamless network of
public safety first responders radio communications systems
between north of Baltimore and south of Washington, D.C.
Consequently, on September 11th when the plane struck the
Pentagon and the first responders responded they were able to
do so in a far more effective fashion than had been the case 20
years prior to that. The communications was virtually seamless,
flawless, and very effective. It was not perfect, but it
certainly was very effective.
That is a result of long-term planning, consolidating your
resources, sharing information with your neighbors, and having
a design for really want you want to do. However, just like my
colleague from New York mentioned, there were difficulties.
There were challenges. To highlight but two of them--and the
chair mentioned in his opening remarks about the impacts of
wireless or cellular communications and these little things we
call cell phones. There are about 160 million of them in the
United States today and they tell me that every 24 hours
another 7,000 subscribers sign on.
We public safety have become just as dependent upon them as
has the general public and the business community. Surely one
of the quick things that occurred on September 11th was
cellular gridlock. Although we did have our radio systems, that
is not to say it is the only way we communicate, and we could
not communicate on cellular telephones. We were in gridlock.
So one of the things that I believe really needs to be
looked at very clearly is what is loosely referred to as
cellular priority access, but bringing that priority access
down to the first responders level, with discipline, with
organization, with priority, with a procedure to follow. But
clearly, we need to have access to those cellular telephones in
the future.
Similarly, although the event went very well in the early
hours of the event, by about mid-afternoon when many other
assets arrived on the scene, assets that we do not normally
communicate with, assets that were not, like ourselves,
equipped with 800 megahertz radios, we could not communicate
with them nor they communicate with us. We were fortunate in
that we were able to develop a work-around because we had the
good fortune of being able to draw upon a stock of excess
radios and quickly programmed them and distributed them. But
that took time and it took effort, critical time and critical
effort.
So we really need, I believe, also to address the issue of
how do we establish that interoperability, that word that very
few of us uttered just a few short years ago and now is on
everyone's tongue? How do we develop that interoperability
between not only the first responders who respond every day
across county and city borders to assist each other, but to
make that interoperability available to the Federal assets,
whether it is Defense Department, Justice Department, Treasury
Department, or others, so that we can have the same level of
interoperability communications with them as we do with our
brothers and sisters in the fire and in the law enforcement
service.
Although we have been very successful in Washington and are
proud of it, the unfortunate thing is that less than ten miles
from where we sit today one of our major suburban communities
is not able to join in that network of commonality in radio
systems because, although the FCC was gracious in allocating
certain portions of the 800 megahertz radio spectrum and we
have used it, I think, wisely and efficiently, unfortunately,
because spectrum is a finite natural resource, at least locally
we need more 800 megahertz so that we can bring into the fold,
if you will, those other agencies, those other jurisdictions
who cannot acquire that spectrum right now because it has all
been exhausted.
I think one of the persons that will testify in the second
portion of this hearing, Mr. Glen Nash from APCO, will speak to
the Committee about that very issue and the importance of
spectrum to public safety, because in the wireless age in which
we all live and where it is the cell phone and the pager and
the PDA and a host of other wireless devices, we are all
competing for that finite natural resource that we call
spectrum.
So it is very, very important that priorities be set, that
the public's need can be recognized, but also that public
safety's needs can be recognized also.
I, like my colleague from New York, thank you for the
opportunity to testify.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much, Mr. Souder.
If I may, I will begin the questioning. The events of that
day soon became a matter of national concern. Everything from
blood banks to security became a matter of national concern.
How did your office coordinate with other State and Federal
offices in order to provide relief for the city? Were you able
to do that?
Mr. Cangemi. Yes. What we had is a centralized Office of
Emergency Management and, although it was destroyed in 7 World
Trade Center, we actually physically located along a pier, and
at that location we had authorities from other States
essentially set up cubicles with work stations, computers,
Internet access, wireless access. Cell phones were distributed
at the site; developed identification cards for security. But
at that one centralized Office for Emergency Management, there
were work stations for our various representatives from the Red
Cross, the Salvation Army, not-for-profits that were providing
assistance, State officials, other governmental officials.
Physical proximity I guess was the answer. Representatives
from each of those organizations were able to physically kind
of co-locate and that greatly helped.
Senator Inouye. I can understand the interoperability of
the system in the greater Washington area, but did you have
some sort of connection with other States other than Virginia
and Maryland and Washington, D.C.?
Mr. Souder. Unfortunately, we did not. We were able to meet
our immediate needs by simply calling upon the immediate
resources that all three major jurisdictions in this area
provide, namely the District of Columbia as the hub, Northern
Virginia, and suburban Maryland. Those folks from Northern
Virginia and from Maryland respectively went out to their State
level emergency management personnel for the assistance that
they needed.
Of course, we had the good fortune, because FEMA is located
here in our community, that they were quick to respond and
assist as well. But even FEMA and Virginia Emergency Management
and Maryland Emergency Management, because they are on
divergent radio systems, are not able to communicate
effectively with those that have already been there and really
are seeking their assistance.
Senator Inouye. If 9-11 should occur now, can you
communicate with them now?
Mr. Souder. We could only do so in the manner that we did
on the 11th, which would be by sharing with them, if we had
available, excess radios so that they could communicate with
us. The good fortune that we had on September 11th is because
several of those communities that I mentioned earlier that are
going to become 800 megahertz users by the end of this calendar
year, the portable radios that their firefighters and EMT's and
law enforcement personnel are going to eventually be issued
were in fact in those communities in boxes, yet to be issued,
yet to be programmed. So we had the good fortune of having more
than a thousand portable radios, as you might say, in the
closet.
We were able to retrieve those radios quickly, program
those radios, charge the batteries for those radios, which all
took time, but nevertheless we could quickly do it over the
course of about 4 hours, and then virtually hand them or
distribute them out to those people that were coming to assist
us, like the State level, like the military, and like the
Federal assets as well.
Senator Inouye. Obviously, the tragedy of 9-11 can occur in
any other major city. Have you been able, both of you, to share
your experience and knowledge with other places?
Mr. Cangemi. Yes. I have actually made a similar
presentation to the National Association of Public Utility
Commissioners, so that was addressed at the State level. Each
of the 50 States were represented at that hearing. I made a
presentation in Florida. I have been contacted by the Clark
County-Las Vegas emergency management officials. A colleague of
mine at my agency has also been in contact with many other
municipalities.
I think they are all interested in our MARC, Mutual Aid and
Restoration Consortium, model, our Emergency Management Command
Center model, and are interested in perhaps replicating it at
their local level as well.
Mr. Souder. I have also had that good fortune of being
invited to speak at a number of conferences on these very same
issues. Although nothing that we did in Washington, in the
metropolitan Washington area, was terribly unique, but it was
done with cooperation and collaboration. I think when we have
explained to our colleagues across the Nation that was really
the foundation of what we did, it has kind of opened their eyes
to perhaps a new business model for doing local government
where the sharing of resources and the planning collectively
can really work for the good of not only one agency, but an
entire region.
Senator Inouye. In your initial discussions with your
colleagues throughout the land, were you convinced that they
were ready?
Mr. Souder. I think ``ready'' is probably a relative term.
They might be ready as they are doing business today, but I
think when they have realized how dramatically our world has
changed since September 11th and the fact that there are
threats and possibilities out there that heretofore we had not
given a lot of thought to, combined with the fact that when
hearing the way other communities deal with things both
routinely as well as in a disaster, it has provided an
opportunity for some new thought to be given as to the way that
business is conducted, particularly in public safety
communications and the way in which communities and regions
respond to both routine as well as a major disaster, yes.
Senator Inouye. Are you convinced that other communities
are trying to improve their facilities?
Mr. Cangemi. I think that the other communities are greatly
interested. I have been actually fielding dozens of calls and
have shared a copy of our Mutual Aid and Restoration Consortium
agreement with a number of other municipalities. It is not
something that they actually were familiar with. They had not
ever even really contemplated having a consortium of
competitors working as cooperatively as we had contemplated
back in 1992. So perhaps it has some steam and will be able to
be replicated.
Senator Inouye. I have a few other questions, but let me
yield to Senator Burns.
Senator Burns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder, could you give me an idea of Montgomery
County's infrastructure? Do you have one central communications
center that you dispatch and receive calls?
Mr. Souder. That is correct. In the business that is
commonly referred to as a PSAP, a public safety answering
point. In Montgomery County, as well as in most of the other
communities throughout the metropolitan Washington area, they
are served by one communications center that serves the entire
community as well as all of its public safety resources.
Senator Burns. Now, whenever a call comes in, an emergency
call comes in, say it comes in from a--say you have a residence
on fire, just a fire call, an ordinary fire call. Does your
fire department--each fire department in the county--and there
are individual, I would imagine, jurisdictions--do they operate
on the same frequency or different frequencies?
Mr. Souder. They all operate on the same common radio
system, as well as the same common radio frequencies within
that system. The assignment of a given frequency is done at the
PSAP or the dispatch center, so that the command and control of
that event is really controlled at the PSAP and each unit and
each event is given its separate channel or frequency to talk
on.
Senator Burns. Is the same true with your police?
Mr. Souder. Yes, it is.
Senator Burns. Now, tell me, in our PSAP or whatever, you
receive a call, you call that policeman in that jurisdiction.
Then can you monitor their conversation between them and their
headquarters, and do you do that?
Mr. Souder. Yes, we can, and yes, we do. We would be their
headquarters, so we would be able the monitor the conversations
that were taking place both between the unit and headquarters
as well as between units and units.
Senator Burns. I am thinking of New York and redundant
systems. You mentioned your redundant systems. Tell me about--
you say now you are going to have broadband wired redundant
systems. How about wireless?
Mr. Cangemi. As far as wireless goes, from a local
perspective we have not actually had that much kind of
interaction with the wireless folks because we do not have
regulatory authority over the wireless industry. But one of the
plans--what we were able to deploy in New York was wireless
128K modem access. There is a company called Metrocom that
actually is in bankruptcy. I wrote a letter to the bankruptcy
court following September 11th, which allowed them to actually
restart the company again, to the detriment of some of the
creditors, but I found that they were understanding.
What we do is we have our light poles in New York City have
antennas on the light poles. That is an extraordinarily fast
means of communicating wirelessly. We were able to actually use
that. We have plans to reinvigorate a similar system in New
York going forward.
Senator Burns. Voice and data?
Mr. Cangemi. It is not currently set up for voice. It is
just data right now. But I think it is possible to actually
have some voice on the network as well.
Senator Burns. Mr. Souder, have you ever asked your vendors
if the police wanted to communicate with fire--let us say under
the circumstances of a deployment of police handling security,
fire trying to deal with their situation. Yet they cannot talk
to each other by radio because both of them are operating on
different frequencies. Have vendors ever come up with a radio
device that will switch frequencies on the individual radio?
Mr. Souder. Well, within the 800 megahertz type of radio
system that is in use in our metropolitan area and many other
areas of the country, those systems would allow for the law
enforcement personnel to communicate with the fire and rescue
personnel on an as-needed basis on the same system and, when
necessary, on the same channel. So that really is one of the
tremendous advantages that are associated with the 800
megahertz trunking technology.
Senator Burns. Tell me, in order to bring you up to speed
how much more spectrum do you think you require out there to
really be effective?
Mr. Souder. The APCO organization which Mr. Nash will
represent at the next portion of this hearing will speak to
that. I think one of the problems is that the spectrum that has
been allocated recently by the Commission, that is commonly
referred to as that which used to be assigned to television
channels, is spectrum that unfortunately will not under the
best of circumstances be available to public safety until
December 31st of 2006. That is only initially, and by nature of
some formulas that are associated with how and when that
spectrum in reality will be available, predicated upon the
amount of digital televisions that are in service in a given
particular geographical area will influence that.
So we really need that spectrum, I believe, much sooner
than the 31st of December in the year 2006. We need it today.
But even if we got it then, I am not sure that would be really
meaningful, in that because of the passage of that date, if
there has not been that transition to digital television, what
is in theory ours cannot be ours until that 85 percent
saturation point of digital televisions has taken place in a
given market area.
Senator Burns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inouye. Thank you.
Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me begin with you if I can, Mr. Cangemi. Am I
pronouncing that right?
Mr. Cangemi. Yes.
Senator Wyden. Great. I think your testimony is especially
important because it seems to me, and sort of the attitude I
bring to this is, that New York City is arguably the most
sophisticated place on the planet from a communications
standpoint and yet we had what amounts to a total meltdown for
a period of time. I was struck at my hearing where one of the
fire chiefs who responded to the problem said that at one point
his only means of communicating directions to firefighters on
the front lines was handwritten notes delivered by runners on
foot. So for a period of time there was just a complete
meltdown.
As I have studied what has gone on in New York, it seems to
me you did a lot of things very well in terms of coming back.
Now the question is sort of where do we go from here. That is
what I want to ask you some questions about.
Let me begin in terms of this concept of trying to utilize
the many people in the private sector who would like the help,
the companies with people and equipment, and ask you whether
you think it would be useful to have a preexisting database, a
database that would be created now and would be in place and
updated, so as to have an ongoing list of available private
sector technology and communications resources that you could
call on if you were faced with another attack like September
11th?
Mr. Cangemi. Absolutely. Many of the participants on the
MARC calls were those kinds of companies, folks that did not
have any obligation to be participating on our calls and all
they wanted to do was help and make their resources available.
Large telecommunications equipment companies provided donations
of equipment, donations of trailers to bring up
telecommunications as quickly as possible. To have a database
like that would actually be extraordinarily helpful going
forward.
Senator Wyden. Good. That is one thing we will include.
One other aspect of this. You know, this country has got a
strategic petroleum reserve in order to have a measure of
protection against a calamitous situation with respect to oil.
It seems to me I think we would be well served by having what
amounts to a strategic technology reserve in effect. It could
be a virtual technology reserve where companies could pledge
equipment and resources again if there was a problem.
Would that be useful to you?
Mr. Cangemi. Absolutely. We had our own reserves for Y2K
planning and there was a certain amount of generosity on behalf
of the companies in the days following September 11th. But from
a global perspective I think that would be helpful nationally.
Senator Wyden. Mr. Souder, do you agree? I gather you
already have some reserves with respect to radios and that kind
of thing and that strikes me as plenty useful. There is a lot
of interest in that at home in Oregon even for things like
fighting forest fires. But my sense is that the private
companies would be willing to do a whole lot more, and I gather
you would be sympathetic to something like that as well?
Mr. Souder. Absolutely. I think, in credit to them--and I
know it occurred in New York and it certainly occurred in our
area--is that the response by the private sector to the needs
of the public sector could not have been better. It was good
fortune, though. Not that it would not have come forward, but
everything was lined up right, if you will. It was a beautiful
day, kind of a fall day, clear skies, middle of the day. There
were not a lot of the things that could impair that, if you
will.
But that was good fortune. Picture it happening in Oregon
in the middle of a snowstorm in the middle of the winter and it
may not come together quite as smoothly as that. So to have the
kind of structured database of resources available clearly
would ensure that it could come together regardless of what the
circumstances were.
Senator Wyden. The next area I would like to explore with
you is that the key to making this work is to ensure that it is
first responder-friendly, that all of these resources from the
private sector really help the first responders. The last thing
people from Intel, say, want to do is basically stand around
and get in the way when people in New York and D.C. are trying
to respond to these kinds of things.
Do you have any thoughts or suggestions with respect to how
to make sure that this is first responder-friendly and that
these resources from the private sector complement the kind of
work that your people are doing, Mr. Cangemi?
Mr. Cangemi. I agree. There had been a proceeding in front
of the FCC regarding wireless priority and a Federal agency had
actually tried to establish a wireless priority, kind of
creating these super-cell phones that would in the event of an
emergency have access and everyone else would kind of fall down
the priority list. I was amazed that New York City first
responders were not included on that.
Senator Wyden. Were not included?
Mr. Cangemi. Were not. We submitted comments describing how
as first responders we were there in the days following the
World Trade Center and it took approximately a week before we
saw a presence at the Federal level in terms of FERC, those
kind of emergency responders. So we think it is a great idea.
We just want to make sure that kind of priority access gets in
the hands of the first responders proportionately.
Senator Wyden. Mr. Souder?
Mr. Souder. I would agree with that comment also. We have
reached out to our six major wireless carriers in the
metropolitan area, wanting to meet with them and see if we
cannot orchestrate a system whereby, should an event of this
magnitude occur in the future and we have cellular gridlock
again, that notwithstanding the efforts of the Senate and the
House and the FCC along these lines, that we would having a
working partner in the form of the carriers, so that they could
do whatever they could do internally to their systems to kind
of address the problem, if you will.
Mr. Cangemi. Just a follow-up. We have actually already
addressed that with a company that wants to bring up the
wireless data network in New York City and they have assured us
that as far as the modems that New York City emergency workers
would have, we would be able to have priority access. So that
is critical to us.
Senator Wyden. Did you bump up against any obstacles in
taking donations? I have heard reports that there are some
legal constraints in terms of what you can take because of a
suggestion that somehow, in some way, someone would enrich
themselves or something like that. I have heard of
credentialing questions or people, for example, who came to New
York City and had difficulty getting credentialed.
Again so I am clear on this, Mr. Cangemi, I think you all
did a lot of things very, very well. This is not in any way
supposed to be some broadside. To the contrary, the question is
trying to think down the road a little bit to deal with these
questions for the future. I would be interested in your
response on that.
Mr. Cangemi. I am sorry? As far as the donations?
Senator Wyden. Any obstacles with respect to what you could
take and how you could use it, your thoughts on the
credentialing issue, that general area.
Mr. Cangemi. Honestly, Senator, in the days following
September 11th I kind of put my General Counsel hat down and
acted as a Deputy Commissioner and tried to get the job done.
We had an open kind of system, so that all the calls and the
donations and those kinds of offers were being made with their
competitors hearing it, so it kind of allayed some of the fears
I may have had if there were any accusations of favoritism as a
result of that.
We had this open system. There were 40 of the largest
telecommunications providers communicating at the same time,
with the opportunity to assist equally. Any offers that made
sense to us were accepted and that offer was available to
everybody.
As far as credentialing, I leave that to the emergency
management folks to answer. They were at first very hesitant to
credential certain representatives. I was able to provide them
with a list of our MARC, Mutual Aid Restoration Consortium,
participants and their respective companies, and that helped
with credentialing of at least the companies that participated
in our conference calls.
Senator Wyden. I know my time is up. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Inouye. Senator Burns.
Senator Burns. I have no other questions.
Senator Inouye. I would just like to ask one question. In
every community there are radio stations and TV stations that
have been designated for emergency signals. Did that system
work on that day?
Mr. Cangemi. Senator, I actually saw a news story in the
New York Times about how that system was not deployed following
September 11th, how there was kind of this actual--there were
personnel, staffed 24 by 7, who were supposed to do that.
The main antenna that serves broadcast in New York City was
on top of the World Trade Center. The folks who were only
served by that antenna did not receive any kinds of television
type motivation. As far as cable television goes, the system in
place seemed somewhat antiquated because of the news coverage
that existed on a multitude of channels. So while it was not
employed, it did not seem as if there was a lack of
information, at least to the customers in the New York City
area that had web access or cable television access in the days
following September 11th.
Senator Inouye. Mr. Souder?
Mr. Souder. Although I do not have direct knowledge of it,
my understanding is that in this area the news media was very
effective in broadcasting the events that were occurring at the
Pentagon and some of the traffic issues that were associated
with that. But I am not sure that the Emergency Broadcast
System per se actually was activated, and my understanding is
that is an issue that is being looked at this time.
Senator Inouye. Gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee I
thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cangemi. Thank you, sir.
Senator Inouye. Now may I call upon the Counsel of ComCARE
Alliance, Mr. Christopher A. McLean; the President of the
Association of Public Safety Communications Officials
International, Mr. Glen Nash; the Group President for New York
and Connecticut of Verizon, Mr. Paul Crotty; the Vice President
of Operations, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, AT&T, Ms.
Gloria Harris; and the Chairman, CEO, and President of Time
Warner Telecom, Ms. Larissa Herda.
May I first call upon Mr. McLean.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER A. McLEAN,
COUNSEL, COMCARE ALLIANCE
Mr. McLean. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
If I may be indulged in a point of personal privilege, I want
to say as a former staffer to Senator Jim Exon, it is indeed a
very deep personal and professional honor to appear before this
Committee.
The ComCARE Alliance is a not-for-profit coalition of over
75 organizations in the medical, emergency response,
telecommunications, transportation, and technology sectors,
dedicated to advancing policy and technologies to improve
emergency communications in individual and mass events.
The war on terrorism will be won or lost on information.
Emergency responders on the front lines of homeland security
need information to do their jobs. It is their most important
tool. Every day we send first responders into harm's way
without the information tools they need to save our lives or
protect their own. Without change, the jobs of our heroic
emergency responders will get even more difficult.
In general, the emergency communications network of America
is voicecentric, with minimal data capabilities. Emergency
calls are being dropped, operators are being overwhelmed,
responses are delayed for lack of location information,
communications systems can quickly become gridlocked, there is
little ability to share data among multiple emergency response
agencies or to communicate securely across jurisdictional and
agency lines.
What is needed is a coordinated and integrated approach to
upgrading all emergency communications, and this Committee gave
a very good blueprint for that pathway in enacting the Wireless
Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999.
The E-Safety program was developed with the help and
guidance of experts in the field and was adopted by the ComCARE
Alliance board of directors. Some of those experts include
Jenny Henson from the State of Montana, the 9-1-1
administrator, and Gary Haycox of Intel from the State of
Oregon.
The E-Safety program is designed to address the Nation's
need in mass emergencies in a way that will significantly
improve our ability to handle thousands of daily individual
emergencies as well. The E-Safety program has eight essential
elements:
Point one, we need to increase the capacity and reliability
of America's communications network. Emergency response starts
with a call for help from a citizen and every effort must be
made to ensure that there is sufficient fixed and wireless
bandwidth deployed to be able to handle call and data volume in
times of emergency. Being connected saves lives. The
availability of robust wireless, wireline, and satellite
networks enhances public safety and security.
Point two, we need to deploy modern end-to-end emergency
communications systems. Every emergency--every emergency agency
should have at least one broadband connection and at least one
intelligent work station.
Point number three, location technologies need to be
deployed. Knowing the location of an emergency is critical to
speeding response. If you were to make a call to 9-1-1 from
your home phone in most parts of this country, the emergency
responder would have your street address on their screens in an
instant and help can be dispatched even if you are unable to
talk. They do not have that capability when you call from a
large complex like the Capitol because the call goes through a
PBX system, or from a wireless phone.
Where location is being deployed is in the car. Telematics
leaders like Onstar and ATX are making Americans safer by
delivering location safety products, and the Congress should
encourage those types of activities.
Point number four, there needs to be support for State
planning and deployment of integrated systems in model States.
Leading States are ready to bring together all stakeholders,
and grants should be made available to help create model
deployments in these leading States. Places like Montana where
Senator Burns chaired an E-Safety summit are ready to lead the
way and to bring modern emergency communications tools to their
everyday response to emergencies.
Point number five, we need to have two basic tools for all
emergency agencies to move into the E-Safety realm: a national
emergency electronic registry and event mapping capability.
There is no comprehensive electronic directory of all emergency
response and public health agencies, nor is there a directory
of the type mentioned by Senator Wyden. The national nonprofit
registry being developed by the ComCARE Alliance could help
fill that gap.
We also need to encourage the broad use of shared
electronic mapping of emergency event information. An emergency
event web site could help solve the PSAP readiness riddle for
enhanced 9-1-1 capabilities for wireless communications.
Point number six, we need to increase emergency response
training. Wherever ComCARE goes we hear a common theme:
Emergency response professionals want and need more training,
and in times of emergency the public needs reliable information
and instructions on how to move from danger to safety.
Fortunately, America has a time-tested system to alert the
public to weather dangers through the NOAA Weather Radio
Network. Mr. Chairman, no one has done more for NOAA than you
and the members of this Committee.
I am especially proud of my former agency, the Rural
Utilities Service, for its leadership and efforts to close the
NOAA Weather Radio gaps in rural America. What is needed now is
for NOAA and the National Weather Service to continue and
rapidly expedite their work to make the weather radio system a
true all-hazards warning system.
Point number seven, we need to develop research and new
safety applications. Congress should encourage major public and
private efforts to develop critical civil defense and emergency
applications which can use the basic E-Safety platform.
Point number eight, we need to support a national education
and outreach effort. All the key members of the emergency
response community, from first responders to 9-1-1 operators to
the folks in the hospital and emergency rooms, need to be
involved in understanding what together they can do with new
technologies.
This is a very unique and important moment to form an
integrated approach to emergency communications and response.
That approach was very clearly put forward by this Committee in
the Wireless Communications Public Safety Act of 1999. Mr.
Chairman, this Committee has done so much to advance emergency
preparedness and response. The E-Safety program seeks to build
on that solid record of success, and we welcome at the ComCARE
Alliance the opportunity to work with the Committee to help
make America safer.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McLean follows:]
Prepared Statement of Christopher A. McLean, Counsel, ComCARE Alliance
The E-Safety Program
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am Christopher A.
McLean, counsel to the ComCARE Alliance. As a former staffer for
Senator Jim Exon, it is a deep personal and professional honor to
appear before this Committee.
ComCARE stands for Communications for Coordinated Assistance and
Response to Emergencies. The ComCARE Alliance is a not-for-profit
coalition of over 75 organizations in the medical, emergency response,
telecommunications, transportation and technology sectors dedicated to
advancing policy and technologies to improve emergency response in
individual and mass events.
The ComCARE Alliance salutes all the American heroes in public
safety who daily put their lives on the line for their communities as
well as those who work with little recognition and fanfare to be the
information bridges between those agencies, and between the public and
public safety.
Our nation is engaged in a war unlike any other. In this war,
America's greatest civil defense weapons are information and the
ability to communicate.
The war on terrorism will be won or lost on information. It was one
piece of information relayed to passengers in a plane over Pennsylvania
on September 11th which brought heroic action to save the lives of
many, many people in the nation's Capitol.
Police, fire, medical, public health and other emergency responders
on the front lines of homeland security need information to do their
jobs. It is their most important tool.
Indeed, every American has a role to play in making America safer.
The vigilance of individual citizens and the emergency communications
systems of the nation are valuable defensive weapons.
We would not send soldiers into battle without being well armed and
well protected. Unfortunately, every day, we send first responders into
harm's way without the information tools they need to save our lives
and protect their own.
The emergency communications systems in many parts of the country
are antiquated and, in some rural communities, they are struggling
without even basic 9-1-1 systems.
Without change, the jobs of our heroic emergency responders get
even more difficult.
In general, the emergency communications network is voice centric.
It does not often utilize modern communications or information
management tools which are so common now in industry. There are too
often large disparities between the information capabilities of
emergency agencies in the same jurisdiction, and between well funded
urban and suburban communities and rural areas. Every day in large and
small cities around the nation, emergency calls are being dropped, 9-1-
1 operators are being overwhelmed with multiple calls, and responses
are delayed for lack of location information. In mass emergencies,
wireless and wireline communications systems can quickly become grid-
locked. At the scene of an emergency, there is very little ability to
share data among multiple emergency response and public health
agencies, or to communicate securely across jurisdictional and agency
lines in an emergency or in anticipation of an emergency.
What is needed is a coordinated and integrated approach to
upgrading all emergency communications. We need to evolve current voice
grade systems and civilian network capacity into modern, robust,
networks capable of improving response to mass disasters and every day
emergencies.
The ComCARE Alliance has been working in the field of emergency
communications for more than four years. Immediately following the
September 11th attacks, the Alliance convened a working group of our
members to consider the lessons learned from September 11th and lay out
an action agenda for a quick start program to enhance our emergency
communications infrastructure. The E-Safety Program is the result of
those efforts. It was developed with the help and guidance of experts
in the field and adopted by the ComCARE Alliance Board of Directors.
The E-Safety Program proposes to enhance homeland security by
helping bring 21st century capabilities, commonly used in e-Business
today, to emergency response, deploying integrated, interoperable and
interconnected wireline and wireless systems and applications. The E-
Safety program is designed to address the nation's need in a mass
emergency in a way that will significantly improve our ability to
handle thousands of daily individual emergencies as well.
The E-SAFETY PROGRAM has eight essential elements. In short, they
are:
Increase the Capacity and Reliability of America's Wired
and Wireless Communications Networks;
Deploy Modern End-to-End Emergency Communications Systems;
Deploy Enhanced 9-1-1 for Wireline, Wireless and PBX;
Deploy Telematics for automobiles;
Support State Planning and Deployment of Integrated
Emergency Communications Systems in Model States;
Provide the two basic E-Safety tools to All Emergency
Agencies:
National Emergency Electronic Registry; and
Event Mapping Capability.
Augment and Increase Emergency Response Training;
Make a Commitment to Research, Develop and Deploy New
Safety Applications and Devices;
Support National Education and Outreach, Bringing Together
All the Key Emergency Stakeholder Communities
I am pleased to discuss the specifics of each.
Point 1. Increase the Capacity and Reliability of America's
Communications
Networks.
Every effort must be made to ensure that sufficient fixed and
wireless bandwidth is deployed to handle call and data volume in times
of emergency. Enhancing the capacity, capability and reliability of our
nation's essential telecommunications networks should be a matter of
national security.
Imagine if a citizen needed to communicate information about
subsequent terrorist attacks at twelve noon of September 11th. In all
likelihood, that call would not go through.
Today, the wireless phone has become an indispensable safety
device. Consumers carry wireless phone for convenience of conversation,
but most often, ``just in case of an emergency.'' On September 11th and
increasingly in day-to-day life, our wireless networks reach their
capacity. Enhancing that capacity through sound spectrum policy, new
technology and cell site policy will enhance public safety. We need to
ensure that the wireless safety net stretches broadly and with as few
holes as possible.
In the war on terrorism, it could be a vigilant citizen on a cell
phone or in a telematics equipped vehicle who observes and reports a
hijacked truck, suspicious activity at an airport, or terrorist or
criminal activity. And similarly, we must provide sufficient spectrum
for public safety agencies' own use.
Providing adequate spectrum and cell site locations to meet needs
in times of mass emergency also works to ensure that the phone works in
instances of a crime, a crash or a medical emergency. Being connected
saves lives. Now more than ever, we cannot afford to let wireless dead
zones become deadly zones.
All carriers should be encouraged to invest in their networks. The
availability of robust wireless, wireline and satellite networks
enhance public safety and security.
Point 2. Deploy Modern End-to-End Emergency Communications Systems.
We need to empower and tie all emergency response and public health
agencies together with broadband connections and basic modern
information technology. Every emergency response and public health
agency such as police, fire, 9-1-1, hospital and health care facilities
should have at least one broadband connection and one intelligent work
station.
What worked on September 11th were broadband internet connections
and wireless IP connections. Today many emergency responders do not
have basic information infrastructure.
For example, one of our members, the American Public Health
Association, reported that only about one half their members had
broadband connections and about 10% did not even have e-mail.
High speed networks would connect responders to the tools of next
generation emergency response such as a national emergency electronic
directory, data sharing systems, incident mapping, and other
applications. Responders need the ability to send, receive and move
real time emergency information among and between multiple agencies.
Point 3. Deploy Enhanced 9-1-1: Wireline, Wireless and PBX; Deploy
Telematics
Knowing location is critical to emergency response. The most
effective and efficient methods of Enhanced 9-1-1 deployment must be
used, including overall state planning and organization. The deployment
of telematics safety systems in cars should also be strongly
encouraged.
If you were to make a call to 9-1-1 from your home phone, in most
parts of this country, the emergency responder would have your street
address their screen automatically. Help can be dispatched, even if you
do not talk.
If you were to call from this room, the 9-1-1 reported address
would be ``Capitol complex.'' Location information speeds response. It
is vitally important that the federal government, at least, ensure that
its phones are locatable and encourage the private sector to work with
emergency responders to find solutions. An excellent example of public/
private partnership is in Washington State where Bob Oening, State 9-1-
1 Administrator worked with Boeing to provide locations for phones on
its vast Washington State network.
On the wireless side, today, wireless calls account for nearly 40%
of 9-1-1 calls in some communities. Today, wireless phones are not
locatable, although commercial technologies to do so are available.
Make that same 9-1-1 call from your cell phone from the plaza in front
of the Capitol, and the dispatcher will have no idea where you are.
Indeed, the call could be answered in Virginia. This Committee has done
a great deal to raise the profile of this important issue.
In the car, telematics is one of the most important safety features
to be developed in recent years. By providing a hands free
communications link, navigation, automatic crash notification and a
mayday alert, powered by telecommunications and location technology,
the telematics leaders in the auto industry are making Americans safer
by delivering location and safety products. Those efforts should be
encouraged.
Point 4. Support State Planning and Deployment of Integrated Systems in
Model States.
Leading states are ready to bring together all stakeholders, plan
sophisticated, integrated emergency and transportation communications
and information systems, and then deploy them. New information
technologies hold great promise in helping bridge the gap between urban
and rural response capabilities.
Grants should be made available to create models of deployment in
these leading states for other states to emulate, and to encourage
state emergency communications planning.
This Committee understands well the importance of coordinated
state, federal, local and private sector planning. Thanks to the
leadership of members of this Committee, the Congress enacted
legislation which includes the clear blueprint for action.
In enacting the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of
1999 (WiCAPs '99) the Congress called for a coordinated, end to end
response to emergency communications planning.
Working together, communities are stronger than working separately.
Several States have taken leadership role in beginning to give life to
the vision of WiCAPs '99. ComCARE is proud to be working with these
states to advance the vision of an integrated approach to emergency
communications planning.
Just days before September 11, Senator Burns convened an historic
public safety summit in Helena, Montana. The ComCARE Alliance was
honored to participate. By bringing people together, and continuing a
formal dialogue, participants are discovering that they have common
needs, new opportunities to share and leverage resources and the
support of the State's political leadership to get the job done. We
look forward to continuing to work with the public safety community in
Montana.
In Virginia, the Virginia Department of Transportation is funding a
ground breaking effort in the Shenandoah Valley to create a 21st
Century emergency communications capability. Thanks to the leadership
of Congressmen Wolf, Goodlatte and Boucher the Shenandoah Valley is
quickly becoming a test bed for new thinking in emergency
communications.
In Washington State under the leadership of Senators Murray and
Cantwell and with the support of the Washington State Center for the
Digital Bridge, a Washington State E-Safety Summit is planned for this
March 26th.
And in Oregon, Senator Wyden's Net Guard proposal has inspired the
public safety and technology communities in Oregon to begin a dialogue
on next generation response technologies.
Through these efforts, communities learn that they are not alone.
They see opportunities to leverage existing funding sources and
technology projects. The private sector discovers that there are
innovation solutions for public/private partnership and resources well
spent can solve multiple problems.
Point 5. Provide Two Basic Tools to All Emergency Agencies: National
Emergency Electronic Registry and Event Mapping Capability.
There is no comprehensive, electronic directory of all emergency
response and public health agencies. Therefore neither the President
nor any other appropriate entity has the ability to send emergency
warnings or data to all or some emergency responders or public
information outlets in a particular area. The national non-profit
registry being developed by ComCARE will fill that gap.
We also need to encourage broad use of shared electronic mapping of
emergency event information. Emergency data and information can be sent
to a shared map resource by emergency managers, telematics companies,
wireless carriers, commercial transportation and others, and displayed/
shared by all relevant emergency responders. These enabling
technologies, combined with broadband connections to a safety network
create a basic
E-Safety platform on which a wide variety of other safety
applications can operate.
Point 6. Augment and Increase Emergency Response Training
New threats and new technologies require new training. There is a
continuous need to ensure that new employees and volunteers are fully
prepared for the challenges that face our nation. Fortunately, new
communications technologies can make training more efficient. The same
broadband platform for emergency response can be used for a host to
digital training uses in times of peace and calm.
Where ever ComCARE goes, we hears a common theme. The hard working
professionals in the emergency response field want more training. We
especially need to share the lessons of September 11th and the anthrax
attack.
The public also needs to be informed of their role in the war on
terrorism. Public information is a vital government role.
In times of emergency, the public needs reliable information and
instructions on how to move from danger to safety. Fortunately, America
has a time tested system to alert the public to weather danger through
NOAA weather radio network. The ComCARE Alliance applauds the Committee
for its work and support for the NOAA all hazards warning network
initiative. NOAA Weather Radio saves lives and it is the nation's
largest most expansive radio network. It is an important backbone
network for emergency warnings. I am especially proud of my former
agency, the Rural Utilities Service for its leadership in efforts to
close the NOAA weather radio gaps in rural America. In the Senate farm
bill, the stage is being set to finish the job.
NOAA and the National Weather Service must continue and expedite
its work to make the Weather Radio System a true all hazards warning
system.
Point 7. Make a Commitment to Research, Develop and Deploy New Safety
Applications and Devices
We must encourage major public and private efforts to develop
critical civil defense and emergency applications which can use the
basic E-Safety platform. This requires a significant university-based,
emergency response research capability; rapid, industry-based open
standards development efforts; and major public and private investments
in new safety applications and devices.
Point 8. Support National Education and Outreach, Bringing Together All
the Key Emergency Stakeholder Communities
We need to involve all the key members of the emergency response
community in understanding--together--what is possible with the new
technologies, and in planning, deploying and creating new operations
protocols based on them. ComCARE and its non-profit membership
associations like Emergency Nurses Association, National Emergency
Number Association, American Public Health Association and the American
College of Emergency Physicians should be given the resources to hold
national, state and local conferences, and to run communications
programs with agency and private sector partners, focused on best
practices and new technologies. They are ready to step up to the plate
and help bring emergency communications and response into the 21st
Century.
To achieve the E-Safety program will require some new legislation
and appropriations, but significant elements of the E-Safety program
can be accomplished through a coordinated approach to existing programs
and homeland security and through cooperation with the private sector.
Billions of dollars have already been appropriated. The President has
appointed a respected leader to head the Office of Homeland Security.
This is a unique and important moment to forge an integrated approach
to emergency communications and response. That approach was very
clearly put forward by this Committee in WiCAPs '99. It is fully
consistent with the Administration's approach to federalism and
homeland defense. This is a moment and an opportunity which should not
be lost.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for inviting ComCARE to be
represented at today's hearings. The individual members of this
Committee and the Committee as a whole have done so much to advance
emergency preparedness and response. The E-Safety program seeks to
build on that solid record of success and we welcome the opportunity to
work with the Committee to find ways to make America Safer.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much, sir.
Then I will call on Mr. Nash. Mr. Nash.
STATEMENT OF GLEN NASH, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC-SAFETY
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICIALS-
INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Mr. Nash. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Glen Nash. I
am an engineer with over 29 years experience in the design of
public safety communications systems and I am the President of
the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-
International, more commonly known as APCO.
APCO is the Nation's oldest and largest public safety
communications organization. The majority of APCO's 15,000-plus
members are State or local governmental employees who manage
and operate the communications systems used by police, fire,
emergency medical, disaster relief, and other public safety
agencies.
The events of September 11th forced all of us to examine
the vital role played by public safety agencies. These first
responders literally are the front line troops, not only in the
domestic war on terrorism, but also in the day to day reality
of living in a less than perfect society.
To do their jobs effectively, public safety agencies need a
variety of tools. At or near the top of the list of those tools
lies effective radio communications. Public safety agencies use
radio communications for command and control and to provide
vital information and other resources that enable field
personnel to do their jobs better. Additionally, effective
communications between and amongst on-scene police officers,
firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first responders is
critical.
To achieve these goals, there are two intertwined
communications issues that need to be addressed on behalf of
our public safety agencies. First is spectrum capacity and
second is interoperability. Public safety agencies in many
areas face dangerous congestion on existing channels due to
limited spectrum. This lack of spectrum also makes it
impossible for many public safety agencies to implement the
technologies that would make their field operations more
effective. Furthermore, it impacts the ability of different
agencies to communicate with each other, as they often are
forced to operate on separate incompatible frequency bands.
In 1996 it was my pleasure to serve on the Public Safety
Wireless Advisory Committee that documented the spectrum and
interoperability problems. The Committee identified the need
for 97.5 megahertz of new spectrum, including 25 megahertz
needed within 5 years. Unfortunately, on September 11th, 2001,
exactly 5 years after the PSWAC report was released, no new
spectrum had been made available nationwide for public safety
use.
Yes, the 1997 Balanced Budget Act required the FCC to
reallocate 24 megahertz of spectrum from television channels 60
to 69 for public safety use. The FCC has complied with that
requirement by reallocating specific TV channels for public
safety use in what is now called the 700 megahertz band.
However, the act also stipulates that incumbent broadcasters
can continue to operate in this band until December 31st, 2006,
or until at least 85 percent of the households in the relevant
market area have access to digital television, whichever is
later.
That 85 percent provision creates uncertainty as to when
the spectrum will ever become available. This makes it
impossible for most State and local governments to plan, fund,
or begin to design systems utilizing this new spectrum.
Therefore, we urge Congress to establish a firm date for the
availability of this spectrum for public safety use. We are
joined in this effort by the International Association of
Chiefs of Police, the International Association of Fire Chiefs,
the National League of Cities, the National Association of
Counties, and many other organizations who agree that Congress
needs to revisit this issue.
While making the 700 megahertz band available for public
safety use will help address the lack of adequate spectrum, it
is not a panacea for resolving public safety's interoperability
problem. Currently public safety agencies operate in ten
different frequency bands, many of which are incompatible with
each other. The obvious solution is to put all public safety
agencies into a single radio band. However, no single block of
radio spectrum has yet been identified which is capable of
satisfying the entire public safety requirement for
communications. Furthermore, moving all existing public safety
users to a new band would impose tremendous costs upon State
and local governments.
Therefore, we encourage Congress, the NTIA, and the FCC to
consider making available frequency bands that are immediately
adjacent to existing public safety spectrum allocations. As I
discussed earlier, Congress attempted to do this in 1997 when
it required the FCC to make available spectrum in the 700
megahertz band, which is immediately adjacent to existing
public safety spectrum at 800 megahertz. However, this 700
megahertz spectrum is not currently available in many areas of
the country. We need to have a firm date for the availability
of this spectrum to support our Nation's police, fire, and
emergency medical personnel.
Senator Burns, I would like to expand upon a question that
you asked of Mr. Souder regarding whether agencies on different
frequencies are able to talk with each other. The answer to
that question really is it depends. First off, as I indicated
earlier, public safety agencies operate on ten different
frequency bands, many of which are incompatible with each
other. In some areas of the country agencies have been able to
congregate together, as they have done here in the Washington
metro area, to operate in one of those bands or at least in
immediately adjacent bands, which would allow for some
compatibility. If this has occurred, it is technically possible
for them to intercommunicate.
However, there is a second problem that comes into that. It
involves the issue of prior planning and it really requires the
agencies to have sat down prior to an event that they do not
know is coming and they do not know the magnitude of what it is
going to be and to have laid out a plan of how they would
intercommunicate.
Over the years we have had many incidents that I have gone
back at and looked at as an after-action report where the
complaint has been made that the agencies were unable to
communicate with each other. As we have looked at their radios,
they in fact had common radio channels. They were able to
communicate. They just did not know it. They had not done the
preplanning that they really needed to do and, as Mr. Souder
indicated, a critical part of this is for the agencies involved
to get together and discuss how they would intercommunicate and
what they would do when the event happens that they do not
expect.
If, on the other hand, they are operating on totally
different frequency bands, technically it is not technically
possible for them to intercommunicate, at least directly over
the radio, and we have to work at developing other plans and
alternatives. That really becomes the problem even if we
develop regional coordination systems, as was done in the D.C.
metro area here. As the event grows and we reach further and
further out for assistance, we are bringing in people who are
not a part of that original plan and it becomes more likely
that they are operating in a different frequency band and
therefore will be unable to communicate directly when they
arrive on scene.
With that, in closing I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman and
the Members of the Subcommittee, for conducting these important
hearings and for providing me an opportunity to discuss the
critical communications problems facing public safety agencies
in these difficult times. APCO stands ready to work with
Congress, the FCC, and other interested parties in resolving
these issues as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nash follows:]
Prepared Statement of Glen Nash, President, Association of Public-
Safety Communications Officials-International, Inc.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman
My name is Glen Nash. I am the President of the Association of
Public-Safety Communications Officials-International, Inc. (APCO), and
I am here today on APCO's behalf. I have over 29 years experience in
the design, installation and maintenance of public safety
communications systems and currently serve as Senior Telecommunications
Engineer with the State of California Department of General Services.
Please note, however, that I am here today on APCO's behalf, and not in
any official capacity for the State of California. I also currently
serve as Chair of the Technology Subcommittee of the FCC's Public
Safety National Coordination Committee (NCC), and I was an active
participant in the joint FCC/NTIA Public Safety Wireless Advisory
Committee (PSWAC).
APCO, founded in 1935, is the nation's oldest and largest public
safety communications organization. APCO has over 15,000 members, most
of whom are state or local government employees who manage or operate
communications systems for police, fire, emergency medical, disaster
relief, and other public safety agencies. APCO is certified by the FCC
as a frequency coordinator for public safety mobile radio channels, and
has long played a major role in public safety radio spectrum and
wireless E9-1-1 issues before the Commission.
The events of September 11 have forced all of us to re-examine our
nation's priorities, especially those related to our police, fire, EMS
and other agencies charged with the protection of life, health, and
property. These ``first responders'' literally are the frontline troops
not only in the domestic war on terrorism, but also in the day-to-day
reality of living in a less than perfect society.
Today, more than ever, our nation's public safety agencies must
have the tools they need to perform their critical tasks.
Communications is at or near the top of the list of those essential
tools. Public safety communications, in turn, depends upon an adequate
supply of appropriate radio spectrum dedicated for public safety use.
Public safety agencies use radio communications not only to
dispatch personnel to the scene of an incident, but also as a link
between field personnel and a resource center so that they can request
additional assistance and/or information to properly handle the
incident. Of particular importance is on-scene portable radio
communication between various public safety personnel responding at the
scene of a crime-in-progress, fire, flood, explosion, vehicle accident,
or other emergency. This is true whether we are talking about the
events such as those of September 11; emergencies associated with
floods, earthquakes and weather-related emergencies; or day-to-day
responses to crime, fire, accidents and medical emergencies. Now, with
new Homeland Security responsibilities being placed upon state and
local public safety agencies, the need for effective radio
communications is heightened even more.
Unfortunately, for far too many years, public safety agencies
across the nation have faced a severe shortage of radio spectrum
available for their communications systems. These shortages were
documented in 1996 by the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee
(PSWAC), a blue-ribbon committee created by NTIA and the FCC. The PSWAC
Report, which was adopted on September 11, 1996, determined that public
safety users would require an additional 97.5 MHz of radio spectrum by
2010, and would need approximately 24 MHz within five years of the
Report. Unfortunately, exactly five years later, on September 11, 2001,
that 24 MHz was still not available for nationwide public safety use,
for reasons that I will discuss in a moment.
The lack of sufficient radio spectrum for public safety has several
significant consequences. In many metropolitan and other densely
populated areas, public safety agencies face dangerous congestion on
their radio systems. In some instances, public safety agencies operate
with hundreds of users per channel, far more than is safe under
``normal'' day-to-day circumstances, let alone major emergencies.
Demand for channel capacity has been increasing with population growth
and density. Now, with new Homeland Security responsibilities being
placed on public safety personnel, there will be even greater demand
for public safety spectrum.
Inadequate spectrum also prevents public safety agencies from
implementing new communications tools, such as wide area mobile data
systems that can provide law enforcement officers, firefighters, and
EMS technicians with a wealth of critical on-scene data. This includes
not only high speed text delivery (such as criminal background
information), but also, with sufficient spectrum, high resolution
images such as mug shots, fingerprints, and building diagrams. While
the FCC recently allocated spectrum in the 4.9 GHz band for certain
public safety data and video functions, use of that band will be
limited to relatively short distance transmissions. The 4.9 GHz band is
not expected to provide a spectrum home for wide-area, mobile data
systems.
The lack of spectrum also has a direct and significant impact on
interoperability. All too often, public safety personnel from different
agencies responding to the same emergency cannot communicate with each
other, because they operate on incompatible, non-interoperable radio
systems. The lack of interoperability is generally the result of
different agencies being forced to operate on different radio frequency
bands. The most effective way to address that problem is to migrate
agencies in the same geographic area to common, or at least compatible,
radio frequency bands. Unfortunately, that's not possible in many areas
as there is not enough spectrum in any one band to accommodate all, or
even most, of the public safety users in the region. New allocations,
especially if adjacent to an existing public safety spectrum
allocation, would greatly enhance interoperability with existing users,
while at the same time providing capacity for new, multi-agency, multi-
jurisdictional radio operations.
Congress tried to address some of these issues in 1997, when it
required the FCC to allocate 24 MHz of spectrum for public safety
purposes from the 746-806 MHz band (TV channel 60-69). This was
consistent with the 1996 recommendations of the Public Safety Wireless
Advisory Committee. The FCC then did its part. It reallocated TV
channels 63, 64, 68, and 69, for public safety and adopted rules to
promote interoperability among all users of the band and the adjacent
800 MHz public safety bands. Indeed, the Commission allocated
approximately 10% of the new band for nationwide public safety
interoperability, and required that all radios in the new band be
capable of operating on the interoperability channels. The Commission
also adopted a digital interoperability standard (Project 25) for the
band, to ensure that digital equipment from different manufactures
would still be interoperable.
However, in most of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, the
new spectrum allocated for public safety was not available on September
11, and will not be available until TV broadcasters on channels 63, 64,
68, and 69 (and in many cases the adjacent channels), release those
channels as part of the digital television (DTV) transition. The
problem facing public safety is not only that the spectrum is not
currently available nationwide, but also that there is no firm date for
when the spectrum will become available. The 1997 Balanced Budget Act,
which required the FCC to allocate spectrum for public safety, allows
incumbent broadcasters to continue operation on TV channels 60-69 until
December 31, 2006, or until some uncertain, future date when at least
85% of the households in the relevant market have access to DTV
signals.
That 85% provision creates uncertainty as to when (or if) the
spectrum will become available, and makes it impossible for most state
and local governments to plan, fund, or construct systems using the
spectrum allocated for their public safety operations. For example, the
State of California has a tremendous need to upgrade the radio systems
for its own agencies, but we cannot build a statewide system that does
not include the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas. Unfortunately,
those are among the metropolitan areas where TV stations block use of
the newly allocated public safety spectrum. Many other large public
safety agencies across the country face the same dilemma.
APCO has therefore joined with the International Association of
Chiefs of Police, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the
National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the
U.S. Conference of Mayors, and other organizations to urge that
Congress establish an early and firm date for the newly allocated
public safety spectrum to become available for actual operations.
There are also important steps that the FCC needs to take. For
example, we remain deeply concerned about the rules adopted to protect
future public safety users of the new spectrum from interference caused
by new commercial mobile radio services in the same band. These are
commercial users who would receive licenses pursuant to the 700 MHz
band auctions currently scheduled by the FCC. We do not believe that
the interference provisions are adequate, based upon studies conducted
by the Telecommunications Industry Association, and have petitioned the
FCC to reconsider its rules.
The interference that we fear in the 700 MHz band is similar in
some respects to current interference problems that many public safety
agencies already face in the nearby 800 MHz band. The FCC is about to
initiate a proceeding on that issue, which includes a proposal that
would also provide additional spectrum relief for public safety
agencies in that band.
Finally, I want to note that many public safety agencies will
continue to operate in the UHF (450-470 MHz, plus, in some areas,
portions of 470-512 MHz) and the VHF High Band (150-170 MHz) for the
foreseeable future. Indeed, due to the low cost of equipment and good
propagation characteristics, the VHF High Band is the most heavily used
public safety frequency band. However, that band is extremely
overcrowded and is in desperate need of ``breathing'' room to relieve
congestion and facilitate wide-area interoperability plans. In that
regard, we were pleased that Congress required the Department of
Defense to study the potential for sharing of its nearby 138-144 MHz
band, which we understand is lightly used in at least some portions of
the nation. DOD has submitted a classified study to the Congress on
this issue, and we look forward to learning more about the results of
that study, and moving as quickly as possible towards actual sharing of
the band with state and local government public safety agencies
wherever feasible.
In closing, I want to thank you Mr. Chairman and members of your
Subcommittee for conducting these important hearings, and for providing
me an opportunity to discuss the critical communications problems
facing public safety agencies in these difficult times. APCO stands
ready to work with the Congress, the FCC, and other interested parties
in resolving these issues as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much, Mr. Nash.
May I now recognize Mr. Crotty.
STATEMENT OF PAUL CROTTY, GROUP PRESIDENT FOR NEW YORK AND
CONNECTICUT, VERIZON, INC.
Mr. Crotty. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Burns.
My name is Paul Crotty. I am Verizon's Group President, New
York and Connecticut, and I am pleased to be here today to
discuss our experiences after the terrorist attack in
September.
On September 11th I stood at the corner of Veasey and West
Street amidst the debris of 1 and 2 World Trade Center, which
had collapsed by 10:00 o'clock in the morning. I saw our brave
firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical
technicians carrying on heroically amid utter destruction. I
thought of our 1600 employees at 140 West Street and 500
employees at 2 World Trade Center and prayed that they had
escaped. We lost two employees at the World Trade Center plus
another employee at the Pentagon.
As horrific as that scene was, Verizon's building at 140
West Street was still functioning. What happened at 5:00 p.m.
changed that. 7 World Trade Center twisted on its frame and
collapsed, and as it fell number 7 ripped out a large portion
of the east-facing wall of our building and then collapsed into
our cable vault.
Our outside plant in Manhattan is below ground and in lower
Manhattan ``below ground'' means below sea level. The
pulverized cement and fiberglass dirt and other airborne debris
blew into our equipment floors, covering our sophisticated
electronic equipment with up to five inches of soot-like
material. 7 World Trade Center's collapse into and through our
cable vault cut up our outside cable plant like so many strings
of spaghetti.
Our sub-basements were flooded by ruptured water mains.
Even after the water mains were secured, our basements
continued to flood with the runoff from water used to fight the
fire at 7 World Trade Center, which burned steadily for 2 weeks
and intermittently for another 6 weeks after that.
We have now restored service in lower Manhattan. We are in
the process of replacing equipment at 140 West Street and
rebuilding our outside plant.
I have already mentioned our brave uniformed forces, but I
would be remiss if I did not also say something about Mayor
Giuliani and Governor Pataki. They were both outstanding in
every way. Their presence and quiet leadership kept us going.
They confronted danger and uncertainty with a calming and
reassuring strength.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your visit and the visit of
other members of your Committee. It was very important to keep
the spirits up and to keep us involved knowing that our efforts
at Ground Zero were supported by the ranking members of the
Congress and indeed by all citizens of the United States.
Our building at 140 West Street contained four switches
which had the capacity to serve a city the size of Cincinnati.
The damage to our building was severe. Altogether we lost ten
cellular towers along with 300,000 voice lines and 3.6 million
data circuits affecting 14,000 businesses and 20,000
residential customers.
Although this was a disaster at a particular point in our
network, the network itself continued to function. Many
customers reacted to the tragedy by telephoning their families
to let loved ones know they were safe. That made call volumes
spike up to 100 percent higher than on a normal day for both
wireless and wireline telephones. We worked with other carriers
and we processed these volumes.
Verizon had the process and people in place to deal with
the restoration job of this magnitude. We approached this in an
organized fashion. Our first priority was to restore service
immediately for emergency services--police, fire, medical,
governmental agencies. To accomplish this, we harnessed our
emergency preparation planning, we quickly mobilized a team and
set our plan in motion. We were able to take advantage of
redundancy that was built into the network to accomplish
immediate restoration of critical functions.
Mr. Cangemi has already mentioned the Office of Emergency
Management, which moved. It had its office at 7 World Trade
Center. When 7 World Trade Center collapsed, it was relocated
first to the police academy and then to Pier 92 on the west
side of Manhattan.
Within 36 hours we had installed over 500 voice lines in 15
T-1's, so that when the Mayor put the Emergency Management
Center back in operation it had representatives from every
city, State and Federal agency that was involved in responding
to the disaster, along with other agencies such as the Red
Cross and Salvation Army not-for-profits, which were also
emergency responders.
The city's 9-1-1 system had designed redundancy and
automatic backup. It never failed. Not a single call was missed
on September 11th. In addition, our optical network rerouted
90,000 data circuits immediately.
Our second priority was to do the work necessary for the
New York Stock Exchange and the Mercantile Exchange to reopen
on September 17. In the weeks following we restored the
American Stock Exchange. When the New York Stock Exchange
opened on Monday, September 17, it handled over 2 billion
shares, a record number.
To make this happen we had to do a number of things. First
of all, as I indicated, Con Edison lost power. 7 World Trade
Center also contained two sub-stations for Con Edison, and when
7 World Trade Center collapsed we lost power throughout lower
Manhattan. Therefore the power for our Broad Street station was
provided by standby diesel power for a period of up to 12 days.
Verizon also rerouted or rebuilt high-capacity data
circuits that passed through West Street. We provisioned 1.5
million lines and 2 million data circuits in 6 days and we
ported more than 150,000 telephone numbers that had been
assigned to our equipment in West Street facilities to
equipment in other locations. We acted as systems integrators
and project leader for coordinating efforts of suppliers, other
carriers, major stock exchange and Security Industry Automation
Corporation customers. We again would like to publicly thank
the many carriers and equipment makers who went out of their
way to share resources in that time of crisis.
I also want to mention the extra work of Verizon's men and
women, what worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for months at
a time. One of our major problems with our work force was
convincing them that they had to go home at the end of the
shift. We had tremendous cooperation from our collective
bargaining representative, the Communications Workers of
America.
The end result was that Verizon got a huge amount of
capacity to many customers and got it there quickly.
Our third priority was to restore services to all affected
residential and business customers. Wireless technology played
an important part in that story. We deployed seven ``cells on
wheels'' and 16 temporary cell sites almost immediately after
September 11th. That allowed us to replace wireless service
that was disrupted by damaged cell sites. Within 1 week we had
150 percent of the capacity in lower Manhattan that we had on
September 10th.
We provided customers with alternatives to their regular
service through mega-call forwarding. We made our 4,000 pay
phones on the streets of Manhattan free for over a week and we
brought in extra pay phones which provided free pay phone
service in the affected area in lower Manhattan. We provided
over 5,000 wireless phones for small business customers. We
provided the Secret Service and other Federal agencies with
wireless devices to help offset equipment loss when their
offices in the World Trade Center were destroyed.
Our business solutions group visited 900 small businesses a
day and our emergency office in New York City's business
recovery center was taking orders from 400 walk-in customers a
day. We worked one on one with large business customers,
including our wholesale customers, and with 40 carriers which
connected through Verizon's facilities, to help them restore
services. We opened a special office in Chinatown to help
residence customers.
The good news is that we were able to get our customers
back into service quickly, in many cases through gerry-rigged
arrangements. Much of this work will have to be redone now as
debris is cleared from manholes and we can get into our
underground facilities.
While this was going on in New York, we had the similar
attack at the Pentagon. We also had major efforts there. At the
Pentagon we had about 40 people who operate the communications
system pursuant to a contract with the Federal Government, a
system that never went down, not even for a minute. The people
there were not evacuated as the situation did not warrant it,
and in fact two of our employees, by reporting to the Defense
Secretary's office on the position of the fire relative to a
critical telecommunications switch, were responsible for saving
it. We set up mobile wireless cell sites in Arlington.
Finally, at the plane crash site in western Pennsylvania we
provided the additional wireline and wireless capacity needed
by the emergency response personnel at that site.
As to lessons learned, what did we learn from all this?
Well, first we learned about the resiliency of our telephone
network, Verizon's and those of other provider. They all proved
their worth. While call volume spikes caused temporary
difficulties, by the close of business on September 11th those
difficulties were largely under control. Diversity of routes,
redundancy of facilities, and experience with recoveries were
keys to putting the right resources at the right place to
resolve a very complex problem.
The economy remains the biggest uncertainty in the
aftermath of September 11th. We were already feeling the
effects of the economic slowdown before this. We need to look
for prudent ways to stimulate investment, innovation, and
consumer confidence. This is particularly so in lower
Manhattan. We are rebuilding our network and we must have users
to make our investment worthwhile.
We also came away from September 11th and the recovery
efforts with new clarity on the larger issues facing the
communications industry. First, true competition comes from
diverse technologies, whether it is wireline, wireless, cable,
or the Internet. With regard to telecommunications, facilities-
based competition demonstrated that it is the real competitive
alternative, not resale of pieces of the existing network.
The fact the service restoration in lower Manhattan
occurred as quickly as it did demonstrates the value of large-
scale facilities-based local networks. Scale and scope matter.
Verizon's ability to draw on the resources of a national
company was invaluable. The value of large facilities-based
competitors is evident. They tend to have the scale and
experience to help the Nation recover quickly.
Fiber, broadband, and diverse technology are crucial
because they improve survivability. Fiber and broadband to
large business customers works and has never been more
important. Also, fast Internet access was vital to consumers.
Broadband service to the home helped keep America connected and
productive. In the crisis people were able to choose from
several technologies to handle their communications. If
wireless did not work, often email and Instant Messaging did,
and if wireline did not work then often wireless would. When it
was impossible for people to drive to their place of work, they
could telecommunicate over broadband networks. New high-speed
information technology--our national strength.
With regard to security issues, Verizon gets plenty of
practice in system recovery efforts. We have more than 1,000
recovery efforts every year of various scale, manmade and
natural, from airplane crashes to ice storms, major floods,
hurricanes, and tornadoes, to trucks hitting telephone poles
and people digging up and cutting our underground plant. Our
experience with these situations helped make the September 11th
recovery run effectively.
But we had never experienced anything like this, which
seemed to be a witch's brew of every disaster known and
unknown, and they occurred in three separate places
simultaneously.
What have we learned? There are two major lessons. First,
we need to take a fresh look at security of telecommunications
networks, and we are already well along with that process.
Second, the country needs to develop national policies
related to access to critical network assets, cybersecurity,
and the redundancy and diversity of networks. At Verizon we
have a regular aggressive schedule of security audits and
continual discussions with the security community about new
threats. These practices have been the cornerstone of our
regular cycle of security improvement and testing.
We share information with and work closely with the
national security and emergency preparedness agencies at the
Federal, State, and local levels. We have complied with the
FCC's telecommunications service priority guidelines. Agencies
such as New York City's Mutual Aid and Restoration Consortium,
the FBI's National Information Protection Center, the National
Communications System, and the National Security
Telecommunications Advisory Committee are illustrative of the
agencies that we work with. Many of those discussions are very
candid and involve vulnerability assessments and plans.
Of course, we continue to work with both the FCC and our
New York State regulatory agency, the Public Service
Commission.
Since September 11th Verizon has additional efforts under
way to further improve the security, survivability, and rapid
recovery of our networks. We have undertaken a review of which
assets need additional hardening. That means a physical
inventory of our 5100 central offices and hundreds of key
buildings, with rankings for significance and thus priority
attention for hardening. Mostly this means beefing up physical
security, such as perimeter and entryway, some better
monitoring, in a few cases interior partitioning.
We have heightened attention to prevent and discover
unauthorized cyber-intrusion. We caught and were the first to
report a major computer virus to the National Information
Protection Center right after September 11th. We continue our
regular security audits that Verizon conducted even before
September 11th and we promptly address any findings of
noncompliance or design weakness.
I thank the Committee and you, Mr. Chairman, for your
attention to critical infrastructure matters, and I will try to
answer any questions you may have further along in the program.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Crotty follows:]
Prepared Statement of Paul Crotty, Group President for New York and
Connecticut Verizon, Inc.
Mr. Chairman, my name is Paul Crotty, and I am Group President New
York/ Connecticut. I am pleased to be here today to discuss our
experiences after the terrorist attack in September.
On September 11, I stood at the corner of Vesey and West amidst the
debris of 1 and 2 World Trade Center which had collapsed by 10 am. I
saw our braver fire fighters and police officers and emergency medical
technicians carrying on heroically amid utter devastation. I thought of
our 1600 employees at 140 West Street and 500 employees at 2 World
Trade Center and prayed that they had escaped. We lost 2 employees at
the World Trade Center, plus another employee at the Pentagon.
As horrific as that scene was, Verizon's building at 140 West St.
was still functioning. What happened at 5pm changed that. 7 World Trade
Center * twisted on its frame and collapsed. As it fell, it ripped out
large portions of the east facing wall and then collapsed into our
cable vault. Our outside plant in Manhattan is below ground and in
lower Manhattan, below ground means below sea level. The pulverized
cement and fiberglass, dirt and other airborne debris blew onto our
equipment floors covering our sophisticated electronic equipment with
up to 5 inches of soot-like material. And 7 World Trade Center's
collapse into and through our cable vaults cut up our outside plant
like so many strings of spaghetti.
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* 7 World Trade Center also housed 2 Con Edison substations. When
the substations were lost, lower Manhattan lost its power. Even today,
lower Manhattan is powered by a 13,000 volt ``extension cord'' which
runs on the sidewalks and streets of lower Manhattan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our sub basements were flooded by ruptured water mains. Even after
the water mains were secured, our basements continued to flood with the
run off from the water used to fight the fire at 7 World Trade Center
which burned steadily for 2 weeks and intermittently for another 6
weeks after that.
I have mentioned our brave uniformed faces. I would be remiss if I
did not also say something about Mayor Giuliani and Governor Pataki.
They were both outstanding in every way. Their presence and quiet
leadership kept us going. They confronted danger and uncertainty with a
calming and reassuring strength.
Synopsis of Events
Lower Manhattan. Our building at 140 West Street contained 4
switches which had the capacity to serve a city the size of Cincinnati.
The damage to our building was severe. Altogether, we lost ten cellular
towers, along with 300,000 voice lines and 3.6 million data circuits--
affecting 14,000 businesses and 20,000 residential customers.
Although this was a disaster at a particular point in our network,
the network itself continued to function. Many customers reacted to the
tragedy by telephoning their families, to let loved ones know they were
safe. That made call volumes spike 100% higher than a normal day, for
both wireless and wireline telephones. We worked with other carriers
and processed these volumes. Verizon had the process and people in
place to deal with restoration job of this magnitude. We approached it
in organized focused way:
Our first priority was to restore service immediately for emergency
services--police, fire, medical, government agencies. To accomplish
this, we harnessed our emergency preparation planning--we quickly
mobilized a team and set our plan in motion. We were able to take
advantage of redundancy that was built into the network to accomplish
immediate restoration of critical functions.
The City's 911 system, which had designed redundancy and automatic
backup never failed--not a single call was missed. In addition, our
optical network re-routed 90,000 data circuits immediately.
Our second priority was to do the work necessary for the New York
Stock Exchange and the Mercantile Exchange to reopen on September 17.
In the weeks following, we restored the American Stock Exchange. When
the NY Stock Exchange opened, it handled over 2 billion shares, a
record number. To make that happen:
As I indicated Con Ed lost power and we operated on standby
diesel power for 12 days at our Broad Street facility.
Verizon rerouted or rebuilt high capacity data circuits
that passed through West Street.
Verizon provisioned 1.5 million lines and 2 million data
circuits in six days.
We ported more than 150,000 telephone numbers that had been
assigned to equipment in our West Street facility to equipment
in other locations and
We acted as systems integrator and project leader for
coordinating efforts of suppliers, other carriers and major
NYSE and Securities Industry Automation Corporation (``SAIC'')
customers. We again publicly thank the many carriers and
equipment makers who went out of their way to share resources
in that time of crisis.
The end result was that Verizon got a huge amount of capacity to
many customers--and got it to them quickly.
Our third priority was to restore service to all affected
residential and business customers. Wireless technology played an
important part in that story
We deployed seven ``cells on wheels'' and 16 temporary cell sites
almost immediately on 9/11. This allowed us to replace wireless service
that was disrupted by damaged cell sites. Within one week we had 150%
of the capacity in Lower Manhattan we had on September 10.
We provided customers with alternatives to their regular service
through mega call forwarding, 4000 free payphones and 5000 wireless
phones for small business customers. We provided the Secret Service
with 300 wireless devices to help offset equipment lost when their
office in the World Trade Center was destroyed. Our Business Solutions
Group was visiting 900 small businesses a day, and our emergency office
in NYC's Business Recovery Center was taking orders from 400 walk in
business customers a day. We worked one-on-one with large business
customers, including our wholesale customers and with 40 other carriers
which connect through Verizon facilities to help them restore services.
And we opened a special office in Chinatown to help residence
customers.
The good news is that we were able to get our customers back into
service quickly--in many cases, through jerry-rigged arrangements. Much
of this work will have to be re-done as debris is cleared from manholes
and we can get to underground facilities.
Pentagon. While all this was going on in New York, there were also
major efforts in Northern Virginia. At the Pentagon, we had about 40
people who operate the communications system--a system, by the way,
that never went down, not even for a minute. The people there were not
evacuated, as the situation didn't warrant it; and in fact, two of our
employees, by reporting to the Defense Secretary's office on the
position of the fire relative to a crucial telecommunications switch,
were responsible for saving it. Verizon provides service to the
Department of Defense under WITS 2001 contract.
We set up mobile wireless cell sites in Arlington. Finally at the
plane crash site in Western Pennsylvania we provided the additional
wireline and wireless capacity needed by emergency response personnel
at those sites.
Lessons Learned
What did we learn from all this?
First, the resiliency of telephone networks--Verizon's and those of
other providers--proved their worth. While call volume spikes caused
transitory difficulties, by close of business on September 11, those
difficulties were largely under control. Diversity of routes,
redundancy of facilities and experience with recoveries were the key to
putting the right resources at the right places in a complex problem.
The economy remains the biggest uncertainty in the aftermath of
Sept. 11. We were already feeling effects of economic slowdown before
this. We need to look for prudent ways to stimulate investment,
innovation and consumer confidence. This is particularly so in lower
Manhattan. We are rebuilding our network and we must have users to make
our investment worthwhile.
We also came away from 9/11 and the recovery efforts with new
clarity on larger issues facing the communications industry.
True competition comes from diverse technologies (wired, wireless,
cable, Internet). With regard to telecommunications, facilities based
competition demonstrated that it is the real competitive alternative,
not re-sale of pieces of an existing network. The fact that service
restoration in lower Manhattan occurred as quickly as it did
demonstrates the value of large- scale facilities-based local networks.
Scale and scope matter. Verizon's ability to draw on resources of a
national company was invaluable. The value of large facilities- based
competitors is evident--they tend to have the scale and experience to
help the nation recovery quickly.
Fiber, broadband, and diverse technology are crucial because they
improve survivability. Fiber/broadband to large business customerworks
and has never been more important. Also, fast Internet access was vital
to consumers; broadband service to the home helped keep America
connected and productive. In the crisis, people were able to choose
from several technologies to handle their communications--if wireless
didn't work, often e-mail and Instant Messaging did, if wireline didn't
work, often wireless did. When it was impossible for people to drive to
their place of work, they could telecommute over broadband. New, high
speed communications technologies are a national strength.
Security Issues
Verizon gets plenty of practice in system recovery efforts. We have
more than 1000 recovery efforts every year of various scales man-made
and natural: from airplane crashes to ice storms, major floods,
hurricanes and tornadoes, to trucks hitting telephone poles and to
people digging up or cutting our underground plant. Our experience with
these situations helped make the 9/11 recovery run effectively.
But we have never experienced anything like this which seemed to be
a witches brew of every disaster known--and unknown. And they occurred
in 3 separate places, simultaneously. What have we learned? Two major
lessons: First. we need to take a fresh look at security of
telecommunications networks--and we're already well along on that.
Second, the country needs to develop national policies related to
access to critical network assets, cybersecurity, and the redundancy
and diversity of networks.
At Verizon, we have a regular, aggressive schedule of security
audits, and continual discussion with the security community about new
threats. These practices had been the cornerstone for our regular
cycles of security improvement and testing.
We share information with and work closely with National Security
and Emergency Preparedness agencies--at the federal, state and local
levels. Agencies such as NYC's Mutual Aid and Restoration committee,
the FBI's National Information Protection Center, the National
Communications System, and the National Security Telecommunications
Advisory Committee are illustrative. Many of those discussions are very
candid and involve vulnerability assessments and plans.
Since 9/11, Verizon has additional efforts underway to further
improve the security, survivability and rapid recovery of our networks.
We have undertaken a review of which assets need additional
hardening. This means a physical inventory of all 5100 central offices
and hundreds of key buildings, with ranking for significance--and thus
priority attention for hardening. Mostly this means beefing up physical
security--such as perimeter and entryways, some better monitoring, and
in a few cases interior partitioning.
We have heightened attention to prevent and discover unauthorized
cyber-intrusion. We caught and were the first to report a major
computer virus to National Information Protection Center right after 9/
11.
We continue our regular, aggressive security audits that Verizon
conducted even before 9/11. And we promptly address any findings of
non-compliance or design weakness.
I thank the Committee for its attention to critical infrastructure
matters, and I will try to answer any questions that you have.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much, Mr. Crotty.
May I now recognize Ms. Harris.
STATEMENT OF GLORIA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF
OPERATIONS--NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY AND CONNECTICUT, AT&T WIRELESS
Ms. Harris. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee: Thank
you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am Gloria
Harris, Vice President, Field Operations, New York, New Jersey,
and Connecticut, of AT&T Wireless. Today my testimony will
focus on how AT&T Wireless responded to the events of September
11th as well as the steps we are taking in the aftermath of 9-
11 to enhance our emergency response procedures and to make our
wireless network as strong as it can possibly be.
The horrific events of September 11th had a profound effect
on our Nation's critical telecommunications infrastructure.
AT&T Wireless' network was pushed to its limits both in New
York and Washington, D.C. I am proud to say, however, that our
robust system withstood the assault, thanks in great part to
our dedicated employees who worked around the clock and who
also refused to go home, and followed our established emergency
procedures.
Problems for our network began almost immediately after the
first plane hit the World Trade Center. Although our facilities
sustained no direct damage at that time, thousands and
thousands of AT&T Wireless subscribers in New York and
Washington who under normal circumstances would not be using
their wireless service at all simultaneously picked up their
phones and began to dial--some to contact loved ones, some to
call for help, and some to say goodbye.
We also began handing out wireless handsets to emergency
workers at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, all of whom started
placing calls immediately to coordinate rescue and recovery
efforts.
Traffic on our network in Manhattan increased by as much a
150 percent from the same day the previous week, and in certain
areas of the city there were 360 percent more call attempts
than AWS usually experiences.
Around 4:00 in that afternoon, the burden to our network
increased dramatically as a result of the complete destruction
of Verizon's major switching office, which was directly across
the street from World Trade Center. Not only did that Verizon
switch serve 45 of our cell sites, the landline customers in
the affected area had nowhere to turn for service but to their
wireless carriers.
Just minutes after the north tower was hit, we activated
our highest level of disaster response with national, regional,
and local coordination on a 24 by 7 basis. As part of these
activities, we established a 96-port conference bridge which
remained open day and night for weeks after September 11th.
Although intended to manage internal resources, that bridge
soon became an essential mechanism for communication among
dozens of different agencies. Police, fire, and other emergency
responders regularly dialed in order to distribute and obtain
information about rescue and recovery activities and public
safety dispatchers used the conference facilities to request
our assistance in tracking callers to 9-1-1.
Obstacles encountered in trying to restore wireless service
in the New York area were enormous and, surprisingly, had much
to do more with bureaucratic hassles than with technical
problems. First we discovered that bringing equipment into
Manhattan on September 11th and ensuing days would be a
significant challenge because all bridges into the city were
closed and all flights had been grounded.
Even after equipment arrived at its destinations, however,
we had serious problems in getting our ``Cells on Wheels,'' our
COW's, as we call them, permitted and parked in locations that
had line of sight to our network. While New York authorities
were quite cooperative, certain other nearby localities wanted
us to go through full-fledged zoning proceedings, which
normally could take weeks or even months, before we could site
and activate these temporary facilities.
But perhaps the biggest obstacle to our recovery activities
was in our attempt to obtain and retain access to Ground Zero
for our employees, contractors, and vendor employees. This
seemed to be primarily an issue of too little coordination
among dozens of agencies. While the police department might let
us bring our equipment into the area in the morning, a few
hours later the fire marshal would deny access to the same
equipment or require another burdensome round of paperwork.
The final hurdle we faced was the lack of sufficient
spectrum to support our recovery operations and the increased
call burden. Because many customers in Manhattan had no
wireline service and because rescue workers were using AT&T
Wireless phones for Ground Zero communications, our network
remained severely overloaded for weeks.
Accordingly, on September 12th we went to the FCC and, with
the cooperation of NextWave Communications, we requested a
special temporary authorization to use NextWave's unused
spectrum in the New York market. The FCC responded immediately
and that very day we had approval to use those bands.
By September 27th, through the addition of these channels
as well as the deployment of COW's and the expedited
construction of new sites, we had added enough capacity in
Manhattan to permit almost 5,000 additional simultaneous calls.
By the following day, we had permanently restored all but three
of the recoverable sites.
While our primary focus during the days surrounding
September 11th was on averting a network disaster and
continuing to maintain critical wireless service to public
safety and commercial users, we were also heavily involved in
supporting the ongoing search and recovery efforts at Ground
Zero and the Pentagon in other ways. Immediately after
September 11th, for example, we activated, registered, and
handed out more than 5,000 wireless phones to approximately 50
organizations, including the Red Cross, FEMA, the Department of
Transportation, and the City of New York.
In addition, together with the Wireless Emergency Response
Team, a newly formed coalition of wireless and wireline
telecommunications carriers and infrastructure providers, we
equipped three-person teams with spectrum analyzers,
directional antennas, and portable generators and sent them out
to search for signals emanating from cell phones at Ground
Zero.
We also used customer records to identify all the calls
placed to 9-1-1 from the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
and, at FEMA's behest, called those numbers to determine if the
callers needed further assistance. While no survivors were
located in either location, we contacted many people who were
thought to be missing and helped to bring closure to family
members who lost their loved ones on September 11th.
So the question now is where do we go from here? What have
we learned from September 11th that could make our network
stronger and ensure uninterrupted service during emergencies
for both public safety personnel and our customers? Since
September 11th AWS has taken a number of steps internally to
ensure that we can respond effectively to a disaster on a
nationwide level and across all critical units of our company.
In addition, in light of the finite capacity of all
telecommunications networks, we have been working to come up
with a practical solution to ensure those with the greatest
need are able to place and receive calls.
Emergency agencies' need to communicate is obviously
critical, but 9-11 taught us that the ability of our existing
customers to place calls is no less important. Indeed, it was a
wireless call that gave passengers on a plane likely bound for
the White House or the building we are standing in right now
the information they needed to avert an even larger disaster.
Accordingly, we have been working cooperatively with the
members of the wireless community and the national
communications system to develop a plan that will give priority
access to certain emergency personnel in times of severe
network congestion, while at the same time reserving capacity
for customers. We think that the wireless priority access plan
currently being discussed goes a long way towards ensuring that
the facilities we have are used in the most efficient and
effective manner possible.
Now I will spend just a few minutes suggesting how you,
Congress, can help us in our efforts to strengthen our network.
First, as I indicated earlier, one of the most significant
problems we faced in attempting to restore service to customers
and emergency workers after September 11th was coordinating
with the dozens of Federal, State, and local agencies and
offices to bring the necessary equipment to the affected areas,
to obtain permits to site those temporary facilities, and to
ensure that our employees had continual access to the equipment
once it was in place.
One suggestion I have to ensure smoother sailing in the
future would be to empower FEMA or another Federal agency to
oversee issues involving the access of essential companies,
such as telecommunications providers like AT&T Wireless, to
disaster areas. Should we ever face a similar circumstance--and
I pray that we do not--the agency could distribute universal
badges which the companies could then hand out to their
employees as necessary.
The next major action Congress could take to help ensure
the development of a comprehensive wireless network is to
assist us in our efforts to obtain more spectrum. AT&T Wireless
is in the enviable position of having enough spectrum to
provide services to our customers' demand through the first
part of this decade. As we begin to roll out advanced
technologies on a wider scale, we will require additional
bandwidth to provide the types of services our subscribers tell
us they want and at the same time to be able to assist public
safety agencies with their needs.
Much of the globally harmonized spectrum that wireless
carriers need is woefully underutilized today by existing
licensees in those bands and should be reallocated promptly.
Today, based on the lessons learned from 9-11, we have
begun to take the necessary steps to ensure that our network
and service to our customers and emergency personnel remain
strong for years to come. We hope that we can count on you to
also take actions that will safeguard the wireless industry's
continued effort to serve the public, both in times of disaster
and in times of peace.
Thank you for this opportunity to share our findings today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Harris follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gloria Harris, Vice President of Operations--
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, AT&T Wireless
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss
how the wireless industry's ubiquitous and robust telecommunications
networks enhance public safety, assist emergency personnel, and permit
crucial contact among families and friends on both a daily basis and in
times of crisis. I am Gloria Harris, Vice President, Field Operations--
Tristate Area, of AT&T Wireless Services, Inc. (``AWS''). Today, my
testimony will focus on how AWS responded to the events of September
11, 2001, including how we used our existing procedures and outstanding
personnel to avert a potential network disaster. Even as cell sites
across New York City failed due to a wireline switch outage, and
thousands upon thousands of callers turned on their wireless phones at
the same time, I am proud to say that our network remained solid. I
will also tell you about the steps AWS is taking in the aftermath of 9-
11 to enhance our emergency response procedures and to make our
wireless network as strong as it can possibly be.
I. HOW WE RESPONDED.
Impact on the Wireless Network. At 8:45 a.m. on September 11, 2001,
American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of New York's
World Trade Center complex. This unspeakable terrorist act was just the
beginning of what would soon become this century's most horrific
national tragedy. It also put an enormous strain on our nation's
telecommunications networks, including AWS's wireless systems, which
were crucial not only to the rescue, recovery, and law enforcement
efforts that were immediately launched, but to the ability of American
citizens to reach loved ones in a time of crisis.
Between 9:00 and 10:30 a.m. on September 11, additional planes were
piloted into the South Tower of the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, another plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and both
World Trade Center towers collapsed. By mid-afternoon, there were power
outages throughout lower Manhattan and six AWS cell sites were out of
service.
To complicate matters, thousands and thousands of AWS subscribers
in New York and Washington, who, under normal circumstances, would not
be using their wireless service at all, simultaneously picked up their
phones and began to dial--some to contact loved ones, some to call for
help, and some to say goodbye. In addition, AWS handed out wireless
handsets to emergency workers at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, all of
whom started placing calls immediately to coordinate rescue and
recovery efforts. Traffic on our network in Manhattan increased by as
much as 150 percent from the same day the previous week, and in certain
areas of the city there were 360 percent more attempts to make calls
than AWS usually experienced. Our systems in Washington, D.C. and
Pittsburgh were being used up to and beyond capacity as well.
Around 4:00 p.m., the burden to AWS's network increased
dramatically as a result of the complete destruction of Verizon's major
switching office, which was directly across the street from the World
Trade Center. Not only did that Verizon switch serve 45 AWS cell
sites--most of which were in lower Manhattan--the landline customers in
the affected areas had nowhere to turn for service but to their
wireless carriers. Verizon obviously was intent on restoring service
for its own customers and consequently was unable to reroute AWS's
traffic from the impaired cell sites. By the evening of September 11,
47 AWS cell sites were out of service, one cell site had been
completely destroyed, all of lower Manhattan had sustained a complete
commercial power failure, and wireless call volumes remained extremely
high in light of the failure of the wireline network.
What We Did. Notwithstanding the incredible strain of increased
call volumes and impaired cell sites, AWS's wireless network in New
York and everywhere else remained strong. This is due in large part to
our ability to draw upon the lessons learned and the procedures
developed from many years of responding to hurricanes, tornados, and
floods, as well as planned day-long disaster simulations. Specifically,
in every market in the United States in which it provides service, AWS
has a disaster field office. When not needed, these offices serve as
conference rooms or storage areas, but they are equipped with redundant
telephone lines, back-up power sources, food and medical supplies, and
manuals outlining the steps to be taken in disaster situations. Each of
our disaster field offices reports to one of our eight regional
Emergency Operations Centers, whose activities are coordinated by AWS's
National Emergency Operations Center in Bothell, Washington. Clearly,
no established procedures could have prepared us for the events of
September 11, but they did enable AWS to avert a potentially
catastrophic network failure.
Just minutes after the North Tower was hit, AWS activated its
highest level of disaster response. AWS's National Emergency Operations
Center coordinated efforts at the national, regional, and local levels
by identifying all available personnel and equipment to support
recovery and repair activities in New York and Washington, D.C. We also
set up a regional staging ground in Paramus, New Jersey, and used that
location for the delivery of portable generators, network equipment,
and ``Cells on Wheels''--or ``COWs''--from across the country. Many of
our Manhattan employees were asked to report to a central disaster
field office, where they were accounted for and where they began
preparing for cell site recovery.
In addition, on September 11, AWS established a 96-port conference
bridge to manage technical resources among our national and regional
operational centers and the affected disaster field offices. That
bridge, however, which remained open day and night for weeks after
September 11, was not used solely by AWS personnel. Rather, police,
fire, and other emergency responders regularly dialed in to the bridge
in order to distribute and obtain information about rescue and recovery
activities. Similarly, public safety dispatchers used the conference
facilities to request AWS's assistance in tracking callers to 911. As
it turned out, AWS's conference bridge was an essential mechanism for
communication among dozens of different agencies, as well as a way for
AWS to coordinate its own internal recovery efforts.
AWS's primary activity on September 11 and the following days was
to assess the extent of the impairment to our service in New York and
Washington, D.C. and to prioritize service restoration efforts. Since
we could not rely on Verizon to install new facilities for us or to
reroute traffic from its destroyed lower Manhattan switch, we had to
figure out alternate ways to provide service in the areas around the
impaired cell sites. Initially, this was accomplished by the
mobilization of COWs or by adding additional equipment and capacity to
nearby cell sites.
Bringing equipment into Manhattan on September 11 and the ensuing
days, was a significant challenge because all bridges into the city
were closed and all flights had been grounded. Accordingly, we worked
with the New York City Office of Emergency Management and the Mayor's
office to obtain permits or waivers to carry our equipment over the
closed infrastructure and to secure escorts for the trucks.
We also faced serious obstacles in getting the COWs permitted and
parked in locations that had a line-of-site to our network. While New
York authorities were quite cooperative, certain other nearby
localities wanted us to go through full fledged zoning proceedings,
which normally could take weeks or even months, before we could site
and activate these temporary facilities. AWS personnel, however, worked
around the clock to obtain approvals from local authorities, establish
microwave links, and test the temporary facilities. Within 21 hours
after deployment, AWS activated its first COW in Liberty State Park in
Jersey City, New Jersey. Shortly thereafter, a second COW was sent to
Brooklyn to further support Manhattan's network capacity. And, at the
Pentagon's request, we deployed a third COW to the Pentagon.
Ultimately, AWS activated a total of 17 COWs: 15 in New York, one in
Washington, D.C., and one in Pennsylvania. In addition, AWS deployed 12
portable generators to support the cell sites without commercial power.
Over the next several days, AWS brought 26 technicians from other
AWS markets across the country to assist in New York, where the network
was the most impacted. The technicians worked to integrate COWs into
the permanent infrastructure, repaired AWS's damaged equipment,
implemented a solution to permit law enforcement wiretapping, and
recovered court-ordered surveillance systems used by law enforcement
agencies. In addition, at the request of the New York Police
Department, network engineers initiated, coordinated, and implemented
the addition of over 6,000 emergency voice mail message hours in
Queens, Manhattan, and Rochelle Park, thereby increasing the number of
voice mail messages allowed in subscribers' mailboxes.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to our recovery activities was in our
attempts to obtain--and retain--access to Ground Zero for our
employees, contractors, and vendor employees. This seemed to be
primarily an issue of too little coordination among dozens of state and
local agencies. While the police department might let us bring our
equipment into the area in the morning, a few hours later, the fire
marshal would deny access to that same equipment or require another
burdensome round of paperwork. Verizon and Con Edison apparently did
not encounter these difficulties because they were considered
utilities, while AWS was not.
On September 11, the most immediate danger to our network was the
enormous increase in calls being placed by our customers and emergency
workers. During the peak of the crisis, we instituted load shedding
procedures by deactivating non-essential features on a number of
switches, such as Caller ID, performance measurement capability, and
fraud detection, to avoid a complete crash of our New York system. The
result was similar to that achieved by shutting windows on a personal
computer--it helped provide more capacity for traffic routing. While
there nevertheless were periods during the day in which accessing our
network required multiple attempts, the system remained solid.
It quickly became clear to AWS, however, that it required
additional spectrum to support recovery operations and the increased
call burden. Accordingly, on September 12, AWS, with the cooperation of
NextWave Communications, obtained a special temporary authorization
from the Federal Communications Commission, which allowed it to access
10 MHz of unused spectrum licensed to NextWave in the New York market.
By September 27, through the addition of these channels, as well as the
deployment of COWs and other temporary equipment, and the expedited
construction of new sites, AWS had added enough capacity in Manhattan
to permit almost 5,000 additional simultaneous calls. It also added 630
new voice paths in Washington, D.C. by September 14, and 158 voice
paths in Pennsylvania by September 12. These new channels provided the
necessary capacity to compensate for the site losses at Ground Zero and
to accommodate the additional call volume around the White House, the
Pentagon, and the crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
At the same time as it was activating COWs and adding equipment at
adjacent cell sites in the affected areas, AWS was performing surveys
of all 47 lost cell sites to determine how service could best be
restored on a permanent basis. By September 28, AWS had restored all
but three of the recoverable cell sites using microwave facilities or
AWS's own backhaul facilities, as well as working with Verizon to
reroute traffic.
AWS's rescue efforts. While AWS's primary focus during the days
surrounding September 11 was on averting a network disaster and
continuing to maintain much needed wireless service to public safety
and commercial users, it also supported the ongoing search and recovery
efforts at Ground Zero and the Pentagon in other ways. Immediately
after September 11, for example, AWS activated, registered, and handed
out more than 5,000 wireless phones to approximately 50 organizations,
including the Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(``FEMA''), the Department of Transportation, and the City of New York.
With these phones, AWS donated over 1.3 million minutes of airtime
usage. In addition, AWS waived all airtime charges for calls made and
received on September 11 by east coast customers between Massachusetts
and Virginia. AWS employees also worked around the clock at phone
distribution and recharging centers located near the disaster areas.
Similarly, AWS coordinated the delivery of safety kits, radios,
goggles, breathing filters, gloves and radio equipment to the impacted
areas to sustain its own efforts and to support local emergency
response teams in their recovery efforts.
To aid in the various search and rescue efforts, AWS joined the
Wireless Emergency Response Team (``WERT''), a coalition of wireless
and wireline telecommunications carriers and infrastructure and
equipment providers. AWS allocated channels for the WERT activities and
donated spectrum analyzers to support recovery missions. Both in
conjunction with WERT and on its own initiative, AWS also established
three-person teams of AWS technicians to assist emergency response
personnel in searching for possible survivors in the World Trade Center
rubble. Each team, equipped with a spectrum analyzer, a directional
antenna, and a portable generator, was sent out to search for signals
emanating from cell phones at Ground Zero. Tragically, these teams
found no survivors--only phones that had been left on by WTC workers.
In addition, AWS assisted FEMA in its efforts to locate those lost
in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by providing them with
customer information that detailed which customers had placed calls
from inside the Towers, the Pentagon, and nearby buildings. We
identified all the calls placed to 911 from those locations and
proceeded to call back each calling party to determine if they needed
further assistance. While no survivors were located in either location,
AWS contacted many people who were thought to be missing and helped
bring closure to family members who lost their loved ones on September
11.
AWS also supported law enforcement personnel and kept rescue teams
from danger by discrediting false reports. In addition, AWS provided
U.S. Marshals with network information and frequencies for the
equipment used to help locate cellular calls. In conjunction with these
efforts, AWS provided guidance to 911call centers by giving
recommendations for trapped survivors' cell phone usage to conserve
battery power and maintain the best possible signal.
II. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
As the foregoing shows, given its existing procedures, training,
and outstanding personnel, AWS was in a very good position to respond
to the 9-11 crisis from a network operations standpoint. Despite the
loss of 47 cell sites, largely due to the destruction of Verizon's
wireline switch at Ground Zero and an incredible increase in calls on
September 11 and the following days, AWS kept its network up and
running, obtained additional spectrum, added temporary cell sites, and
addressed urgent requests for service, equipment, and facilities from
displaced residential and business customers, as well emergency
response agencies and utility workers.
9-11 also taught AWS, however, that there are many ways in which it
could improve its emergency procedures and be better prepared for
disasters of any sort that impact the nation's vital telecommunications
infrastructure. Therefore, as soon as the initial crisis had subsided
in the days following September 11, AWS personnel from all areas of the
company got together to brainstorm about what had gone wrong, what had
gone right, and what it should do from that day forward to make use of
the lessons learned from 9-11.
AWS Crisis Management Team. Although, as described above, AWS had
in place on September 11 a multi-level disaster response team that was
able to deploy quickly and respond efficiently to dozens of network
outages and other problems, we came to the conclusion that our existing
procedures were focused too heavily on just the operational part of our
business. For that reason, we have now created a Crisis Management Team
that operates at the highest levels and covers all functions of the
company. This team has representatives in every AWS market, company
vice presidents at the regional level, and AWS's Chief Operating
Officer at the head. Personnel from customer service; environmental,
health and safety; financial; human resources; legal; marketing; real
estate; insurance, as well as network operations and every other
corporate unit of AWS participate in this group and bring their
particular expertise and interests to the table. Already, we have
established business recovery plans for each critical unit of the
company. We believe that our Crisis Management Team will help ensure
that AWS can respond effectively to a disaster on a nationwide and
business-wide level.
Priority Access. One thing 9-11 made abundantly clear is that
wireless phones are crucial to the nation's ability to communicate
during a disaster. Wireless service allowed people trapped in buildings
to call for help and, in some cases, to call their loved ones for the
last time, allowed passengers on a plane likely bound for the White
House--or the building we are in right now--to obtain information in
time to avert an even larger disaster, and allowed residents of New
York, Washington, D.C., and across the nation to let their sons,
daughters, husbands, and wives know they were safe. Wireless phones
also were essential for firefighters, police, and other emergency
response personnel in those cities to coordinate their rescue efforts,
and for utility workers to coordinate their repair and salvage efforts.
In light of the limited capacity of any telecommunications system,
it is necessary for carriers to balance competing demands for network
time. Emergency agencies' need to communicate during a crisis obviously
is crucial, but, as we discovered on September 11, the ability of AWS's
existing customers--workers, parents, airline passengers--to speak to
each other and to call for help was no less important. Accordingly,
since September 11, AWS has been working to come up with a practical
solution to ensuring that those with the greatest need are able to
place and receive calls. To this end, AWS, together with other members
of the wireless community and the National Communications System have
been working cooperatively to develop a plan that will give access to
the next available wireless voice channel to certain National Security/
Emergency Preparedness personnel in times of severe network congestion,
while at the same time reserving capacity for customers.
Obviously, no network can be built to a capacity to accommodate all
customers and emergency agencies during disasters of the magnitude
experienced on September 11. However, we want to ensure that the
facilities we do have are used in the most efficient and effective
manner possible. We think that the wireless Priority Access Plan
currently being discussed goes a long way toward accomplishing that
goal.
Need for Government Assistance. AWS is taking all the steps it can
in preparing the company to respond to disasters--both natural and
manmade--that affect the ability of U.S. citizens to communicate. We
believe that the procedures we are establishing today will make us
better able to coordinate across all functions of the company in order
to patch holes blown in our network as well as respond to customer and
government problems quickly. There are a number of issues beyond our
control, however, that, if not addressed, have the potential to make
these efforts significantly less effective. Accordingly, we are asking
Congress and federal agencies to help ensure that wireless carriers are
able to obtain access to disaster sites, have sufficient spectrum to
meet future consumer demands, and that they can site towers
efficiently, all of which are necessary to create the robust networks
required to withstand, and recover rapidly from, any type of disaster.
First, as indicated earlier, one of the most significant problems
we faced in attempting to restore service to customers and emergency
workers after September 11 was coordinating with dozens of federal,
state, and local agencies and offices to bring necessary equipment to
the affected areas, to obtain permits to site those temporary
facilities, and to ensure that our employees had continual access to
the equipment once it was in place. One suggestion we have to ensure
smoother sailing in the future would be to empower FEMA or another
federal agency to oversee issues involving the access of essential
companies, such as telecommunications providers like AWS, to disaster
areas. Should we ever face similar circumstances (and we pray we do
not), that agency could distribute ``universal'' badges, which the
companies could then hand out to their employees as necessary.
Second, the primary constraint on the development of a
comprehensive wireless market is the lack of adequate spectrum. AWS is
in the enviable position of having enough spectrum to provide the
services our customers demand for the first part of this decade. As we
begin to roll out advanced technologies on a wider scale, however, we
will require additional bandwidth to provide the types of services our
subscribers tell us they want and at the same time be able to assist
public safety agencies with their needs. The government's primary role
in the development of voice and broadband wireless networks--one which
only it can fulfill--is to ensure that spectrum that meets the
technical and practical needs of carriers is available. Additional
bandwidth is absolutely essential if the wireless industry is to be
able to meet future consumer needs, much less respond to such needs
during times of disasters.
Much of the globally harmonized spectrum that AWS and other
wireless carriers need is woefully underutilized by existing licensees
in those bands today. Unfortunately, however, the process for
reallocating such spectrum is moving slowly and unevenly. The Federal
Communications Commission has declined to make certain fixed wireless
bands available to existing mobile operators and, despite the failure
of the mobile satellite service (``MSS'') industry to use even a
fraction of the spectrum currently allocated to it, it continues to ask
the agency to license more MSS operators. It also remains unclear if or
when additional spectrum used by the Department of Defense and other
federal agencies could be freed up for commercial use.
In this time of bandwidth scarcity, it is unreasonable to let
spectrum lie fallow. There are dozens of wireless carriers today that
would willingly spend billions of dollars for the spectrum held--but
barely used--by some current satellite and broadcast licensees and
government agencies, and would construct the networks and serve
customers immediately. If 9-11 shows anything, it is that the wireless
infrastructure is no longer a luxury service or merely a backup network
to the facilities other carriers have in the ground and strung on
poles. Rather, it is a vital, robust, and primary means of
communication everyday, and especially in times of crisis. Accordingly,
AWS respectfully requests that Congress to do everything within its
power to ensure that spectrum is distributed in a manner that permits
the wireless industry to grow and to create the strong networks the
country needs.
Finally, while insufficient spectrum remains one of the greatest
barriers to wireless deployment, the inability of wireless carriers to
site the towers and other facilities they need to provide such service
without unreasonable delay or expense also remains a huge obstacle.
Although Congress has directed federal agencies to make federal
property available for wireless telecommunications siting, the agencies
often delay approval of applications for unreasonable periods of time
or attempt to collect excessive fees for the use of federal lands.
Similarly, localities regularly ignore Congress's admonition that they
not use their zoning authority to prohibit the provision of wireless
service. It can sometimes take years to site a tower and the costs of
zoning hearings and litigation are often enormous. These delays and
expenses not only affect the quality of service for consumers today,
they reduce AWS's ability to deploy the redundant facilities needed to
respond to the loss of cell sites in disasters.
Although Congress has made it clear to federal, state, and local
agencies that they should not stand in the way of wireless deployment,
apparently the message needs to be stronger. Accordingly, AWS urges
Congress to set explicit guidelines for the amount of time an agency
can take to respond to a siting request and for holding hearings on
that request. In addition, we ask Congress to ensure that the fees the
agency charges for use of the government property are truly just and
reasonable.
Misleading public safety ``solutions.'' Since September 11, a
number of parties have come forward with alleged ``solutions'' to the
problems faced by emergency response agencies in communicating during
crises. Not surprisingly, each of these plans requires the government
to bestow upon the proposing party free and exclusive spectrum without
having to go through the process of competitive bidding like similarly
situated carriers. In addition--and not surprisingly again--none of
these proposals provides a real answer to public safety's
communications problems.
One recent proposal, for example, which has been presented to the
FCC by Nextel Communications Inc., purports to address interference
between public safety operations and commercial systems by swapping
various channels in the 800 MHz band. Although this plan would provide
Nextel with more desirable contiguous spectrum--including an entirely
gratuitous 10 MHz of MSS spectrum--it does not completely resolve any
interference issues because public safety radios would still need to be
redesigned to filter out interfering signals. More significantly,
however, Nextel's proposal would leave hundreds of private radio
licensees out in the cold--either paying to relocate their operations
to bands with poorer propagation characteristics or lack of available
equipment, or operating on a secondary basis to public safety systems.
As even the public safety community recognizes, private radio operators
provide crucial telecommunications capabilities to gas, electric,
water, and other utility companies, which work side by side with
emergency response teams during disasters. It makes no sense to curtail
utilities' ability to communicate, or require them to expend
substantial sums to relocate, to remedy isolated instances of
interference that can largely be resolved by better design of public
safety radios and the cooperation of affected CMRS providers.
Similarly, certain MSS licensees are now attempting to convince the
FCC that their satellite systems are capable of enhancing public
safety, homeland defense, emergency service, and military systems in
rural areas . . . but . . . only if the agency allows them to use the
satellite spectrum they received for free to compete as terrestrial
wireless providers in urban markets. It is not at all clear why these
licensees think they will have any more success in sustaining a rural-
only satellite business (and thereby promoting public safety in rural
areas) than they have had thus far, when virtually all customers and
revenue would come from their (entirely separate) urban terrestrial
operations. It is clear, however, that these licensees expect to use
the ORBIT Act, which precludes the auctioning of satellite spectrum, as
a means to use their free spectrum to fulfill their terrestrial
aspirations. In other words, MSS licensees plan to use free spectrum to
compete against companies that paid billions of dollars for their
licenses. Rather than permit spectrum allocation and auction decisions
to be based on dubious, at best, public safety promises, AWS urges
Congress to clarify that the ORBIT Act may not be expanded beyond all
semblance of its original meaning.
______
September 11 taxed resources of all telecommunications carriers in
the United States far beyond what we had ever expected or planned for.
Nevertheless, we are proud to say that AWS's established procedures,
robust facilities, and dedicated employees allowed it keep its network
up and running and to restore impaired service in record time. They
also allowed us to devote resources directly to the emergency rescue
and recovery efforts underway in New York and Washington, D.C.
Today, based on the lessons learned from 9-11, we have begun to
take the steps necessary to ensure that our network--and service to
customers and emergency personnel--remain safeguarded in the event of
almost any disaster. Many of these activities are internal to AWS or
involve coordination and cooperation between the wireless and public
safety communities. The intervention of Congress, however, is
absolutely critical to our ability to obtain the spectrum and site the
redundant tower and transmission facilities that are needed to create
truly robust wireless networks. We hope that we can count on you for
this help.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much, Ms. Harris.
Now may I call upon Ms. Herda.
STATEMENT OF LARISSA HERDA, CHAIRMAN, CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND PRESIDENT, TIME WARNER TELECOM
Ms. Herda. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Members
of the Subcommittee: My name is Larissa Herda. I am Chairman,
CEO, and President of Time Warner Telecom, and I want to thank
you for the opportunity to talk to you today about what can be
done to enhance the reliability and robustness of the Nation's
communications network.
Before I tell you who we are, I would first like to tell
you who we are not. We are not Time Warner Cable, we are not
AOL, nor are we a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner. We have
nothing to do with movies, entertainment, Bugs Bunnie, or
Roadrunner. AOL Time Warner is a large shareholder, but they do
not provide funding to our company and they do not manage our
business. We are a separately managed, separately publicly
traded company.
Time Warner Telecom is actually one of the few viable
companies that are competitive local providers providing
telecommunications services over our own fiber networks in a
local metro area. Today we provide service in 44 markets across
the country serving 21 States.
In my testimony today, I will provide a brief summary of
our experience during the September 11th attack. I will also
explain how the existence, design, and operation of our network
provides essential disaster prevention and recovery solutions
to the public and the private sector business customers. I will
offer my recommendations as to the types of public policy
decisions that will ensure that Americans have access to a
robust and reliable communications network.
The terrorist attack on September 11th not only reinforced
how essential communications are in a time of crisis, but it
also raised important questions about the capabilities and
durability of our Nation's telecommunications infrastructure. A
halt in communications would cripple many elements of everyday
life. Time Warner Telecom was instrumental in restoring
communications service to the public and private sector after
the 9-11 attack. Our network fortunately was only minimally
damaged during the attack. Because of our significant fiber
investment and the redundancy and diversity that we built into
our network, none of our customers that were riding exclusively
on our fiber network were affected. Nobody lost service.
Unfortunately, as Mr. Cangemi indicated earlier, New York
City Hall did lose phone service following the attacks and,
although we were not serving them at the time--we did not
actually have fiber infrastructure into their building at the
time, my team, working day and night--as my fellow panelists
from AT&T Wireless and Verizon said, I do not think any of
these technicians ever left during that time. It was really
amazing, the amount of work that these people went through, and
my team as well. They worked day and night pulling fiber into
the building and they were able to install 300 phone lines for
city hall in less than 48 hours in, obviously, a very difficult
and dangerous environment. They had to wear respirators and
climb many stairs to do it.
Turning up this type of service, just to give you some
perspective, would normally take a minimum of, well, under
optimal situation maybe 30 to 90 days, because of the need to
acquire permits and to construct facilities in the right of way
and to gain building access. So you have to gain building
owner's permission generally to enter the buildings.
If our fiber had already been in the building, we could
have installed service within a few hours, and in fact we had
many customers who had lost service from their other providers
and we were able to turn up their services almost immediately
that day and in days following that.
Additionally, we worked with the Department of Information,
Telephone and Technology, Mr. Cangemi's organization to
identify other municipal offices that needed service restored.
I can honestly say there was a tremendous amount of cooperation
between all the carriers that were functioning in the city that
day. In such a dramatic situation, I think it was clearly
beneficial to have multiple providers in the market to be in a
position to be able to restore the critical services.
Many businesses--prior to September 11th many businesses
understood the value of building redundancy and diversity into
their communications data systems. But obviously, since
September 11th they are much more focused on that today.
The best way in our opinion to minimize disruption of
critical infrastructure is to avoid having a single point of
failure through diverse and redundant network facilities.
Customers can obtain optimally--they can obtain optimal
diversity by obtaining services from two different facilities-
based providers. By doing so, customers decrease the likelihood
of complete service outage if one of their competing carriers'
services goes down. Also, having an established relationship
with more than one carrier facilitates the replacement of
services.
Since 9-11 we have increased security at all of our
facilities, implemented more thorough disaster prevention and
recovery plans, and presented a series of seminars to educate
the business community on the value and process of building
redundancies into their communications systems. But most
importantly, we have always constructed our network in a manner
designed to eliminate single points of failure.
To illustrate this, you all should have a diagram of our
network here that will explain our network architecture. On
this diagram there are four squares in each of the corners of
the page that represent our central offices. This one is
specific to Manhattan, but our networks pretty much look like
this in every city that we go into. You can see the fiber
distribution rings coming out from each of the central offices.
There are distribution rings to serve customers, to serve
carriers, to connect up to the local exchange offices. Then
there is a big ring, a big backbone ring that connects up all
of these offices as well.
If there is a fiber cut in any of these locations, services
are automatically rerouted within 50 milliseconds, which is
essentially faster than the blink of an eye, and customers do
not experience an outage. In fact, between the two bottom
central offices, 60 Hudson and 23rd Street, we did have a fiber
cut on September 11th. However, none of our customers lost
service because the technology kicked in, the diversity worked,
and we are obviously very thankful for that.
The ability to access more than one facilities-based
carrier is the best way to minimize disruption to critical
infrastructure and reduce down time and loss of major business
functions in the event that there is a service disruption that
cannot be avoided.
Government can help ensure that public and private sectors
have access to these services by reducing the barriers to
construction that currently exist. Many customers want network
diversity, but too often we are not able to meet that demand
because we cannot get permits that we need to access the right
of way from the municipalities or we cannot get the building
owners to give us permission to enter the buildings in a timely
and cost effective manner.
These two barriers of construction are a problem for us
because they limit our ability to grow our business. But they
also restrict access to the public good and deny businesses the
ability to purchase critical services from their provider of
choice.
While I encourage you to address these general issues in
the marketplace, there are some things that the government can
do very easily today to help us address some of the issues.
Number one, they can require that the Federal Government--that
they need to obtain service from at least two different
facilities-based providers in each of their buildings whenever
that is possible. Number two, only enter into lease agreements
with landlords that will allow other telecommunications
providers into the building that are either selected by the
Federal Government or any other tenant in the building and to
allow them to have physical access into the building promptly
and at fair rates on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms. It
is my understanding that these conditions can be added through
the Federal telecommunications procurement process and that can
be done now by issuance of an executive order.
In conclusion, the need for diversity highlights the
important benefits of a competitive telecommunications market.
There is no question that the telecom industry has been
affected by the downturn of the economy, but the need for
competition is more important now than really ever before.
Businesses and government offices need access to diverse
networks. They need quality services at affordable prices,
policies that promote competition are critical, and strict
enforcement of the 1996 Act remains the most important tool
that the government has to encourage the competition.
Setting aside the other advantages of competition, the
attacks of September 11th and the demonstrated support by the
competitive telecom entrants such as Time Warner Telecom and
the ability of all the carriers that were involved, including
obviously the tremendous job done by the incumbent in restoring
those critical services, proves the strategic value of
competitive fiber facilities-based providers.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify before
you today and I am happy to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Herda follows:]
Prepared Statement of Larissa Herda, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer
and President, Time Warner Telecom
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
On behalf of Time Warner Telecom Inc. I would like to thank the
committee for the opportunity to talk to you today about the impact the
September 11th disaster had on the nation's communications
infrastructure. My name is Larissa Herda and I am the Chairman,
President and CEO of Time Warner Telecom (``TWTC''), which has grown to
be one of the largest new competitive entities in the
telecommunications industry. We exist today because of the pro-
competitive policies adopted in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. We
are unique in a number of respects.
TWTC builds its own local and regional fiber optic networks and
delivers ``last-mile'' broadband data, dedicated Internet access, and
voice services to small, medium and large businesses. We provide
service to a diverse customer base across the country. The Company
currently serves business customers in 44 U.S. metropolitan areas.
Since the passage of the 96 Act, we have invested more than $2.0
billion in building a network infrastructure and have created over
2,500 high-tech jobs nationwide.
The terrorist attacks on September 11 not only reinforced how
essential communications is in times of crisis, but also raised
important questions about the capabilities and durability of our
nation's telecommunications infrastructure. As executives and
governments across the world now attempt to anticipate and prevent
similar disasters, the imperative of a sound and resilient
communications infrastructure has moved to the forefront of national
consciousness, as a halt in communications would bring to a standstill
airlines, the stock exchange, banks, television, radio to name just a
few elements of everyday life.
In my testimony today I will provide a brief summary of TWTC's
experience following the September 11th attack, explain how the of the
existence, design and operation of our network provides essential
disaster prevention and recovery solutions to public and private sector
business customers and offer my recommendations as to the types of
public policy decisions that will ensure that Americans have access to
a robust and reliable communications network.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 New York City
Time Warner Telecom was instrumental in restoring communications
service to the public and private sector after the 9.11 attack. Our
network, fortunately, was only minimally damaged by the attack. Because
of our significant fiber investment, and the redundancy and diversity
that we built into our network, none of the customers that were
exclusively on our network lost service. Unfortunately, New York's City
Hall did lose its phone service following the attacks. Although TWTC
was not providing service to the city building at the time, my team,
working day and night pulling fiber into their building, was able to
install 300 phone lines for City Hall in less than 48 hours--in a
difficult and dangerous environment I might add. This type of service
would normally take a minimum of 21 days to install because of the need
to acquire permits to construct facilities in the right of way and gain
the building owners permission to enter the building. (If our fiber was
already into this building, we could have installed service within a
few hours.)
Additionally, we participated in regular meetings with the city's
Department of Information, Telephone and Technology (DOITT) to identify
other municipal offices that needed service restored. With the
cooperation of the incumbent telephone company and other telecom
providers, the industry was able to identify which companies had
network in place and restored service where it was needed. Although the
incumbent telephone company was working valiantly to restore service,
in such a dramatic situation it was clearly beneficial to have multiple
providers in the market to restore critical services.
Disaster Recovery Requires Both Prevention and Recovery
Many businesses understood the value of building redundancy into
their communications and data systems prior to 9.11, but many more are
focused on it today. The best way to minimize disruption to critical
infrastructure is to avoid having a single point of failure through
diverse and redundant network facilities.
Customers can obtain diversity primarily by obtaining services from
two different facilities-based carriers. By doing so, customers
decrease the likelihood of a complete service outage if one of their
competing carriers' service goes down. Also, having an established
relationship with more than one carrier facilitates the replacement of
services.
The Time Warner Telecom Network
We have constructed our network in a manner designed to eliminate
single points of failure. For example, in NYC we have switches in two
locations--one on 61st street and one on 23rd. We build our network in
a ring topology that provide a diverse and redundant electronics in
order to reduce the likelihood that service will be lost in the event
of a failure in any part of the network. I'd like to take a moment to
explain our network architecture.
Since 9.11, we have increased security at all our facilities,
implemented more thorough disaster prevention and recovery plans, and
presented a series of seminars to educate the business community of the
value and process of building redundancies into their communications
systems. For illustrative purposes, I have provided the committee with
the materials used for some of these seminars.
Policies That Promote Facilities-Based Competition Give Customers
Access To a Critical Tool Needed To Plan Against a Single Point
of Failure
Businesses must have access to more than one facilities-based
carrier. This access is essential to minimize disruptions to critical
infrastructure and to reduce downtime and loss of major business
functions in the event a disruption cannot be avoided. Government can
ensure the public and private sectors have access to these services by
reducing the barriers to construction that currently exist.
Barriers To Construction
In order to recognize the goal of true facilities-based
competition, companies must physically construct their own fiber
network. There is incredible demand for these services in the
marketplace. But too often we are not able to meet that demand because
we can't get the permits we need to access the right of way or we can't
the building owners permission to enter a building in a timely and
cost-effective manner. These two barriers to construction--the failure
of building owners to open their buildings to competitors and the
failure of municipalities to approve construction permits under
reasonable terms, quickly and on a competitively neutral basis are a
problem for me because they limit my ability to grow my business. But
they also restrict access to a public good and deny businesses the
ability to purchase critical services from providers of their choice.
Building Access
In order to serve customers with our own facilities, we need to
take our fiber directly into the customer's buildings. In order to do
this we must obtain access into the buildings in which are customers
are tenants. In the initial aftermath of 9.11 we found building owners
in NYC much more cooperative in providing access to their buildings.
Unfortunately, we are now seeing them return to the practice of
delaying this access and imposing unreasonable costs on the price of
access. How soon they have forgotten the lessons of 9.11. While I
encourage you to address the building access issue for the entire
marketplace, there is something that government can do easily today.
First, the federal government should be required to purchase local
telecommunications services from at least two providers with distinct
network facilities in each market where choice is available. Present
law permits, but does not require, purchases from two or more vendors.
This requirement is necessary to ensure that federal agencies have
telecommunications services that are diverse and redundant. This is a
crucial element to protect the ability of the federal government to
remain in operation and communication with the public and others during
a disaster or other emergency, and to increase the stability of our
government's networks.
Diversity involves establishing physically different routes into
and out of and a building, and different equipment; so as to better
ensure continued operations in the event that one route or network is
impacted adversely by a disaster or other form of interference.
Redundancy involves having extra capacity available, generally from
more than one source, and also incorporates aspects of diversity. Not
only does redundancy entail having capacity in reserve to handle sudden
increases in demand or partial outages, but it also entails securing
service from more than one provider where practicable. The use of
multiple providers increases the probability that service will be
maintained or restored in the event of a disaster, emergency, or
carrier-specific problem, and decreases the chances that all
communications capabilities will be affected in the same way at any
given time. It ensures the availability of two distinct workforces to
serve the customer and the opportunity to try two different approaches
to solve a common or related problem.
This requirement will help the federal government to reap the
benefits of continued competition. Having multiple providers and
diverse facilities enables the federal government to increase or
decrease the use of a provider or set of facilities, thus creating
continued incentive on the part of the carriers to provide good
service, favorable pricing and continued innovation and cooperation. A
multi-vendor strategy provides valuable leverage to federal tenants.
Ensuring that multiple companies will have a greater opportunity to
provide local service and serve federal tenants is a way to promote and
advance the goals of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 while at the
same time providing a valuable benefit to the federal government in its
capacity as a purchaser of telecommunications services. This
requirement also would create an economic stimulus that would promote
telecommunications investment, competition, and jobs.
Second, where the federal government seeks to lease space from a
private landlord, absent special circumstances, the federal government
should do so only in buildings where any telecommunication provider(s)
it or any other tenant selects can have physical access to the building
promptly at fair rates and on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms.
This requirement is vital to ensure that federal lease dollars are
spent only in buildings where federal and other tenants have the right
to choose multiple facilities-based telecommunications providers in
order to secure diversity and redundancy in telecommunications services
to better ensure continued communications during a disaster or
provider-specific emergency.
Without this requirement, building access by facilities-based
telecommunications providers would be at the discretion of the current
or future building owner. Even if federal or commercial tenants chose a
single telecommunications provider, that choice could be thwarted, and
the landlord could choose a different carrier.
This requirement also is necessary to ensure that savings from the
competitive procurement of local telecommunications services by the
federal government can actually be realized--otherwise the chosen
provider(s) may not be able to obtain building access on fair and
reasonable terms.
Federal leasing dollars should not be showered on buildings that
block, impede or delay telecommunications competition and thereby harm
federal and other tenants--those dollars should be spent in a way that
allows the federal government and other tenants to reap the benefits of
the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and thus spurs the development of
network facilities.
Even before the national security implications of access to diverse
and redundant telecommunications service were highlighted, there has
been bipartisan congressional concern to secure building access for
telecommunications providers in buildings with federal tenants.
Last Congress, Senators Stevens, Hollings, Lott and Dorgan, and
Congressmen Tom Davis and Rick Boucher, introduced legislation that
would require, absent special circumstances, that federal tenants only
lease space where telecommunications carriers can have
nondiscriminatory access to them.
Congress, aware that the former Administration was considering the
issuance of an Executive Order imposing a requirement similar to the
one discussed here (the EO was drafted but never issued), adopted
language last year in the Conference Report to accompany HR 4475, an
appropriations bill, Report 106-940, noting that the conferees were
``aware that . . . potential cost savings may be jeopardized by
building access limitations for telecommunications providers.'' The
Conference Report noted the pendency of legislation on building access
and then directed the executive branch to ``identify building
telecommunications barriers and take necessary steps to ensure that
telecommunications providers are given fair and reasonable access to
provide service to Federal agencies in buildings where the Federal
government is the owner or tenant.''
President Bush, as Governor of Texas, signed landmark legislation
going well beyond the modest step urged here of requiring that federal
leasing dollars be committed only to buildings allowing facilities-
based telecommunications carriers building access on fair, reasonable
and nondiscriminatory terms so that they may serve a tenant who selects
them. The Texas law signed by Governor Bush affords any tenant the
right for a carrier with whom he, she or it contracts for service to
obtain building access promptly on reasonable and nondiscriminatory
terms. And it was implemented aggressively by the Governor's appointees
to the Texas Public Service Commission so as to deter landlords from
thwarting consumer choice.
Access To Rights of Way
Timely and cost-effective access to municipal rights of way is also
critical for the construction of alternative fiber optic networks. Too
often municipalities delay this construction by attempting to charge
unreasonable rates and impose unreasonable terms and conditions on this
access. In conjunction with other telecommunications carriers--
including long distance carriers, competitive local exchange carriers
and incumbent local exchange carriers--TWTC has called for the FCC to
intervene. The coalition has proposed the following recommended
measures to promote reasonable access to public rights-of-way:
Access to public rights-of-way should be extended to all
entities providing intrastate, interstate or international
telecommunications or telecommunications services or deploying
facilities to be used directly or indirectly in the provision
of such services (``Providers'').
Government entities should act on a request for public
rights-of-way access within a reasonable and fixed period of
time from the date that the request for such access is
submitted, or such request should be deemed approved.
Fees charged for public rights-of-way access should reflect
only the actual and direct costs incurred in managing the
public rights-of-way and the amount of public rights-of-way
actually used by the Provider. In-kind contributions for access
to public rights-of-way should not be allowed.
Consistent with the measures described herein and
competitive neutrality, all Providers should be treated
uniformly with respect to terms and conditions of access to
public rights-of-way, including with respect to the application
of cost-based fees.
Entities that do not have physical facilities in, require
access to, or actually use the public rights-of-way, such as
resellers and lessees of network elements from facilities-based
Providers, should not be subject to public rights-of-way
management practices or fees.
Rights-of-way authorizations containing terms,
qualification procedures, or other requirements unrelated to
the actual management of the public rights-of-way are
inappropriate.
Industry-based criteria should be used to guide the
development of any engineering standards involving the
placement of Provider facilities and equipment.
Waivers of the right to challenge the lawfulness of
particular governmental requirements as a condition of
receiving public rights-of-way access should be invalid.
Providers should have the right to bring existing agreements,
franchises, and permits into compliance with the law.
Providers should have a private right of action to
challenge public rights-of-way management practices and fees,
even to the extent such practices and fees do not rise to the
level of prohibiting the Provider from providing service.
The Commission should vigorously enforce existing law and
use expedited procedures for resolving preemption petitions
involving access to public rights-of-way.
About Time Warner Telecom
Company History
Time Warner Telecom began in 1993 as part of the Time Warner
Entertainment Limited Partnership. The focus of the Company was to
provide cable/phone services to residential and business customers
using hybrid fiber coax (HFC) technology. After an extensive pilot
program to test residential service, Time Warner Communications evolved
into a company that offers business phone services over fiber-optic
networks.
In 1997, the Company added voice circuit switches and began
operating as a business CLEC. In 1998, Time Warner Communications
became a separate entity from Time Warner Entertainment and began to
operate as Time Warner Telecom Inc. During 1999, TWTC became EBITDA
positive, acquired an ISP, built a national IP backbone and went
public, offering 18,000,000 shares on the NASDAQ exchange. We trade
under the symbol: TWTC. In August 2000, TWTC successfully bid, during
an open auction bankruptcy proceeding, for most of the assets of GST
Telecommunications. This allowed us to double the size of the company
and extend our operating footprint throughout the Western United
States. By end of 2001, TWTC offered telecommunications services over
its own fiber optic networks in 44 markets in 21 different states.
Ownership Structure
We are very proud to carry the Time Warner name. As I described
earlier, TWTC was initially created as division of Time Warner
Entertainment. While Time Warner Inc, now AOL Time Warner, owns 44% of
Time Warner Telecom Inc. stock, Time Warner Telecom Inc. is an
independently owned and operated company. The most important point,
from both your perspective and mine, is that we have no financial
backing from AOL Time Warner. We obtain the capital we need to do
business the same way the rest of the independent CLECs obtain theirs,
through debt and equity offerings in the financial markets and from
operating cash flow.
Company Growth
During a time when the news is full of stories on bankruptcies and
employee layoffs we are expanding our network and hiring new people. In
1996 TWTC had 500 employees, the majority of them located in the
corporate headquarters in Littleton, Colorado. Today we have
approximately 2500 employees and are providing service and employing
people in 21 states. Time Warner Telecom's growth plans focus on
geographic expansion, extension into new market segments and
development of new data and Internet-based products and services. Our
success to date is the result of building and deploying our extensive
local and regional fiber optic networks all the way to the end user's
building and providing a diverse physical alternative to the incumbent
LEC. Our expertise is in selling complex network services that
customers want and need over these networks. We execute and deliver on
a sound business plan. We provide high quality broadband service to a
diverse segment of the small, medium and large businesses in the
country. In 1996 we had already constructed 5000 route miles. Today
that has almost doubled to approximately local 9800 route miles. TWTC
has constructed more route miles than any other local competitive
carrier in the U.S. The fiber optic infrastructure we have built is
important because it allows us to continue to layer more products and
services on our network. One of the distinguishing characteristics of
our network is that we have been laying this fiber in metropolitan
areas; and the networks are large, averaging 400 route miles per city.
We're building fiber where it is needed most, the last-mile. However,
it is important that Congress recognize that the largest competitor in
all of our markets, the local ILEC, has the ability to stymie our
growth. Vigorous enforcement of the Act is the only elixir to the
poison pill of anti-competitive behavior and abuse of market power.
Service Provided
This is how we do business. In every city that Time Warner Telecom
lays fiber, the sales staff is required to prove in advance that there
is business to be had. We don't build a network just to show growth, we
build a network to provide a service that is desired. This serves our
customers and our shareholders well because it ensures our continued
viability in the marketplace. And I can assure you that there is demand
for the service we provide. In many cases we supplement the services
that the incumbent carrier provides. Often, companies will come to us
for their new business or for a specific portion of their telecom
needs. As we prove our ability to provide this service, they give us
more and more of their business.
The fiber optic networks we have built allow us to offer our
customers any technology, product or service solution. With virtually
unlimited bandwidth, we can meet the rapidly changing demands of our
customers. Our networks allow us to provide voice and data
telecommunications services to a diverse customer base including public
schools, private schools, universities, health care facilities, banks,
the high-tech community, government agencies and military
installations, law firms, public utilities, many small businesses,
Internet Service Providers, insurance companies and most interestingly
many of the telecommunications companies operating in the U.S.
Markets Served
Arizona: Phoenix, Tucson
Colorado: Denver
California: San Diego, Los Angeles/
Orange County, Santa
Barbara, San Luis Obispo,
Bakersfield, Fresno, San
Francisco, Oakland,
Sacramento
Florida: Orlando, Tampa
Hawaii: Honolulu
Georgia: Atlanta
Illinois: Chicago
Indiana: Indianapolis
Minnesota: Minneapolis
New Jersey: Northern Jersey City
New Mexico: Albuquerque
New York: Albany, Binghamton, New York
City, Rochester
North Carolina: Charlotte, Greensboro,
Raleigh, Fayetteville
Ohio: Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton
Oregon: Portland
South Carolina: Columbia
Tennessee: Memphis
Texas: Austin, Dallas, Houston, San
Antonio
Washington: Seattle, Spokane, Vancouver
Wisconsin: Milwaukee
In Conclusion
The need for diversity highlights the important benefits of a
competitive telecommunications market. There is no question that the
telecom industry has been affected by the downturn in the economy. But
the need for competition is more important now than ever. Businesses
and government offices need access to diverse networks, and they need
quality services at affordable prices. Policies that promote
competition are critical, and strict enforcement of the 96 ACT remains
the most important tool the government has to encourage competition.
Setting aside the advantages of competition, the attacks of
September 11th and the demonstrated support by competitive telecom
entrants such as Time Warner Telecom in restoring critical services,
proves the strategic value of competitive fiber facilities based
providers.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I am
happy to answer any questions.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much, Ms. Herda.
Listening to the testimony of the two panels, it is
apparent to me that the problems that existed on 9-11 are still
with us. The word ``interoperability'' is still a desired goal.
Some have mentioned training of professionals, and the unknown
factor of what is it going to cost. We have no public policy to
speak of at this moment.
So my question to all of you: Is there an agency in the
government of the United States that can serve as a lead agency
for the purposes you have articulated today?
Mr. Crotty. Mr. Chairman, I believe that I cannot speak to
interoperability of radio communications, which seems to be an
emergency preparedness thing, but certainly the Congress of the
United States and the FCC are best able to articulate policies
that talk about the three things that the telecom providers
were talking here at the table. That is for diversity and
redundancy of our networks. Encouraging facilities-based
competition can be done through pro-competitive policies and
pro-investment policies. I think that would go a long way
towards making our communications networks more robust.
Right now we have a policy which seems to favor resale.
That is not a policy that has worked too terribly well in lower
Manhattan. When our network goes and other people are riding on
that network, all the customers who are taking service from
these resale providers, they are knocked out as well.
As the President of Time Warner mentioned, and this is also
true of AT&T, which had fairly robust facilities in lower
Manhattan, as did MCI WorldCom, those providers who have scale
and scope and do have diverse networks assisted materially in
the rapid response to what happened on September 11th. I would
suggest that is something that ought to be continued by
investment policies and regulatory policies, investment
policies sponsored by Congress and regulatory policies
sponsored by the FCC.
Senator Inouye. Ms. Herda.
Ms. Herda. I would actually agree--I guess we do not do
that very often, do we, as competitors? But I actually agree
from our perspective, Congress and the FCC, for us as well the
local PUC's too in dealing with the local municipalities.
Obviously, being able to construct into the buildings is very
important. You have to get permission to do that.
On September 11th and for quite a while after that, a lot
of the standard intervals for those types of things were
obviously lifted so that we could all get in there and provide
the emergency services. Some of the things that I had
suggested--that executive order would be very helpful for
building access issues, to get permission from landlords, it
sends the right message to the rest of the real estate
community, that they need to let competitive providers into the
buildings instead of trying to make money off of those services
that are coming into the building. It would be much more
beneficial for their customers to have access to multiple
vendors.
Senator Inouye. Mr. Nash.
Mr. Nash. From the public safety standpoint, we currently
are faced with the situation that the systems are locally owned
and operated by individual police, fire, and EMS companies. A
lot of the problem relates back to the American culture of
local control, and the control over the radio system comes into
that.
Nonetheless, over the last few years we have seen a number
of efforts under way to bring together agencies to develop
consolidated plans either on a regional basis or in some cases
on a national basis. Currently within the FCC there is a
Federal advisory committee operating known as the National
Coordination Committee, looking primarily at the 700 megahertz
band, but nonetheless we are having discussions about being
able to bring together a plan for agencies to interoperate
amongst themselves.
Furthermore, at the Federal level there is an effort going
on known as the public safety wireless network, which is a
joint effort of the Department of Justice and the Department of
Treasury which again is looking at the, if you will,
proliferation of different public safety radio systems,
including at the Federal level, and what we can do to try to
bring those systems together and provide for some cooperation
and coordination between agencies as we come together in
disasters like this.
Furthermore, again at the Federal level and dealing more,
quite frankly, in the forestry conservation area, where we
every year see tremendous fires, particularly out West, with
many thousands of acres being burned down, the U.S. Forest
Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the resource
agencies have banded together and created a centralized cache
of equipment and frequencies and plans based out of Boise,
Idaho, which again we make use of at the local level.
So there are a number of different efforts going on,
perhaps not as well coordinated as they should be, but a lot of
efforts are out there going to try to bring together the
interoperability problem.
Senator Inouye. Ms. Harris.
Ms. Harris. I would agree with both my colleagues to the
left and the right of me as we look at what I think the FCC and
Congress can help with in either executive order in a number of
areas: one particularly, to make sure there is enough spectrum;
two, to make sure that, from a cell-siting perspective, that we
can get access and get it quickly. We did find that some of the
regulations and bureaucracy that was removed in order to
respond to the 9-11 crisis made it somewhat easier for us to
get our COW's placed, etcetera. But the process in general can
be cumbersome and very lengthy to get cell sites on the air. So
I think that would be very helpful as well.
Senator Inouye. Mr. McLean.
Mr. McLean. Mr. Chairman, the ComCARE Alliance believes
that it will require unprecedented coordination between State,
local, and Federal agencies. We have an opportunity with
President Bush creating an Office of Homeland Security to have
a focal point for the coordination. We have several models to
look at. When the Congress and the President adopt a national
telecommunications and technology priority, agencies across the
Federal Government and in the State and local arena work
together.
A prime example of that was in 1996 when this Committee and
the Congress and the President said, we will connect schools
and libraries to the information infrastructure, and agencies
across the Federal Government--Department of Education,
Department of Commerce, the Department of Agriculture--focused,
FCC, focused efforts to achieve that goal.
With the Office of Homeland Security, we have an
opportunity to say that we need to take emergency
communications to a twenty first century level of connectivity.
You can build on efforts, for example, that Senator Burns has
started in his own State to be able to bring the parties
together, and Senator Burns has a way of saying: check your
jurisdictions at the door; let us just come around the table
and work together and solve this problem. That is what needs to
happen in all 50 States of this Nation.
Senator Inouye. Let me yield to Senator Burns.
Mr. Crotty. Mr. Chairman, could I add one further point? As
a resident of Manhattan and I have lived and worked there
almost all my professional life, one thing you can do--there is
a story in Time Magazine this week about a ten-kiloton bomb
which was going to be planted in Manhattan. Speaking as a New
Yorker and somebody who was intimately involved in the
emergency response, I think it was terrible for the Federal
Government not to share that information with the city so that
the city could have done something about it, either creating
some kind of isolation zone or communicating in some fashion or
developing their own security arrangement.
After all, the City of New York responded to this terrible
attack pretty much on its own. By the time FEMA showed up, we
had many of the relief mechanisms already in place, up,
functioning and operating, and operating very well indeed.
So for the Federal Government to have this information and
not be able to share it with our elected authorities I thought
was a terrible commentary on the sharing of information. I
would hope that you would be able to do something about that in
the future so that information between the Federal Government
and the local government is shared on a more open basis. After
all, when you talk to the Federal Government they say the local
authorities, that we should be reporting information to them
all the time. When it comes the other way around, the Federal
Government is not very good at sharing information with local
authorities. I certainly thought that was a major, major flaw
in the Federal Government's involvement with New York City.
They should have been sharing that information.
Senator Inouye. Senator Burns.
Senator Burns. Thank you. I cannot imagine you would get
all excited about a little old bomb like that.
Mr. Crotty. Well, I am speaking now as a citizen who lives
at 60th and First Avenue. I was concerned about that, yes.
Senator Burns. I thank you for that information.
Chris McLean, of course, helped us set our summit up in
Montana and I would recommend to our colleagues that they do
something like that. We are moving forward, I think, and
coordinating our E-911 and our first responders and moving
right along, although the deployment of the technology, that is
just a little bit slower than we would like. But nonetheless, I
understand that there is also economics involved, and we will
work our way through those, too.
Mr. Nash, as I mentioned in my statement, one of the most--
well, I guess I did not even give my statement. Deployment of
E-911 and of this service, deployment of this service,
coordination between public safety and wireless operators to
ensure it results in end to end systems that quickly and
accurately locates wireless 9-1-1 calls, how would you
characterize the progress that you are making?
Mr. Nash. At the moment the progress is somewhat
disappointing. We see two sides of the problem. The carriers
are moving along, but they also are repeatedly asking for
waivers to extend the period of time they have to implement the
technology. Some of that comes down to whether or not the
solution they have selected, whether or not a vendor is able to
supply that and it works. There are a lot of arguments that
have come into it.
What concerns us from the public safety side is that their
continually returning to the Commission asking for an extension
of the time just pushes this out.
The other side of it is, from the public safety answering
points of this, there is work that we also need to do to
prepare the PSAP's to utilize this information. That requires
an infusion of money, and a lot of PSAP's at the moment are
short of cash in order to implement some of the new
technologies, the mapping systems, the personnel that might be
needed in order to implement that.
So there are really two parts to the problem. We are
working on, from APCO's standpoint, on trying to equip the
PSAP's in order to make use of this information. They need to
do some work with their legislative and governmental
organizations to acquire the funding to do it. But at the same
time, we feel it is really necessary to keep the pressure up on
the carriers, for them to be moving forward rapidly in
selecting a viable technology to implement and start putting
that in place so that we can make use of that.
It is vital information for our public safety people in
order to respond to just the day to day emergencies that come
up every day. More and more of those emergencies are being
reported via wireline telephone--or wireless telephone, and we
simply do not know where those people are to give them to help
that they deserve.
Senator Burns. I thank you for that. I think there is still
some concern in Congress about the deployment.
Ms. Herda, I was interested in--and I have run into this
before and I do not know how to approach this, because I am a
strong believer in property rights and people should be able to
do with their property and allow certain things on their
property that they deem for themselves or whatever. Your
permits for access in the buildings--sometimes the owner makes
a deal with one company and denies the access of other
companies.
Is there any merit in the Congress taking a look at those
situations in light of emergency conditions, that there should
be at least maybe two providers granted access out of how many
wants it, but nonetheless there should be two?
Ms. Herda. In light of emergency situations, you should
always have at least two. It is interesting. Property rights
issues are obviously a very sensitive issue when it comes to
trying to get access into a building. The State of Texas has
actually done a really good job in that regard in basically
mandating a nondiscriminatory access into buildings. At a
minimum what it does is it gives us a negotiating position with
the building owners.
We have never said that we needed to go into the buildings
for free, unless the local exchange carrier is in it for free.
But we have been always willing to pay with reasonable rates,
to pay for the access into the buildings and for the
distribution within the buildings. So it does not cost the
building owners any money to have us in there and in fact it
adds additional diversity, and it obviously has a tremendous
amount of value in terms of emergencies.
If the government mandated that there were at least two
competitors in a building at a minimum, without putting any
restrictions on having more in there, it would certainly go a
long way. I think that, at a minimum, if the government
mandated in their own buildings, in the buildings that the
government leases today--and there are many, many of those, and
some of them are multi-tenant buildings, too, that serve public
companies--private companies, rather, as well, that would
absolutely go a very long way to moving the real estate
community in that direction. I think that would be an excellent
idea.
Senator Burns. I want to thank this panel because not only
did they give us some idea of the challenges that they faced
during 9-11 in New York City and of course here in Washington,
D.C., and also the things that they have recommended through
their testimony on maybe some actions that the government
should consider and some answers to some questions. I
appreciate that.
I look forward to reading some other testimony that we are
going to take on this thing, Mr. Chairman. But that is
basically all the questions I have. I appreciate the
thoroughness of your testimony and your statements before this
Committee.
That is all I have. I have got a 4:30 appointment. Besides
that, if we do not let these people get out of here everybody
is going to be asleep out there. Have you noticed folks nodding
off?
Senator Inouye. Well, I am going to keep the record open
for 3 weeks just in case you have any additional statements you
would like to submit.
I would also like to advise my Committee as to whether they
would like to submit questions to you. I regret that they were
not here, but, as I pointed out earlier, there are two events
that made this not possible. But I wish to join my colleague in
thanking all of you for your testimony. For a moment I thought
I saw the dark shadow of Tauzin-Dingell over us.
Mr. Crotty. We were told to stay away from it.
[Laughter.]
Senator Inouye. But it is good to see competitors sitting
together in one panel and talking to each other.
So with that, this will not be the first and last hearing
on this matter, I can assure you, because I for one am still
not convinced that we are ready for another big one, and it may
happen. I hope not.
So with that I thank you all very much.
[Whereupon, at 4:37 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]