Communicating during emergencies: toward interoperability and effective information management.

• Author: Weiser, Philip J.

1. INTRODUCTION II. BACKGROUND III. TOWARD A NEW ARCHITECTURE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY AGENCIES A. The Importance of a Modular Architecture B. The Opportunities From an Integrated Communications Architecture Built Around Internet Protocol Technology C. Cognitive Radio Technology D. Broadband E. Information Accessible Through Rights Management IV. A FRAMEWORK FOR LEADERSHIP A. The Federal Government B. Empowering State Leadership V. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION

   The crisis of communications on 9/11 and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina underscores that emergency responders are largely ill-equipped to communicate effectively in times of disaster as well as in day-to-day emergency situations that require the coordination of several different public safety agencies. The reason for this state of affairs is that public safety agencies traditionally have made individualized decisions about information and communications technology, (1) generally failing to purchase state-of-the-art technology that operates effectively and interoperates with others involved in emergency response. Thus, even in today's Internet-connected world, public safety agencies continue to rely on single-purpose technologies that do not provide economies of scale, network flexibility, or the broader functionalities routinely used by the military and private sector enterprises.

   Unfortunately, the failings among public safety communications systems on 9/11 and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina were entirely predictable and avoidable. After all, "[d]espite numerous after-action reports, public safety services have yet to make significant progress in comprehensively addressing interoperability." (2) Part of this failing can be explained by the traditional reluctance of public safety communications managers to invest in new technologies; in many cases, such managers claim that only traditional land mobile radio ("LMR") services designed specifically for their use can meet their needs. (3) Thus, until public safety agencies are willing to embrace technologies other than their traditional LMRs, they will continue to possess limited communications capabilities and perpetuate the failings of our current system.

   To change the culture and realities of public safety communications, policymakers must develop a new architecture for the use of information and communications technologies (i.e., one that leverages the power of Internet technology) and provide a framework for leadership (subject to benchmarking) to transition to a next generation system for public safety communications. Such a culture change would include not only an embrace of new technologies, but a new framework for technology leadership--at the state or regional level--that spurs decision making in a coordinated fashion (and not through ad hoc decisions by over 50,000 different local agencies). In short, this Article explains which new technologies can transform public safety communications and which intergovernmental relations strategy will be necessary to facilitate the implementation of such technologies.

   This Article proceeds in five parts. After this Introduction in Part I, Part II outlines the current state of public safety communications. Part III discusses five technological developments--multimode radio systems; Internet Protocol-based architectures; cognitive radio technology; broadband wireless systems; and distributed information management--that can, taken together, dramatically improve the state of public safety communications. Part IV discusses the optimal intergovernmental strategy for developing and implementing such new technologies. Part V offers a short conclusion.

2. BACKGROUND

   The state of information and communications management among today's emergency responders reflects a technological architecture that, in most cases, was designed and implemented based on (at best) 1980s technology. Consequently, for most emergency responders (ranging from police departments to fire departments to public health officials), their limited use of advanced information and communications technology largely reflects the fact that each agency has traditionally purchased special-purpose equipment designed for their particular needs. These needs, as traditionally understood, constituted merely the ability to talk to one another, with limited interest in interoperability, broadband connectivity, or adaptability to new technology. (4)

   The traditional public safety mindset about information and communications technology focuses on the value of a radio link that provides each agency with a single channel for analog voice communications with their staff in the field. Consequently, as late as 1995, "most public safety radio systems remain[ed] based on 50-year old spectrum technology--i.e., single-channel, 15 kHz bandwidth analog FM radio--which has been superseded in many services by more efficient technology." (5) Over the last ten years, and particularly over the last five years (i.e., since 9/11), there is an increased awareness about the limits of such a system both in terms of its capabilities and its lack of interoperability with other systems. To address these limits, an oft-prescribed cure is to develop "centralized trunked radio systems" that pool spectrum licensed to particular agencies and authorize two-way radio communications on an "as needed" basis, (6) thereby providing greater spectrum efficiency and interoperability between the different participating agencies. (7) Notably, such systems are far more efficient than their traditional counterparts because "[f]ar fewer channels are needed to serve multiple agencies if those channels are shared by all agencies, or equivalently, the same number of channels can support far more mobile users when channels are shared among agencies." (8)

   To date, a number of jurisdictions have improved spectrum efficiency and interoperability by instituting systems of shared "digital trunked systems." Notably, the Alaska Land Mobile Radio ("ALMR") system provides an impressive example of how such a system can greatly improve public safety communications; in particular, the ALMR enables federal, state, and local governments to share frequencies. (9) In this arrangement, which is the first statewide sharing agreement of its kind, federal and state agencies pool their spectrum with the high-band VHF channels used for communications from mobile units and the state spectrum used for fixed infrastructure transmissions. (10) By so doing, the ALMR system operates more efficiently than conventional systems, allowing all of the relevant agencies "to use fewer channels to provide the same communications capability." (11) Moreover, the ALMR system has received "rave reviews" following a 2005 exercise where federal agencies (such as FEMA) worked in partnership with their local counterparts. (12)

   To understand the traditional public safety mindset, one must appreciate that, in many cases, police officers value their radios more than their guns. Local LMR systems thus constitute a vital tool that police departments, for example, will often insist on controlling and operating themselves. Viewed from this perspective, it is understandable how even a single channel system dedicated to the police department may seem preferable to a multichannel, trunked system that is shared between different agencies and not controlled by the police department. In principle, trunked systems shared between different agencies should operate as or more effectively than traditional systems, but some departments have yet to adopt such systems, either based on a lack of funding, ineffective coordination, or a fear of the unknown. Whatever the reason for the challenges in promoting trunked radio systems that facilitate interoperability, it is important to appreciate--as Part III emphasizes--that such systems only solve interoperability issues to a limited degree (i.e., they generally leave some relevant agencies unconnected to the particular system (13)) and fail to address the larger and more systematic weaknesses of public safety communications systems.

   As a result of the traditional resistance to new technologies, public safety agencies generally have used (even in the trunked system model) specialized blocks of spectrum that are paired with single-purpose radio infrastructure. In practice, this means that public safety agencies are limited to narrowband channels and do not benefit from the economies of scale garnered by commercial, off-the-shelf systems. To justify this practice, public safety agencies insist that only this model of communications can meet their needs. Relatedly, they often reject the suggestion that commercial providers could meet any of their communications needs, highlighting that their requirements are more demanding and could not be met by commercial providers.

   Almost all observers agree that trunked radio systems improve upon the traditional model of public safety communications and that the relevant technology is well established (and has been for nearly twenty years). (14) Compared to the opportunities to improve public safety communications based on emerging technologies, the relative benefits of this upgrade are relatively minor. Consequently, unless the culture around public safety communications changes, the improvements related to the Internet Protocol revolution will not be adopted by public safety agencies, and they will continue to exist in their own state of technological isolation. Or, to use Thomas Hazlett's more colorful language, "[e]mergency radio services need to exit their government technology ghetto and get onboard advanced networks--as smart customers, not Soviet-style suppliers." (15)

   As they currently exist, public safety communications systems are a case study of how not to develop an IT enterprise. First, the current model--centered on expensive single-purpose radio systems--ensures that most agencies adopt an architecture that does not...