Communications Interoperability: A View From The Field
Testimony by Tim BradleyNational Volunteer Fire Council
Before the House Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Introduction
Chairman Reichert, Ranking Member Pascrell, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, my name is Tim Bradley, and I am Senior Deputy State Fire Marshal over the Office of State Fire Marshal in North Carolina, as well as volunteer Assistant Chief of the Mebane Fire Department and a member of the National Volunteer Fire Council, who I am representing here today. Thank you for the opportunity to provide you with my perspective on the issue of interoperability in communications.
In North Carolina the responsibilities of State Fire Marshal are with the Insurance Commissioner. The North Carolina Office of State Fire Marshal employs 106 individuals who coordinate building and fire codes; conduct building plan review; building code interpretations; as well as fire and rescue training; professional qualifications and certifications of first responders; and inspection of fire departments and fire incident reporting. We also work closely with our states emergency management office and serve as the coordinating agency for fire and rescue personnel and equipment during disasters. We work closely with 1289 fire departments, of which 967 are volunteer, 245 a combination of career and volunteer, and 77 career.
In my position I serve as State Fire Training Director and work closely with the National Fire Academy, International Fire Service Accreditation Congress, and other state training offices.
On a local level, I serve as volunteer Assistant Chief of a combination department that serves a community of 10,000 in a suburban and rural setting, and deals with two different County communication centers. I am a certified firefighter, Officer, Instructor, Fire/Arson Investigator, Rescue Technician, and Life Safety Educator. I have been a volunteer firefighter for 32 years.
I also serve as an elected member of the City Council of our small community.
Interoperability Overview
Interoperability is a critical issue for the emergency services and affects metropolitan, urban, and rural settings. It has received varying levels of attention depending on which region of the country you live in. Interoperability became a catchword after 9/11, and again since Hurricane Katrina. However, interoperability isn't just about responding to terrorist attacks or natural disasters. Truly interoperable communications allow emergency responders to better coordinate their response to all types and all sizes of events.
Interoperability is also not just about technology and equipment. While my testimony focuses on communication, enhancing coordination is the ultimate goal and it can only be reached if the various parties responding to an event know not only what the others are saying, but what they mean. For example, in Indiana, a tanker is a truck full of water, while in California it is an airplane full of fire-retardant agents. Outside of interoperable communications, some of the necessities for enhancing coordination are:
* common incident management systems and terminology
* common policy and procedures
* standardized training
* compatible equipment
State and Local Perspective
North Carolina is working diligently on a state-wide communication system called VIPER, or Voice Interoperability Plan for Emergency Responders. This system will be available to all public agencies and is targeted to be completed by 2010. This does not mean all public agencies will all use it, and many will not due to costs of updating their existing equipment. Interoperable communications was identified in the NC General Assembly's Criminal Justice Information Network report of 1995 as a critical need for public safety agencies when responding to emergencies. It is estimated that there are over 75,000 individual radios in use in NC by first responders, yet county to county, discipline to discipline, it is extremely fragmented. I'm sure it mirrors the national trend.
It is estimated that State and local agencies in North Carolina, prior to the coordinated effort of VIPER, had already invested over $270 million in 800 MHZ technology, much of which would not be easily compatible with VIPER, even though VIPER is 800 MHZ. Hence the need for guidance and standardization. If you extrapolate that out on a national level, it would be astounding. If every state in the country had spent as much per capita as North Carolina on this technology, it would come out to a national bill of almost $10 billion.
Public safety officials in North Carolina should be able to communicate directly with other public safety officials without having to relay the message through a communications center. If put in place, VIPER interoperable communications would benefit all public safety agencies when dealing with daily emergency calls or large scale disasters. This will make fire, rescue, and law enforcement agencies better able to serve the citizens of North Carolina. The problem with the VIPER system is that most local governments are not taking advantage of it due to cost. It actually may become just another variable in a myriad of systems.
Federal Perspective
The overarching National Preparedness Goal for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is "to engage Federal, State, local, and tribal entities, their private and non-governmental partners, and the general public to achieve and sustain risk-based target levels of capability to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from major events in order to minimize the impact on lives, property, and the economy." When DHS established the goal in March 2005, one of the seven National Priorities identified as being critical to achieving success was strengthening interoperable communications capabilities.
SAFECOM
The creation of VIPER in North Carolina was followed very closely by the establishment of the SAFECOM program. SAFECOM is self-described as, "…a communications program within the Office for Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC) that provides research, development, testing and evaluation, guidance and assistance for local, tribal, state, and federal public safety agencies working to improve public safety response through more effective and efficient interoperable wireless communications."
OIC and the Department of Justice's CommTech program partnered to formulate the first ever Statement of Requirements (SoR) for public safety communications and interoperability. SAFECOM released the SoR in April 2004. The SoR provides the Nation's 50,000 public safety agencies with a document defining future communications requirements for both voice and data communications.
The foundation of the SAFECOM Program and the driving force behind it has been the support of the local and state public safety practitioners. As a practitioner-driven program, SAFECOM is a program designed by public safety creating interoperability solutions that are driven from the bottom-up.
Access to Radio Spectrum in the 700 MHz Band
As I'm sure the Committee is aware, legislation was recently enacted that establishes February 17, 2009 as the date when parts of the 700 MHz band of radio spectrum, currently being used to transmit television signals, will be made available to first responders for communications. NVFC worked alongside other first responder groups for years to get a hard date set for the transition to take place. Many of our biggest supporters on this issue are members of this Committee and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your leadership.
Now that we know when the spectrum will be available our focus turns to how it will be utilized. My understanding is that $1 billion in proceeds from future sales of radio spectrum have been earmarked to assist public safety agencies in acquiring, deploying, or training for the use of interoperable communications. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the eventual cost of creating a truly national system of communications interoperability, but it is an excellent start. While that funding is currently slated to be administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) at the Department of Commerce instead of DHS, I think that it is worth mentioning in any conversation about interoperable communications and because it demonstrates the tremendous cost implicit in transitioning thousands of fire departments' communications systems.
Cost is a concern for all fire departments, but it is particularly acute for thousands of volunteer departments. As noted in A Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service, a 2002 study published by the National Fire Protection Association in conjunction with FEMA and the US Fire Administration, many volunteer departments depend on private fund raising to pay for operating expenses. Also, it is not uncommon for a volunteer department to rely on used equipment to save money. It is unlikely that fire departments that are already stretching their budgets just to remain operable would be able or inclined to invest a large amount of money to become interoperable.
Challenges
You cannot make fire departments nationwide interoperable until we make them operable, meaning having local communication systems that meet their needs.
Most fire departments have learned to cope with their current communications problems internally, but when they respond outside their jurisdictions on mutual aid, either within the region or outside of it, multiple problems exist. If one county has strict use of 800 MHz systems, but does not use the low band and responds mutual aid to another county in the State that does, problems are encountered immediately.
Effective communication is based upon funding availability and system structure design within local areas. Many metro counties and systems seem to be ahead of the communication curve versus the rural areas and their systems. In fact, the advancement of technology has, in some cases, actually made the disparity between systems even greater. This is particularly disconcerting when you consider that rural areas, which are primarily protected by volunteer departments, contain the vast majority of our highway system, traveled by hundreds of millions each year.
Recommendations
The federal government needs to get serious about implementing national communications interoperability. There have been many positive steps in recent years, but if improving interoperable communications capabilities really is one of seven National Priorities critical to achieving the DHS' National Preparedness Goal there needs to be stronger federal coordination. OIC, which houses SAFECOM, is part of the Office of Systems Engineering and Development, which is under the Science and Technology Directorate at DHS. Interoperability needs a higher profile than this within DHS and in the federal government in general.
As I mentioned earlier, NTIA has been tasked with facilitating the transition of radio spectrum in the 700 MHz band to first responders and administering the $1 billion currently set aside for that purpose. DHS would be a logical candidate to administer this program because of its past work through SAFECOM and OIC and its experience dealing with first responders and first responder grants, which NTIA lacks. NVFC would prefer to see responsibility for administering this program shifted to DHS. At the very least, NTIA should follow SAFECOM grant guidance.
The federal government should continue to promote the use of SAFECOM's Statement of Requirements for interoperability, mandating it to receive federal grants for communication equipment within states. Grants for communication equipment should be granted based on regional standardization, so that grant recipients purchasing communication equipments don't become stand alone agencies.
Nationally, we should consider the establishment of standards for communication interoperability instead of simply providing recommendations, so that when funds are expended for communication equipment by local government, it meets interoperability needs. Promotion of the National Incident Management System and the training and use requirements are a model of the attention given when programs are mandated rather than recommended. Do away with the ability of manufacturers to do their own thing in providing public communications and require APCO's Project 25 compliance when government agencies purchase equipment except, consistent with SAFECOM grant guidance, when a public safety agency cannot afford to do so.
We must provide State fire training agencies with funds and programs to train first responders, not only in communications, but in all areas of interoperability. Awareness often drives technology on the local level, and state training routinely gets left out when grants are awarded. Without a common training and standardization platform, any advances in technology or expenditures for equipment will be confusing, and counter productive.
There must be a concerted effort to educate local and state government officials on the needs of first responders regarding interoperability. Local officials must be made aware of the impact of poor communications, not only during disasters, but during routine emergency operations. Interoperability will never occur with first responder awareness alone. Local government officials who control budgets must be convinced.
We need to reach out and explore how similar organizations accomplish command and control communications. These may include the military, UPS, Fed Ex or other agencies who manage large sums of information constantly. During disasters, FEMA must have a task group that immediately establishes communication mechanisms region wide to allow all incoming responders to be interoperable. This will be much easier if the local region has standardized protocols and equipment parameters.
Conclusion
I believe we have an opportunity to blend improvements in technology with needs of interoperability. The critical issue is that we must move rapidly to prevent that same technology from becoming another stumbling block.
It has been an honor and privilege to speak with you, I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.
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