Subject: [NEXTEL-1] PRIORITY ACCESS SERVICE NOT ACCEPTABLE FOR CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 19:14:07 -0500

PRIORITY ACCESS SERVICE NOT ACCEPTABLE FOR CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Thu Jan 23, 2:34 PM ET

Washington, DC, Jan. 23, 2003 (featureXpress) -- The United Telecom
Council (UTC) disagrees with parties touting priority access service (PAS)
as the solution for interoperable emergency communications. In keeping
with its purpose to help increase the awareness of the communication
needs of critical infrastructure, UTC warns all parties involved in
interoperability efforts that wireless PAS will be largely useless in providing
communications during serious emergencies.

"Power industry personnel - and traditional
public safety agencies -- need communications
most when power is out, and thus, commercial
wireless systems are down", said UTC
President/CEO Bill Moroney. "'Priority' doesn't
mean a thing if the system isn't working."

Approved by the Federal Communications
Commission (news - web sites) in March 2002
for use in New York City and Washington, DC,
PAS gives first responders priority access to
cell sites during emergencies. Other groups
have lower levels of priority based on an FCC
(news - web sites) five-tiered system. However,
UTC and its members are increasingly
concerned by federal officials' apparent reliance
on commercial wireless to meet
non-commercial emergency needs. This week,
the National Communications System
announced a contract awarded to T-Mobile to
provide nationwide wireless PAS, starting with
15 major markets.

"PAS is being pushed as 'the' solution, but priority access on commercial
wireless systems is not appropriate to meet the emergency
communications needs of critical infrastructure, and public safety agencies
shouldn't consider it an answer, either," said Jill Lyon, UTC Vice President
and General Counsel. "PAS may be one step, but emergency responders in
this country can't save lives and restore basic services using
communications systems that simply don't measure up."

Private wireless users in industries across the country, including critical
infrastructure (CI), rely on their internally owned and operated systems to
meet critical communications needs. CI entities build their systems to cover
all of their service territories reliably at all times and to remain operating
when power is down. UTC advocates a small, dedicated spectrum allocation
to CI - which it does not have currently -- to meet homeland security
protection needs and to help provide interoperability to public safety, federal
and other agencies responding to emergencies.

Founded in 1948, UTC represents the telecommunications interests of
electric and gas utilities, water companies, gas pipelines and other critical
infrastructure entities, along with their technology partners. UTC is a global
federation of direct business members and affiliated trade associations
representing over 10,000 organizations serving all corners of the world and
virtually every community in North America. wireless access

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