Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Priority Access Funding On Hold; 911 Calls On Notice

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 18:39:16 -0500

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January 14, 2003

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Priority Access Funding On Hold; 911 Calls On Notice

Changes in Bush Administration high-profile financial posts are generating more talk than other U.S. budget and economic activity, but a lack of funding for priority wireless access could have many in government and law enforcement talking if they don't have emergency wireless access.

The $73 million needed by the White House's National Communications Systems (NCS) office in order to fund nationwide priority wireless access was not included in the $355- billion Department of Defense appropriations Congress approved in October. The NCS is being transferred to the recently created Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and expects to be funded next year when Congress enacts appropriations for that agency. However, NCS can't wait that long for funding.

"We need some cash between now and the time Congress appropriates money for DHS," John Graves, director of the NCS' Government Emergency Telecommunications Service Program, tells Wireless Data News.

NCS needs funding for priority access because wireless infrastructure vendors are already working on extending the capability from Deutsche Telekom's [DT] T- Mobile International unit's footprint in the New York and Washington, D.C., areas to its other operations using Ericsson [ERICY] switches--East Coast and Midwest markets. The program's initial $101 million funding will cover extending the capability to all of T-Mobile's operations, which should be done within six months. However, it won't cover the work needed to add AT&T Wireless Services [AWE] and Cingular Wireless in the program during next year, or to add Nextel Communications [NXTL] during 2004.

"We still need that amount of money probably even more," Graves says. "If we don't get it, if we don't get these vendors started on the full-operating-capability phase of software development and we have to delay a year, we'll probably pay something like a 30 percent penalty or so to start them up again."

It wasn't a lack of DoD interest that kept priority wireless access funding off the defense appropriations. That budget item was in the Defense Information Systems Agency budget recommendation forwarded to Congress, where NCS has briefed committee staffers about the program.

"We certainly brought it to the attention of enough people on the staff what we we're dealing with," Graves says. "It's a shame they didn't choose to fund it in the DoD budget and then transfer that funding to DHS rather than cutting it form the DoD budget and then forcing the program into a wait for DHS funding. I don't think they would have done it if they would have appreciated the fact that the program is not a paper program. We have a service we're waiting to integrate right now."

There's little chance priority wireless access would be extended without additional funding. According to Garves, two things have to happen: "Either we make it the mandatory capability through the [Federal Communications Commission] or the carriers do it for free." Graves conceded, however, that neither of these things are likely to happen. The only realistic option is congressionally approved funding for the program.

In addition to extending priority access to more markets, NCS this month switched to using a "*272" code for access instead of programming access into mobile phones distributed specifically for priority access usage. Participating networks will recognize callers who dial *272 and are cleared for priority access.

From the users' standpoint, this is how a wireless priority service call will be initiated, according to Graves. Even in the face of congestion in the networks, priority wireless service users have to be making an official emergency call in order for the system to work.

The NCS, which asked for a wireless priority system in 1995, has recommended installation fees of $10 for each of the 50,000 wireless accounts nationwide that could eventually have priority access, plus 75 cents a minute for airtime.

>>Stephen Barrett, NCS, [email-masked].<<

This article first appeared in PBI Media's Wireless Data News

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