Satellite Phones Focus of Disaster Coordination
The FCC Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau (PSHSB) should coordinate with the National Communications System and U.S. Customs Service to ensure access to handsets and other satellite terminals during disasters, the Commission said in the text of an order following up on Hurricane Katrina panel recommendations. The satellite industry has made much of its reliability after the storm lay waste to New Orleans and its terrestrial systems.
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Katrina killed phone service to about 3 million, knocking out more than 1,000 cell sites and 35 dispatch centers. The FCC approved the order May 31, as hurricane season loomed (CD June 1 p1), releasing the text Fri. The satellite industry did step in ably, but given a sharp increase in demand, had problems getting more gear into place from overseas, according to Inmarsat, the agency said: “Inmarsat and other satellite operators apparently experienced a sharp rise in demand after Hurricane Katrina that could not be met by the existing stock of satellite terminals in the U.S.”
The order had many jobs for PSHSB, including continuing a program aimed at educating the healthcare sector on satellites and other alternatives for back-up communication. PSHSB needs to work with NTIA to decide if the 148-150 MHz band, used by the federal govt. for satellite services, could be used “to facilitate interoperability between different first responders during and following a national emergency,” said the FCC. The govt. uses the band for radio navigation satellite services and earth-to-space operations.
The FCC declined to act on a Satellite Industry Assn. request that it require terrestrial carriers to use satellite-based technologies to report outages. “Terrestrial carriers are likely to be aware of a number of alternative reporting mechanisms that could be so applied and will use the ones that best suit their needs,” said the Commission.
The FCC will be a single repository for communications outage information in national emergencies, the agency said in the order. The Public Safety Bureau will resolve any issues about safeguarding sensitive information, but won’t require outage filings from carriers at this time, the agency said, noting that the Katrina Panel cited “lack of clarity” on which agency was to collect outage information, prompting it to push the FCC as the main agent for such activity in the future. “The Commission has extensive experience in this area both through its collection of outage information pursuant to Part 4 of the Commission’s rules (outage reporting requirements) and from its efforts to collect situational awareness information from licensees in the aftermath of the 2005 hurricanes,” the FCC said.
The order listed a number of mandates, stipulating that larger carriers install backup power for critical facilities and file reports on the resilience of their 911 systems. But for the most part it instructs the Public Safety Bureau to follow up on recommendations such as one promoting greater use of the Govt. Emergency Telecom Service (GETS) in combination with DHS and working with other govt. agencies to ensure that communications companies can get to sites needing repairs.
The FCC endorsed the panel’s recommendations on voluntary industry readiness checklists, ordering the Bureau “to reach out to a variety of trade organizations including those representing small communications companies… The Bureau should also publicize and promote implementation of the readiness checklists once developed, for example, by placing the readiness checklists on the Bureau’s website and encouraging use of these checklists at summits and conferences.”