FCC

FCC, Hawaii Issue Reports on False Alert

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FCC Commissioners stressed today the importance of preventing false alerts like the ballistic missile alert sent in error in Hawaii earlier this month (TR Daily, Jan. 16), saying that the incident there should lead to best practices that can be used by alert originators and other stakeholders. Their comments came as FCC staff reported that the alert was sent in error due to a misunderstanding about whether there was actually a ballistic missile attack.

Meanwhile, Hawaii officials released a report today that concluded that “insufficient management controls, poor computer software design, and human factors” contributed to the false alert and the delayed response in correcting it. The report echoed conclusions in a preliminary report released today by the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau.

At today’s monthly FCC meeting, Commissioners received the preliminary report from the Public Safety Bureau on its investigation of the early-morning false alert, which was transmitted through the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and wireless emergency alerts (WEAs). The alert was transmitted shortly after 8 a.m. on Jan. 13 and it took officials 38 minutes to send out a corrected alert. The information provided by the bureau today was the most detailed yet from the FCC about the incident. The bureau stressed that its investigation is ongoing.

James Wiley, an attorney-adviser in the Public Safety Bureau’s Cybersecurity and Communications Reliability Division, explained how the false alert was sent during a ballistic missile alert drill that took place during a change from the midnight to the day shifts at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA). Due to a “miscommunication,” “the day shift supervisor was not in the proper location to supervise the day shift warning officers when the ballistic missile defense drill was initiated,” he said.

“At 8:05 a.m., the midnight shift supervisor initiated the drill by placing a call to the day shift warning officers, pretending to be U.S. Pacific Command,” according to Mr. Wiley. “The supervisor played a recorded message over the phone. The recording began by saying ‘exercise, exercise, exercise,’ language that is consistent with the beginning of the script for the drill. After that, however, the recording did not follow the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency’s standard operating procedures for this drill. Instead, the recording included language scripted for use in an Emergency Alert System message for an actual live ballistic missile alert. It thus included the sentence ‘this is not a drill.’ The recording ended by saying again, ‘exercise, exercise, exercise.’ Three on-duty warning officers in the agency’s watch center received this message, simulating a call from U.S. Pacific Command on speakerphone.

“According to a written statement from the day shift warning officer who initiated the alert, as relayed to the Bureau by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, the day shift warning officer heard ‘this is not a drill’ but did not hear ‘exercise, exercise, exercise.’ According to the written statement, this day shift warning officer therefore believed that the missile threat was real. At 8:07 a.m., this officer responded by transmitting a live incoming ballistic missile alert to the State of Hawaii. … Other warning officers who heard the recording in the watch center report that they knew that the erroneous incoming message did not indicate a real missile threat, but was supposed to indicate the beginning of an exercise.” Continue reading →

Andy Seybold’s Public Safety Advocate, January 24, 2018

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An Evolving FirstNet System.  In early January, the FirstNet Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN) reached a milestone when the last U.S. territory opted in to FirstNet. This made it unanimous, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and all territories. The FirstNet system is operational, and work continues on the Evolved Packet Core (EPC), the brains of the network. During much of this time FirstNet and AT&T have been considering how to best differentiate the government organization that is the First Responder Network Authority as set forth in Public Law 112-96, and the ecosystem that is the FirstNet NPSBN and the many components that go into it to create the FirstNet ecosystem. Continue reading →

FCC Opposes En Banc Rehearing of EAS Ruling

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The FCC said it opposed a motion seeking an en banc rehearing of a 2017 decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit  that affirmed a 2016 FCC order that rejected a request by groups that petitioned the agency to mandate multilingual Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages (TR Daily, Oct. 17, 2017). “MMTC’s petition should be denied,” the FCC said in its brief in “Multicultural Media, Telecom, and Internet Council and the League of United Latin American Citizens v. FCC” (case 16-1222). “The panel correctly rejected an arbitrary and capricious challenge to an FCC decision to seek further information regarding state and local efforts to provide emergency alerts in languages other than English. Its decision raises no issues of exceptional importance, and does not conflict with any decision of this Court or the Supreme Court. Rehearing en banc is therefore unwarranted.”

Courtesy TRDaily

 

Parties Cite Successes, Challenges of 2017 Hurricane Season

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A variety of parties have weighed in on the resiliency of communications infrastructure, the effectiveness of emergency communications, and the responses of the government and industry during the 2017 hurricane season. While some cited actions that helped response to the massive storms, they also suggested improvements, including changes to the FCC’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) and closer coordination between industry and government stakeholders.

Comments were filed in PS docket 17-344 by yesterday’s deadline in response to a public notice released last month by the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau soliciting views in the wake of the destruction inflicted by four hurricanes last year, including three Category 4 hurricanes – Harvey, Irma, and Maria – the first time in history that three Category 4 storms have hit the U.S. in the same season (TR Daily, Dec. 7, 2017).

Wireless services were hit hard, especially by Hurricane Maria. After Harvey, nearly 5% of cell sites were out service across the impacted area in Texas and elsewhere at the peak, and after Irma more than 27% of cell sites were knocked out in Florida and nearly 56% in Puerto Rico. Maria wreaked the worst destruction, with more than 95% of cell sites out in Puerto Rico and more than 76% offline in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

But in its comments, CTIA said that Americans were able to rely on wireless services during the hurricanes. “The availability of mobile wireless networks was due, in large part, to the wireless industry’s application of lessons learned from past storms – most notably Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy. Wireless providers have invested to strengthen networks, and with the storms approaching, they pre-positioned resources and put into operation the key elements of the 2016 Wireless Network Resiliency Cooperative Framework (‘Cooperative Framework’ or ‘Framework’),” CTIA said. “It proved effective in enhancing service continuity and information sharing during and immediately after these historic storms. And when cell sites went down, the Cooperative Framework helped wireless providers and their representatives on the ground restore service as quickly as possible and support the greater rebuilding efforts in impacted communities. In Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where extreme weather conditions and the near total destruction of the electric grid posed significant challenges across the board, the coordination and flexibility provided for in the Cooperative Framework helped wireless providers collaborate and develop innovative solutions to maintain and restore service.” Continue reading →

FCC to Remain Open If Congress Doesn’t Pass Funding CR

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Because it has “available funding,” the FCC “plans to remain open and pay staff at least through the close of business on Friday, January 26” in the event that Congress fails to pass legislation to continue funding the government between now and then, Office of Media Relations Director Brian Hart said in a statement today.  The current continuing resolution (CR) under which federal government operations are being funded expires at the end of today.

The House passed a measure last night that would extend government funding through Feb. 16 and extend the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for six years, as well as authorizing Defense Department funding of “Missile Defeat and Defense Enhancements activities and extending certain health-care related tax provisions.  Negotiations were on-going in the Senate this afternoon, where the Republican majority needs support from Democrats, who want to see the issue of undocumented immigrant child-arrival “dreamers” resolved as part of the CR.

Courtesy TRDAily

Andy Seybold’s Public Safety Advocate, January 18, 2018

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Interoperability:  After publishing last week’s Advocate, I received some emails and questions about the whole interoperability issue and why it is a problem for public safety and not for commercial cellular customers. The public safety community has been providing answers about interoperability for years to all who would listen and some in Congress seemed to “get it” when the bill that contained authorization for FirstNet was approved, but a number of them still do not understand the need.

It has always been difficult for those whose only exposure to voice, text, and data communications has been through their use of a cell phone and/or tablet. Commercial networks function like their wired predecessors for voice. If you want to talk to someone, you dial a 10-digit number, the phone on the other end rings, and either the person you want to talk to answers the call or it goes to voice mail. If you want to talk to multiple people at once, you need to establish a conference call, which takes even longer to set up. The advent of 2G, 3G, and 4G wireless broadband systems saw the addition of text, data, and video services but here again, you text someone by typing in their phone number and the text you want to send. If you want to watch a video, you go to a website, select a file, and it starts streaming to your phone. If you want to send a picture or video, you can send it to one person at a time if you know their phone numbers.

If this is your starting point for understanding wireless communications systems, it is no wonder you are confused about public safety’s claim that they have been unable to communicate with neighboring agencies or even between fire and police in the same city. If you can simply dial anyone, anywhere, on any network, why should public safety have this problem? The answer is a combination of the effect of spectrum allocations by government and the fact that public safety systems are designed to cover specific geographic areas. Read the Entire Post Here

Discovery Patterns Weekly News Summary Follows:

LMR licensing activity in the US reaches record-low levels in 2017, according to FCC database – Urgent Communications
Jan 18 02:40 Overall, the FCC has approved 13,430 applications that were submitted in 2017 for new and modified licenses in the public-safety and business-industrial arenas, based on ULS data available on Wednesday. Even if all 263 of the pending 2017 license applications were granted, the number of 2017 …

ANALYSIS: Expect much smaller money in the 600 MHz auction – Cartt.ca
Jan 17 18:55 AT&T spent $1 billion on 600 MHz spectrum, but just announced they are selling it. In fairness, this may not mean that AT&T doesn’t want low band spectrum. They won the bid to supply First Net with a public safety broadband network and that lets them use 20 MHz of First Net’s 700 MHz spectrum when …

Cellphone jamming system tested at Maryland prison – WATE 6 On Your Side
Jan 17 16:40 FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has signaled willingness to work on the issue, telling members of Congress he would put together a working group to address “the proliferation of contraband wireless devices in prisons and the potentially devastating implications for public safety.” Williams said Justice, which …

FCC chairman: Hawaii didn’t have ‘reasonable’ safeguards – GkMen
Jan 17 07:40 The system has come under growing scrutiny in recent months, with public safety officials complaining that it requires upgrades on several fronts. Congresswoman Gabbard is with us now. Catt said. “So, there wasn’t much we could do”. Outside of the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, Gabbard said …

FCC chairman plans to boost broadband in rural America – Agri-Pulse
Jan 17 00:51 However, in a briefing last week, Grace Kho, the White House’s special assistant for technology, telecommunications and cybersecurity, cautioned that expanding rural broadband will take time. This is not going to be a sprint. This will be a long time of — a long process of figuring out how to exactly move …

DHS S&T and Israeli Partners Call for Proposals on Advanced First Responder Technologies – Newswise
Jan 16 16:40 Small businesses who were awarded contracts through this partnership are working on promising cutting-edge technologies such as unmanned search and rescue systems, public safety off-network broadband communications, and a separate autonomous drone-based search & rescue solution to help …

FirstNet’s Schrier on New Public-Safety Meetings, App Interoperability and Privacy – RadioResource Media Group
Jan 16 13:53 AT&T executives will also participate in the meetings. They are not presenting or selling but determining what public safety’s needs are, he said. We’re going to listen to what their apps are today and what they need. AT&T will be at the table to ask questions. Schrier said most applications will be …

Public Safety Network: A Boon for Tower Operators in 2018 – Zacks.com
Jan 11 08:40 Notably, in March 2017, AT&T was selected by FirstNet to build and manage the first nationwide broadband network dedicated to America’s police, firefighters and emergency medical services. As part of the 25-year contract, FirstNet will provide AT&T with a swath of 20 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz …

FCC Proposes $500M for Rural Broadband – Light Reading
Jan 18 06:30 FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wants to reform the universal service fund.

FCC pushes for rural broadband – Brownfield
Jan 18 05:00 The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is calling for more high-speed broadband in rural areas. Ajit Pai says there needs to be more internet access in sparsely populated areas to close the digital divide. His order would provide more than $500 million to cooperatives and small rural carriers to build more online infrastructure, create new rules to prevent abuse and reform’s the FCC’s high-cost program. Continue reading FCC pushes for rural broadband at Brownfield Ag News.

Lawmakers Blast FCC’s Mobile Broadband Proposal – MediaPost Communications
Jan 17 17:00 “Without adequate service deployment and accurate data collection for both fixed and mobile, our rural and national economy will suffer,” the lawmakers add. “Every American who has ever had to ask ‘Can you hear me now?’ while on their cell phone or has had to wait for buffering when streaming a …

Wireless Narrowband Communication in the Environment of the Internet of Things and Machine to – Smart Grid Demand Response
Jan 17 03:52 Salzburg Research invites to a workshop on 08.02.2018 on Wireless Narrowband Communication in the Environment of the Internet of Things and Machine-to-Machine Communication. Digital transformation is finding its way into almost all areas of life and industry. The development of the Internet of

Telstra adds narrowband capability to Australia’s leading IoT network – Ticker In
Jan 17 00:35 Telstra announced a major step forward in the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) in Australia with the successful deployment of Narrowband technology in its IoT Network. Telstra now offers Narrowband coverage in major Australian cities and many regional towns. This is in addition to the

Pennsylvania AG Josh Shapiro joins lawsuit against the FCC over net neutrality rollback – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jan 16 23:55 In the wake of a controversial move by the Federal Communications Commission to deregulate the broadband industry, a group of 22 attorneys general including Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania has sued the commission for its repeal of net neutrality rules. The group filed a petition for review in the …

FirstNet’s availability should ‘raise all boats,’ drive public-safety innovation, competition – Urgent Communications
Jan 16 18:40 At best, by virtue of offering a new competitive choice for public-safety communications, it will be an engine for the continued development and implementation of reliable, state-of-the-art communications technologies for first responders. The availability of FirstNet in the marketplace will raise all boats and …

FCC Attempts to Weaken Broadband Standard – No Jitter via Business Communications Review
Jan 11 06:30 By Martha Buyer Rather than hold providers accountable, the Commission wants to lower speed requirements and loosen definition of competition.

The Coming Fiber Construction Boom – Light Reading
Jan 11 02:35 “Americans are frustrated with the slow pace of broadband deployment” is a sad clich. According to FCC data for 2016 (the most recent available), 21% of census blocks — home to 10% of the US population — have no provider offering fixed broadband service at the Commission’s 25/3 Mbits/s standard, …

Localities Continue to Press for May 2019 WEA Deadline

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More localities are pressing the FCC to adopt a May 2019 deadline for requiring wireless carriers to implement enhanced geo-targeting for wireless emergency alerts (WEAs). A draft order circulated for consideration at the FCC’s Jan. 30 meeting would require implementation by November 2019 (TR Daily, Jan. 9). CTIA has asked for a 36-month implementation period.

Ex parte submissions filed yesterday in PS docket 15-91 expressed support for the May 2019 deadline. One filing was submitted by the District of Columbia, while the other was submitted by four jurisdictions in Oregon: the city of Portland and Multnomah, Clackamas, and Columbia counties.The filings by the District of Columbia and the Oregon jurisdictions were largely identical. Continue reading →

Pai: FCC ‘On the Ground’ in Hawaii Probing False Alert

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FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said today that investigators from the FCC “are on the ground in Hawaii today gathering information” in the wake of a false ballistic missile notification that was transmitted last weekend via wireless emergency alert (WEA) and the Emergency Alert System (EAS) (TR Daily, Jan. 16), while Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel also stressed the importance of preventing future false alerts and said changes should be adopted before summer. “This incident highlights the need for our alerting system to work properly and for alerts to convey accurate information to the public,” Mr. Pai emphasized this morning during remarks at a National Association of Broadcasters’ event on the role of broadcasters during emergencies. “The FCC has already begun an investigation.  We want to understand how this mistake occurred, why it took 38 minutes for the state of Hawaii to issue a correction alert, and what needs to be done to ensure that this does not happen again, in Hawaii or elsewhere.  Indeed, FCC investigators are on the ground in Hawaii today gathering information.” Continue reading →

Pai Stresses Need for Disaster Preparedness, NG-911 Deployment

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FCC Chairman Ajit Pai today stressed the importance of developing best practices to aid in improved preparedness and response to disasters, and he also called on stakeholders to work toward deploying next-generation 911 (NG-911), which he noted can help ensure more resilient and redundant networks. He also cited last weekend’s false ballistic missile alert in Hawaii in saying that emergency communications systems “shouldn’t be designed so that a single point of failure leads to a catastrophic result.”

Mr. Pai delivered opening remarks this afternoon at a Capitol Hill event organized by the NG911 Institute. He said the FCC wants to work with the NG911 Institute on emergency preparedness and response best practices and NG-911 deployment.

“We need to learn from our experiences over the last several months and develop best practices so that we’re better prepared and more effective in responding to future disasters,” Mr. Pai said. “In December, our Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau issued a Public Notice seeking input on the public and private sectors’ preparation for and response to the 2017 hurricane season [TR Daily, Dec. 7, 2017].  We want to know what worked and where we can improve service availability and restoration.  And we want to hear from all stakeholders, including the public safety community; state, local, territorial, and tribal officials; industry; consumer groups; and federal response partners.” Continue reading →