Straight Talk

As recently as a few years ago, Vermont state troopers trying to catch a suspect in a high-speed chase could be thwarted simply because they crossed a county line. Once over that line, the troopers' radio system loses contact with law enforcement officers in other jurisdictions. In California, officers from the highway patrol and the sheriff's department, chasing the same suspect, had to drive next to each other with their windows rolled down and shout their instructions.

These far too common examples illustrate the challenges public safety agencies face trying to work together in the post-Sept. 11 world.

To avoid calamities, public safety operations at all levels of government must achieve the interoperability needed to handle a catastrophic incident, something the size of the Sept. 11 attacks, says David Boyd, deputy director for systems engineering and development at the Homeland Security Department. "We want to make it possible for any public safety officer in any emergency to communicate with whoever they want to, whenever they need to, when properly authorized to do so," says Boyd, who is director of the agency's SAFECOM program.

Established in spring 2002 and approved by the President's Management Council as a high-priority e-government initiative, SAFECOM promotes better technologies and processes for cross-jurisdictional and cross-disciplinary coordination of public safety communications. It develops standards, provides training and technical assistance, develops and evaluates technologies, and coordinates guidance to agencies that provide grants for communications and interoperability.

As ambitious as SAFECOM is, the initiative and its supporters face significant challenges.

One of the most notorious is the age and incompatibility of much of the communications equipment used by public safety agencies-some of it as much as 40 years old. SAFECOM is working to ensure that interoperability is a fundamental part of planning for new equipment purchases. By tying those requirements to federal grants, Boyd believes the issue gradually will be resolved as old equipment is replaced by new.

A second challenge is the lack of available spots on the radio spectrum needed to transmit public safety communications. A few years ago, public safety agencies gained access to additional spectrum, but more is needed. The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the satellite airwaves serving a multitude of industry, military and government consumers, is working to identify a way to quickly free up more spectrum, Boyd says.

SAFECOM also must address the limited and fragmented way that emergency communications are funded in state and local agencies. Some funds come through federal block grants and others from local communities. SAFECOM has developed guidance for grants that enables agencies to upgrade systems more easily. And SAFECOM, along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Justice Department, developed the Interoperable Communications Grant Clearinghouse to eliminate duplication of funding and evaluation efforts, coordinate the application process, and maximize limited funding and resources.

Another roadblock is a lack of adequate equipment standards. What, exactly, is a perfect system? "Ideally, it would be like a desktop computer, where you can get a piece of equipment and know that it will work, at least at some basic level," Boyd says. SAFECOM, with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, has produced temporary requirements, including the testing of radios for compliance with FCC specifications, but Boyd says it will take a few more years to develop and implement mature standards.

SAFECOM is encouraging industry to use common platforms in developing communications equipment to eliminate proprietary barriers. "Part of the difficulty we've had over the years has been the existence of proprietary protocols and technologies, which make it difficult for anyone to build things that work with it," Boyd explains. "That means that instead of gradually upgrading a system, you'd have to replace everything in one fell swoop."

Probably the greatest test is the human aspect. "Causing people to rethink how they are doing things sometimes threatens turf or existing structures, so the first and most important thing you have to work on is how to cause the community to want to work together," Boyd says. "You have to develop a process that doesn't appear to be the federal government telling you what you have to do, but a system that is designed to start at the lowest level. It's got to be a bottom-up driven approach." These challenges may be daunting, but people have become much more willing to accept change since 9/11, Boyd says. The federal government has followed through on the initiative with $150 million in grants in 2003, half from Justice and half from Homeland Security and FEMA. That's in addition to the roughly $4 billion per year in block grants to the states.

SAFECOM seems to be on track. It has created a governance process and has the support of major public safety organizations such as the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the Association of Public Safety Communications Officers, the U.S. Council of Mayors and the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council. It also created the Federal Interoperability Coordination Council, which promotes coordination among federal entities involved with public safety. In addition, the initiative has integrated the Public Safety Wireless Network Program, which fosters interoperability among public safety wireless networks, and sought information from industry on technology concepts and existing or underdeveloped products or services that could generate compatible systems.

In the near future, SAFECOM plans to develop an interoperable communications center and grants clearinghouse on the Web that will help public safety organizations identify the best tools for their jurisdiction, develop technical assistance publications, continue developing appropriate standards, and work with the joint Justice and Homeland Security 25 Cities Project to make the top 25 high-threat metropolitan areas interoperable.

These steps are all positive, but solving the interoperability challenge will take time, says Karen Evans, administrator for electronic government and information technology at the Office of Management and Budget. Last year, Evans stressed the importance of SAFECOM's goals in testimony before two House Government Reform subcommittees.

"While great strides have been made toward improving interoperability for our nation's first responders, this is not a problem that can be solved overnight-or even in a year or two," she said.

In fact, even as government works hard to improve wireless communication systems, a critical mass of interoperability throughout the country might take another 20 years, Boyd says, because of long equipment life cycles and constantly changing standards.