WASHINGTON-As the House and Senate this week prepare to vote on a $29.4 billion homeland security spending bill, the wireless industry remains left in limbo on priority access service and emergency warning capabilities even as it makes headway on other fronts.
The appropriations bill agreed to last Wednesday by House-Senate conferees includes $206 million for information technology and wireless communications. Half of that amount is earmarked for new federal narrowband wireless infrastructure and subscriber equipment.
As such, it is unclear how much of the $206 million is available for wireless priority access research and development, which to date has managed to support nationwide deployment by only a single GSM carrier: T-Mobile USA Inc. Others in that category-Cingular Wireless L.L.C., AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and iDEN operator Nextel Communications Inc.-are lined up behind T-Mobile and supposedly will be able to offer wireless priority access service in the next year or so.
The timeline for getting the two nationwide CDMA carriers-Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS-in a position to offer WPS is even further out. There is a shortfall of at least $100 million to support WPS carrier-wide across the United States.
“This is a capability there’s a demand for. … They need to put their money where their mouth is,” said Kathryn Condello, vice president of operations for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
Condello said she gives the Department of Homeland Security a C grade on wireless priority access funding, but Condello is quick to add it is not for lack of trying. She gave the agency an A grade for intent.
The WPS quagmire is but a microcosm in the bigger challenge of creating the Department of Homeland Security, a massive bureaucracy of 22 agencies and 180,000 employees that is only one-year old and is now about to get its first full appropriations ever. Indeed, there is a major disconnect between good intentions and actual delivery on homeland security.
House lawmakers last week criticized a key DHS official for the time it took to get a cyber security czar on board and the 40-percent vacancy rate in the department. States and cities continue to fume over lack of promised federal dollars for first responders. Some of that money is supposed to help improve wireless communications interoperability for federal, state and local officials.
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the wireless industry has watched the slow and steady encroachment of the Bush administration’s homeland security agenda to include WPS, cyber security, emergency warning service, critical infrastructure protection and government-industry information sharing. Enhanced 911 service is no longer only a public-safety issue. It has become a security issue as well.
Condello sees progress on many of these fronts, though she said more work remains. For example, DHS is still struggling with process and technology issues (short messaging service vs. cell broadcast) in connection with emergency alerts.
It is a Herculean challenge for Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who last week chose Amit Yoran as cyber security czar. Yoran, who will serve as director of the National Cyber Security Division of the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Office at DHS, was most recently vice president for managed security services at Symantec Corp. Before that, Yoran founded Riptech Inc., an information security management firm, and worked at the Department of Defense.
Ridge also announced the creation of new Computer Emergency Response Team for cyber security. “This new center for cyber security is a key element to our national strategy to combat terrorism and protect our critical infrastructure. The recent cyber attacks such as the Blaster worm and the SoBig virus highlight the urgent need for an enhanced computer emergency response program that coordinates national efforts to cyber incidents and attacks,” said Ridge.
In response to criticism about delays in naming a new government cyber security czar, Robert Liscouski, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at DHS, testifying before a select homeland security subcommittee, said: “We’ll only get one chance at getting this right.”
