CSRIC Begins Work on Ambitious Agenda Outlined by Genachowski

“This committee has incredibly important work in advising the commission on strengthening our nation’s communications infrastructure and emergency response capabilities. It doesn’t get any more important than that,” Genachowski said. “We used to have multiple committees here at the FCC working on these topics and it’s a big step forward that we're now going to look at public safety and network issues in a way that properly reflects the tremendous convergence that is affecting nearly everything that the FCC does right now.” The CSRIC, chartered under acting Chairman Michael Copps, is the successor group to the Media Security and Reliability Council and the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council.

Genachowski said first responders across the nation indicate they don’t always know what’s going on elsewhere. “That we can help,” he said. “The FCC as the federal agency with responsibility here can be a place where anyone around the country can go.” Genachowski urged the group to establish an online database containing information on what’s working for other public safety agencies. “CSRIC should study which practices already work well, which ones can be improved, which ones are not working and should be eliminated,” he said. “I would encourage this group to think about using new media and technology to become a more efficient resource of this kind of information.”

Genachowski asked the committee to examine ways to “encourage and incentivize” coordination and cooperation among emergency communications “that have traditionally operated in a highly local fashion.” CSRIC should look at the “technological, economic and management dimensions of this issue to find ways to lower costs and improve interoperability,” he said.

Genachowski encouraged the committee to examine progress made by the U.S. military. “I believe the military has made real progress on interoperability and we on the civilian side can learn from them,” he said. “As we want to identify best practices and share them with others, we should be very open to looking to places where best practices and ideas have been developed and perfected and hopefully incorporate them into the work of our first responders around the country.”

Genachowski also asked the group to examine the sweeping changes in how Americans communicate. “911 means something different than it used to,” he said. “We do have a traditional phone in our house, but I'm not sure my 18-year-old knows where it is. Don’t ask me the last time we checked our messages on it.” Emergency alerting issues also should be a critical focus of the committee, he said. “I won’t go on about this other than to say the country needs to have an emergency alert system that’s right for the 21st century,” he said. “I think that is a challenge that I would encourage this committee to take on as well. I'd be interested in seeing the committee’s assessment on where we are and where we need to go.”

CSRIC also needs to look closely at cybersecurity, Genachowski said. “We all know how important and challenging this issue is, how devastating a successful attack on our communications infrastructure could be,” he said. “This is exactly one of those areas where if this committee does its job right and helps the commission do its job right, no one will notice. But it’s really important.”

Copps told the group much work remains to be done and many recommendations must be made quickly to the FCC. “We've got a long, long road still to travel,” he said. “We could spend hours debating why we have not made more progress, but none of that should be throwing stones. It’s like the old Pogo line. ‘We have met the enemy and it is us.’ We're over eight years out from 9/11 now and over four years beyond Hurricane Katrina and our country is nowhere near where it should be in terms of being prepared for the next great disaster, be it manmade or from the not always benevolent hand of mother nature.” Copps said the work of the CSRIC is especially critical as the FCC finalizes the National Broadband Plan. “The success relies on that infrastructure being secure, reliable and interoperable,” he said.

The group is to do most of its work through a series of working groups. CSRIC leaders outlined the groups Monday and asked for nominations to chair them by next week. Working groups will focus on public safety consolidation, cybersecurity best practices, 911 and E911 best practices, the transition to next generation 911, technical options on E911 location accuracy, ISP network protection practices, common alerting protocol introduction and pandemic planning.

“There is quite a lot of work to be done,” said Robert Gurss, APCO director of legal and government affairs. “We have a lot of work groups, a lot of difficult and deep issues to deal with, so we're going to need a lot of help.”

“We have an opportunity here to gather existing information, update and create best practices, that can guide the design, implementation and use of new technology, make recommendations on how best to transition legacy systems and equipment to next generation technology and to ensure that the objectives of interoperability and survivability are met,” said Chris Fischer, APCO past president and co-chair of CSRIC. “Much of the needed research and development for new technologies has focused on the needs of the private consumer and military. The needs of public safety, however, are quite different and require additional specifications that will allow for greater security, redundancy and reliability. These also must be practical and achievable.”

Bill Smith, AT&T president of local network operations, the other co-chair, said he was involved in the last two NRICs and the Hurricane Katrina Independent Panel and the work is rewarding. “I've seen many, many times where competitors work together very closely exercising concepts like mutual aid,” Smith said. “I think it has been a hallmark of our industry.” But Smith said the communications industry faces a “new generation” of threats. “On an average month we have 302 serious cable damages [at AT&T]. That same month we have 38.8 million malicious attacks. … We have to continue to keep in mind the changing nature of the threats to our network.” For IP networks, “some of the things that make them so wonderful in so many ways are also in some situations vulnerabilities that we have to be very cautious of,” he said.