Both the 9/11 terrorist attacks and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina revealed the importance of interoperable communications. During his March 8, 2006 Senate testimony Richard Skinner said, ?during previous disasters, particularly the September 11th terrorist attacks, the inability of first responders to communicate across disciplines and jurisdictions led to tragic loss of life.? In addition, according to the 9/11 Commission, ?different first responder agencies within each city must be fully coordinated, just as different branches of the U.S. military are. Coordination entails a unified command that comprehensively deploys all dispatched police, fire, and other first responder resources.? Implicit within this recommendation is the need for interoperable communication across different first responder agencies within the same jurisdiction and across different jurisdictions.
Unfortunately, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has made little progress in solving the problem of incompatible communications systems in the four and half years since 9/11 and the six months since Hurricane Katrina. According to DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner, ?as of March 2006 DHS has not adopted standards for interoperable communications equipment.?
Instead, as the response to Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, DHS has focused on the threat of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons to the exclusion of other threats and problems. Evidence of the myopic focus can be found by examining DHS? list of adopted standards. Of the fourteen standards adopted by DHS twelve standards deal exclusively with personal protective equipment or radiation detection equipment. None of the standards address the need for interoperable communications. Unfortunately, the lack of attention to interoperable communications does not rest solely on DHS. The InterAgency Board for Equipment Standardization and InterOperability (IAB) has also neglected to address first responders? need for interoperable communications. To be fair, it is the mission of the IAB to ?establish and coordinate local, state, and federal standardization, interoperability, and responder safety to prepare for, respond to, mitigate, and recover from any incident by identifying requirements for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or Explosives (CBRNE) incident response equipment.? However, it is foolish to assume that the need for interoperable communication will be obviated by a CBRNE attack. In fact as evidenced by 9/11 the need for interoperable communications is heightened during a massive attack.
Fortunately, a potential solution may be available. The Telecommunication Industry Association (TIA) is in the process of completing the Project 25 family of communication standards. According to the TIA web site Project 25, ?the deployment of P25-compliant systems will allow for a high degree of equipment interoperability, compatibility and economy of scale.? Therefore, DHS should work closely with the IAB and TIA to fully develop and publish a set of standards that deal directly with interoperable communications.
