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91–395 PDF 2005

S. HRG. 107–25

THE NATION’S WIRELINE AND WIRELESS

COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE IN LIGHT

OF SEPTEMBER 11TH

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, 

SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 6, 2002

Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

(

(II)

SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina, Chairman 

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia 

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts 

JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana 

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

MAX CLELAND, Georgia 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina 

JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

CONRAD BURNS, Montana 

TRENT LOTT, Mississippi 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

GORDON SMITH, Oregon 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia 

KEVIN D. KAYES, Democratic Staff Director 

MOSES BOYD, Democratic Chief Counsel 

JEANNE BUMPUS, Republican Staff Director and General Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Chairman 

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina 

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts 

JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia 

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

MAX CLELAND, Georgia 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina 

JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri 

CONRAD BURNS, Montana 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

TRENT LOTT, Mississippi 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

GORDON SMITH, Oregon 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held March 6, 2002 ................................................................................... 1

Statement of Senator Burns ................................................................................... 11

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 11

Statement of Senator Inouye .................................................................................. 1

Statement of Senator Wyden .................................................................................. 13

WITNESSES

Cangemi, Agostino, Deputy Commissioner–General Counsel, Department of 

Information Technology and Telecommunications ............................................ 2

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7

Crotty, Paul, Group President for New York and Connecticut, Verizon, Inc. .... 33

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38

Harris, Gloria, Vice President of Operations—New York, New Jersey and 

Connecticut, AT&T Wireless ............................................................................... 41

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 44

Herda, Larissa, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, Time

Warner Telecom ................................................................................................... 50

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53

McLean, Christopher A., Counsel, ComCARE Alliance ........................................ 23

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 25

Nash, Glen, President, Association of Public Safety Communications Officials 

International, Inc. ................................................................................................ 29

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 31

Souder, Steve, Director, Montgomery County, Maryland 9-1-1 Emergency 

Communications Center ...................................................................................... 13

(1)

THE NATION’S WIRELINE AND WIRELESS 

COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE IN 

LIGHT OF SEPTEMBER 11TH 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2002

U.S. SENATE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS, 

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:31 p.m. in room 

SD–253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. Inouye, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. INOUYE,

U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII 

Senator INOUYE. Before we proceed, I would like to apologize to 

all of you for the lack of attendance. As some of you may be aware, 

at this moment a special briefing conducted by the Secretary of Defense and General Wheeler on the military activities in Afghanistan is just about to close. That will be followed by a special meeting with President Mubarak of Egypt. So I do not expect too many 

members to be attending this hearing. 

However, because of the significance and importance of the meeting, I will make certain that your testimony will be studied and 

read by my colleagues. 

In the wake of the tragic events of September 11th, a large 

amount of Congressional attention has rightly focused on matters 

involving the safety and security of Americans. Indeed, in the last 

6 months this Committee has already considered proposals to improve the safety of our ports, our airports, and our railways. In 

keeping with this theme, today’s hearing examines the safety and 

security of our Nation’s communications infrastructure. Through 

the testimony of today’s witnesses, we hope to assess both how our 

wireless and wireline networks performed and responded to the 

events of September 11th and how in the future we might improve 

the reliability and robustness of these networks in emergency situations. 

Before going further, let me first express my personal thanks to 

the emergency personnel, government officials, and the many communications workers who worked tirelessly both during and after 

September 11th to restore voice and data communications. Their 

relentless efforts, often in the face of extreme adversity, deserve 

both our recognition and our gratitude. 

2

The events of that day placed an enormous strain on our communications network in both New York City and Washington, D.C. In 

New York City, damage to a Verizon central office caused by the 

collapse of the World Trade Center cut phone service to tens of 

thousands of businesses and residents in lower Manhattan. In 

Washington, D.C., as individuals attempted to contact their loved 

ones, wireless traffic demand spiked to over 200 percent, leaving 

customers struggling to get a dial tone. In both places, officials on 

the ground struggled to communicate and coordinate among the 

various emergency response teams dispatched to Ground Zero and 

the Pentagon. 

While we in Congress, along with all Americans, hope and pray 

that our wireline and wireless networks will never again face so severe a test, we must continue to explore ways to improve the resiliency and reliability of our communications infrastructure. Moreover, because reliable communication is critical to the success of 

emergency personnel, our efforts should also include a consideration of ways in which new technological tools such as location information, peer to peer communications, reverse messaging, and 

broadband applications can be utilized by emergency personnel in 

order to help save lives. 

Accordingly, I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses and 

their responses to questions that may be posed by Members of the 

Subcommittee. 

We have two major panels. On our first panel I am pleased to 

call the Deputy Commissioner-General Counsel of the cable of Information Technology and Telecommunications of the City of New 

York, Mr. Agostino Cangemi, and the Director of Montgomery 

County, Maryland, 9-1-1 Emergency Communications Center of 

Rockville, Maryland, Mr. Steve Souder. Gentlemen, welcome and I 

appreciate your attendance here. Mr. Cangemi, welcome, sir. 

Mr. CANGEMI. Good afternoon. 

Senator INOUYE. You may proceed, sir. 

STATEMENT OF AGOSTINO CANGEMI, DEPUTY

COMMISSIONER–GENERAL COUNSEL, DEPARTMENT OF

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS 

Mr. CANGEMI. Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity 

to tell you the story of our telecommunications restoration efforts 

in New York City following September 11th. I will tell you about 

the challenges we faced——

Senator BURNS. Pull that microphone up so we can hear you a 

little bit. 

Mr. CANGEMI. Sure. 

Thank you for inviting me to tell you the story of the telecommunications restoration efforts in New York City. I would like 

to address some of the challenges we faced, what worked, what 

worked well, the process we used, were there opportunities to improve, what did not work so well, and what we are currently doing 

in New York City to improve the infrastructure going forward. 

It has been 6 months. I did want to kind of couch this testimony 

in terms of trying to take you back to that day. For many of us in 

New York, it was an attack on the country, but also an attack on 

where we go to work every day, as well as you here in Washington. 

3

It was an attack on our families and it was an attack on our colleagues. So there was a sense of anger, anguish, and a desire to 

do something on the part of telecommunications workers and government officials. We were not at Ground Zero able to actually try 

to dig out the rubble, but we tried to do as much as we could. 

That kind of sense is what pervaded the efforts we had along 

with the telecommunications providers in New York City, that kind 

of cut through the clutter, cut through some of the competitive 

issues that I had witnessed in the past. I had personally been involved in things as mundane as area code proceedings in New York 

City in front of the Public Service Commission and those things 

can get pretty heated. But around the time of September 11th that 

type of competitive edge and clutter was not there and competitors 

were able to work cooperatively together to restore service as 

quickly as possible. 

Let me first address the challenges that we faced. We in downtown Manhattan had over 30 critical city government buildings. 

About 50,000 voice lines went down. They were all connected to one 

central office that had been severely damaged due to the collapse 

of World Trade Center 7. We also had to migrate our web site. My 

agency, the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, is responsible for all data, voice, e-government 

and web site initiatives, as well as we are the local franchising entity in New York City. But voice remained the biggest issue. 

So what worked? What did we do? Back in the early nineties we 

established something called the MARC, M–A–R–C. I noticed as I 

got off the train here in Washington that ‘‘MARC’’ may mean something else to you around here, but to us it means the Mutual Aid 

and Restoration Consortium. In the early nineties, New York City 

government officials along with telecommunications providers created a consortium, an actual contractual agreement as well, among 

the local telecommunications providers to plan for the cooperative 

resumption of voice and data traffic in the event of a catastrophic 

situation. In fact, the broadband franchises in New York City or 

the licenses—what we use franchises for are the right to actually 

provide broadband services in New York—require participation in 

this MARC agreement. 

Although many competitive issues had kind of allowed this consortium to wane a bit, we were able to immediately convene a conference call of the 40 largest telecommunications providers in New 

York City by early September 12th. This included the 18 

franchisees doing data and voice services in New York City, as well 

as the six primary wireless carriers, government officials, equipment makers, some of them not officially members of the MARC, 

but wanted to help as much as they could, so they participated in 

our calls. 

We convened twice-daily conference calls and had an open bridge 

line, which allowed everybody to communicate and assess the situation as quickly as possible. We shared information. Much of the 

information was proprietary information that competitors would 

not necessarily want to share with each other. But it worked to restore service as quickly as possible. 

Generally what the approach we used with MARC was the commissioner of my agency would chair twice-daily conference calls. 

4

We had a central Office of Emergency Management that established what the priorities would be for restoration, and that was 

critical because the telecommunications companies were getting 

calls from everyone, calls if they could make the calls. But they 

were getting contacted as much as possible, and trying to assess 

what the priorities were from a New York City government perspective was difficult for them and impossible without this type of 

arrangement. So our Office Emergency Management played that 

role and communicated to us what the priorities were. 

We would put out the request to the carriers on these calls and 

they would offer to assess, do a field survey to find out who can 

restore service as quickly as possible, as cost efficiently as possible, 

but primarily we were concerned with restoration of services as 

quickly as possible. 

Verizon had dedicated much of their resources to getting that 

central office back up and running, as well as working on our police 

command center—they did a fabulous job there—as well as our 

stock exchange, which was a priority set forth by the President. 

When we set out to do this, it involved having access to the 

Ground Zero area. Without this MARC process in place, in the 

early days it was our police department, our local responders, that 

were controlling access to the area. It would have been impossible 

for the competitive providers or many of the workers of these companies to get to that area. So we were able to coordinate through 

the MARC process access and that was one of the most critical 

functions, and it served them quite well. 

I can tell you that diesel trucks that were necessary in order to 

fuel the generators, the backup generators, in downtown Manhattan did not look too inviting on the days of September 12th and 

13th and would not have been able to get down there but for this 

MARC process in coordination with our local police authorities. 

What were the results of this process? Well, our Office of Emergency Management had been in 7 World Trade Center and was destroyed, but through the MARC and through working with the local 

telecom providers we were able to have an interim physical site established within 2 days. City Hall was restored by September 14th. 

Our municipal building, which houses many of the critical government agencies and comptroller’s office and other city agencies, was 

restored by September 15th. 

What are some other things that worked besides the MARC? 

Well, we had also developed and centralized much of the Y2K pricing. The Y2K pricing books were in the Office of Emergency Command Center, so many of them were lost. But we were able to have 

some backup plans in place and wiped off a little bit of the dust, 

and many of the scenarios that we had prepared for Y2K we were 

able to kind of use the same processes that worked quite well. 

For instance, we had warehoused spare equipment that was immediately available for our command center, as well as cellular 

phones and telecom equipment that we had warehoused and was 

accessible for Y2K planning. We were able to supplement that with 

any of the vendors who were on the MARC calls. So as far as access to equipment, we were able to procure that and obtain that as 

quickly as possible. 

5

Other things that worked with the Y2K planning was we had an 

Internet-based communications process. Our Office of Emergency 

Management had a process for essential personnel and they were 

connected through Blackberries and wireless-based Internet services, so they were able to communicate at Ground Zero. 

We also had a pretty effective GIS mapping process in place that 

was able to develop maps for emergency workers, describe the restoration process and access points for buildings. That kind of information was critical and we were able to do that remotely. 

We implemented Voice Over Internet Protocols. That was something that had been in the pilot phase. We did not have time for 

the pilot any more. We implemented it and it worked at City Hall 

as well as a number of other city buildings. 

We greatly increased the wireless capabilities by distributing 

Blackberries and similar types of equipment to essential government workers and that was essential to restoring services. 

What are some opportunities for improvement? Well, the destruction made it—the destruction of the central office really created too 

big of a problem for the government. We had much too many lines, 

50,000 phone lines, addressed by one central office without an alternative carrier in place. 

The other things we did not think about were some of the human 

and physical space factors in planning. Even though we were able 

to restore service, we were not able to get the personnel back into 

the buildings in downtown Manhattan for sometimes over a week, 

sometimes 2 weeks, depending on where they were. So that was an 

area of planning that we could have improved upon. 

Also on the wireless front, the wireless carriers were not part of 

the MARC consortium officially, although they participated in our 

calls. I think on that front they are an industry not accustomed to 

local regulation as well as some of the tariff providers who are 

more accustomed to dealing with public service commissions and 

local regulatory authorities. So that was probably an industry 

where we can see some improvement in terms of disaster recovery 

planning. 

Some of the lessons learned. We are going to be developing a disaster recovery plan that includes some of the items I discussed, 

such as human and physical factors, as well as operations, communications, and technology, and factor in just the stress and the 

trauma and even the death of some of the critical resources that 

may be available. We need to focus beyond the IT infrastructure to 

the relocation and work resumption of business users that rely on 

that infrastructure. 

We did learn that our Y2K plan worked and for other municipalities and other jurisdictions across the country, they may want to 

take a look at their Y2K plans and think of them in light of the 

World Trade Center attack. 

Lastly, you have to be creative. Voice Over IP, wireless, land 

line, broadband, we used what worked, as quickly as we could get 

it. 

What I want to address is, quite briefly in closing, is what my 

agency is doing on behalf of the City of New York to improve our 

telecommunications infrastructure. I already addressed our GIS application, our mapping application. We are going to be mapping all 

6

of the broadband fiber in New York City onto this GIS application. 

In the event of another service outage, we will have at our fingertips knowledge as to where all the fiber exists in our city streets, 

as well as who owns that fiber and an ability to quickly deploy a 

plan to restore service. 

The MARC is something that can work in service outages not as 

dramatic as something that happened at the World Trade Center. 

We are going to try to use this with our downtown financial businesses so that they know and they have confidence in New York 

City’s infrastructure and they know that there are options to them 

to have a redundant, resilient, telecommunications infrastructure 

in place and they do not need to move their businesses elsewhere. 

We are coordinating with those downtown businesses to do just 

that, so that they have an understanding of what the infrastructure is. We found out very quickly after September 11th that they 

really did not understand. They asked the kind of questions about 

wireless, redundancy—they thought that if they paid a bill to MCI 

WorldCom or AT&T that somehow they were going to have five 9’s 

types of redundancy. They did not understand kind of the infrastructure that depended on going through central offices and how 

a break point at that central office could really bring down their 

entire operation. 

As far as city government buildings are going, we are actually 

developing an alternative fiber loop in an alternative conduit system that will link all of the critical city buildings in downtown 

Manhattan on a completely separate fiber conduit path. 

We are also—just trying to be creative, we found out that we had 

water pipes that used to be used 100 years ago for water. When 

firemen needed excess water pressure to fight fires in downtown 

Manhattan, they needed these big pipes in downtown Manhattan. 

They are just sitting there. They are in still pretty good shape. We 

are trying to convert those old water pipes for telecommunications 

purposes and we have seen a lot of interest in having that kind of 

disaster recovery option. 

We are going to be using our city-owned buildings for siting of 

wireless facilities. In the past we shied away from that—a lot of 

community concerns. Everybody wants their cell phone to work, 

but no one wants any cell antennas in their area. But we have 

made that choice. We are going to be using our city buildings that 

actually exist in some of the most critical areas to enhance coverage. We view it as both a public safety initiative as well as there 

will be some revenue perhaps. 

The other thing we are trying to address is trying to reduce the 

cost for telecommunications providers to get to that last mile. In 

New York City, most of the fiber goes through one central path of 

conduit that circles around downtown Manhattan in the main area, 

but there are still hundreds of buildings, large office buildings, that 

do not have broadband connections. We are going to be issuing requests for proposals to try to greatly reduce the cost of getting into 

the building through mini-consortiums so that the construction 

costs of getting to that building will be greatly reduced, and once 

folks have broadband connections they will not be as reliant on copper connections to a certain central office. 

7

In conclusion, I think we suffered a great blow on September 

11th. We were knocked down. We are getting up. We are doing exactly the kinds of things to improve our telecommunications infrastructure that is necessary to get New York City’s industry and 

government back on its feet. 

Lastly, if I may make a small plug. I hear that you are interested 

in coming back up to New York perhaps. It has been I think over 

200 years, but it would be a nice shot in the arm to see you come 

up to New York, certainly a welcome visit. So we look forward to 

seeing you. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cangemi follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF AGOSTINO CANGEMI, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER–GENERAL

COUNSEL, DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND TELECOMMUNI- CATIONS, CITY OF NEW YORK

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am Agostino Cangemi, Deputy Commissioner and General Counsel of New York 

City’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT). On 

behalf of the City of New York, and DoITT, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I would like to touch on several issues related New York City 

government’s telecommunications restoration initiatives after the September 11 attack: What happened; what worked; recommendations based on lessons learned; 

and, finally, what the city is doing, and requires, in order to improve its public safety telecommunications infrastructure and preparedness. 

WHAT HAPPENED 

Clearly, September 11 had a devastating impact on New York City government’s 

communications infrastructure. Scores of buildings, including police headquarters, 

City Hall, our main Municipal Building and several other critical city government 

sites in lower Manhattan’s Civic Center were thrust into complete communications 

darkness. These failures were a direct consequence of the severe damage to 

Verizon’s 140 West Street central office caused by the collapse of 7 World Trade 

Center. 

As many as 50,000 telephones on the desks of City employees, and thousands of 

links that provide data access for critical operational tasks, were suddenly unavailable. Besides supporting most of the city government’s telecommunications infrastructure, Verizon’s West Street facility also housed the point-of-presence (POP) for 

the Internet Service Provider of the city’s ‘‘e-government’’ website, NYC.gov. 

WHAT WORKED 

Y2K Preparedness 

DoITT managed restoration activities in close coordination with the Mayor’s Office 

of Emergency Management (OEM). As part of Y2K planning, DoITT and OEM had 

already prepared for the possibility of comprehensive failure in the city’s communications networks, and had established a framework for responding to such an 

event. Among other things, the contingency plan included a protocol for providing 

essential personnel with immediate access to wireless and Internet-based communications equipment. It included warehousing ‘‘spare’’ telecommunications and computer equipment that could also be immediately deployed. The contingency plan included redundancy for the city’s data network at two separate locations. And it provided for the city’s mainframe data center to be remotely located and run as an always-on ‘‘hot site.’’

Mutual Aid and Restoration 

Contingency planning for a potential telecommunications crisis in New York City 

truly began in earnest in 1992 with the establishment of the New York City Metropolitan area Mutual Aid and Restoration Consortium (MARC). MARC arose out of 

the recommendations of a public-private mayoral Task Force, which was charged 

with developing a plan for voice and data traffic to be handled by alternative carriers in case of a critical disruption to the telecommunications networks supporting 

the city. Fourteen telecommunications carriers that served the city’s Metropolitan 

area were the original signatories to the MARC agreement, essentially establishing 

a framework for cooperation among competitors. Under the terms of the city’s curVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:36 Jun 01, 2006 Jkt 091395 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\91395.TXT JACKF PsN: JACKF
8

rent franchise agreements, new franchisees are similarly obligated to ‘‘pursue avenues involving mutual assistance,’’ as set forth in the MARC agreement. 

Clearly, the telecommunications landscape, with respect to technologies, competition and the law, has changed dramatically since MARC’s inception. This evolution 

may have diminished signatory enthusiasm for the MARC agreement somewhat. 

Nonetheless, on September 11, MARC was successfully convened as the primary vehicle for delivering alternative voice and data services to essential City government 

offices and operations. The accomplishments of this cooperative undertaking came 

primarily as a result of the ability and willingness of the city, MARC members, and 

participating non-MARC members with telecommunications assets in the city to 

make spontaneous adaptations to procedures that did not necessarily anticipate a 

catastrophe on this nature and magnitude. Fundamentally, however, the MARCbased framework worked, and worked as follows:

• As envisioned in the MARC agreement, following the attack, DoITT began 

chairing twice-daily teleconference meetings with MARC members and nonMARC members with telecommunications assets in the city to organize the restoration of voice and data services to city government buildings. 

• Critical restoration sites were identified, and prioritized, by OEM’s Emergency 

Operations Center. The telecommunications carriers participating in the teleconferences were asked for proposals either to activate existing carrier services 

in, or to bring new carrier services to, buildings on the city’s critical priority 

list. 

• Carriers who believed they had the ability to provide the required restoration 

or provisioning services were invited to undertake joint site visits and submit 

proposals. Vendor selection was based on a carrier’s commitment, and apparent 

ability, to restore necessary services more quickly or more completely than 

could other potential vendors. Vendors were also required to include cost estimates in their proposals.

Finally, as also envisioned by MARC, DoITT used the teleconferences to encourage and coordinate the pooling of telecommunications resources among carriers to 

further facilitate the delivery of alternative voice and data solutions. This took place 

while Verizon dedicated much of its resources to getting their central office back up 

and running, while working on restoring the city’s Police command center (where 

they did a tremendous job), and the stock exchange. 

Ultimately, through the MARC process, alternate telecommunication services 

were delivered to city offices by, among other measures, physically bringing new 

fiber and equipment into the affected buildings. These newly installed ‘‘facilities’’ 

permitted the provision of voice and data services. As necessary, PBX systems were 

also installed to support the restored voice communications. Notably, however, Voice 

over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solutions more quickly restored voice services (to such 

essential critical sites as City Hall) than did the PBX systems. In other cases, fixedwireless solutions provided the most expedient route. 

It should be noted that an array of critical activities supporting the MARC process 

took place concurrently with the teleconferences. Among them, DoITT actively compiled a database of functioning carrier POPs and other network infrastructure elements to augment the city’s already existing geographic information system (GIS). 

The GIS maps provided information on critical access points for emergency workers. 

Additionally, this centralized inventory of knowledge facilitated a more efficient coordination of carrier resource pooling during the teleconferences. 

DoITT worked with OEM and the Mayor’s Office to help ensure access for utility 

personnel to affected sites for field surveys and restoration work. The field surveys 

were undertaken to develop a scope for the specific set of services needed, and to 

assess the completeness of the alternate carrier’s proposed solution. Ensuring access 

to ‘‘Ground Zero’’ was not always a smooth process, due to the unprecedented level 

of security in the area, and the presence of emergency response, law enforcement 

and relief officials from a variety of local, state and federal organizations. Nonetheless, in virtually all cases, access was eventually secured without inordinate delay 

under the circumstances. It is indeed questionable whether, for example, the diesel 

trucks that were needed to fuel backup generators would have been able to gain access at all but for the MARC process in coordination with our local Police. 

DoITT also initiated an unprecedented ‘‘wireless MARC.’’ To their credit, all public and private sector entities transmitting in the affected area voluntarily participated. The main purpose of the teleconferences, which occurred twice daily at the 

outset of the crisis, was to monitor and, if necessary, remedy any interference on 

the 800 MHz emergency response frequencies. This undertaking was especially important because of the many temporary wireless facilities, including cells on wheels 

(COWs), being deployed. Although restoration was not undertaken through wireless 

9

MARC, this could have been an additional function of the initiative had there been 

such a need. 

Results of Preparedness and Restoration Efforts 

As a result of these efforts:

• NYC.gov, which provided city employees and the public with essential information during the crisis, was physically rerouted by 10:40 p.m. on September 11. 

• OEM, which lost its building in the attack, utilized a fully equipped mobile bus 

before establishing an interim site also on the evening of September 11. Within 

48 hours, a new, fully operational facility was built. 

• City Hall’s communication services were restored by September 14. The Municipal building, including the city Comptroller’s office and many other city agencies were restored by September 15.

Ultimately, by quickly restoring communications, the City of New York was able 

to fulfill its core obligation of protecting public health and safety. A less tangible, 

but highly important related benefit was that the public was reassured as to the 

ability of their government to do its job in the face of otherwise devastating circumstances. Stated somewhat differently, the fact that we were not only functioning, but soon operating at a fairly sophisticated level, provided some comfort to 

a city under attack. 

LESSONS LEARNED AND RECOMMENDATIONS 

The foremost lesson learned, and my recommendation to other states and municipalities, is to establish a comprehensive communications recovery plan. Such a plan 

should at a minimum encompass an ‘‘operational’’ component, a ‘‘resource component,’’ and a ‘‘contingency’’ component. 

Operational Component 

Governments that have not done so, should consider establishing an emergency 

management entity, like New York City’s OEM, with core responsibility for undertaking a communications risk assessment and for linking this assessment to a business continuity plan. I would further recommend consolidating information technology with voice, data, cable and other communications functions into a single entity like the New York City’s DoITT. Such entity would provide centralized expertise 

to the emergency management entity in its communications risk assessment and 

business continuity plan. 

With respect to risk assessment and business continuity plans, I would further 

suggest:

• Prioritize ‘‘mission critical’’ applications for restoration. 

• Plan for the worst, including both physical and human ‘‘loss.’’

• Rehearse and update the plan, especially as key resources and partners change.

In an emergency, the emergency management entity plays the role of quarterback 

under the Mayor’s direction. It also provides an essential link to other emergency 

management bodies, at other levels of government, both in preparation for, and in 

times of, emergency. 

Resource Component 

As I noted, governments must prepare for the loss of physical and human resources in times of emergency and, particularly, when under attack. For example, 

the telecommunications and computer equipment New York City had warehoused 

as part of Y2K planning were made immediately available to OEM when its headquarters at 7 World Trade Center were destroyed. These stockpiled resources, along 

with donated equipment, were used to help establish an interim site for the agency 

within two days. 

In hindsight, however, we probably did not sufficiently plan for ‘‘physical space 

factors’’ (i.e., relocation). Even where the city was able to restore telecommunications services, we were not always able to get personnel back into buildings for 

two weeks or more. And in some cases the city was forced to make very ad-hoc, and 

less than ideal, arrangements for temporary work space. 

Indeed governments should be ready not only to relocate employees, but must prepare for the potential impact of stress, trauma, injury and, even, death in their 

planning. One possible measure is to create a ‘‘knowledge-oriented’’ database that 

can be accessed if human resources suddenly become unavailable. 

Contingency Component 

Finally, I would emphasize the critical importance of voice and data backup and 

redundancies as perhaps the most critical elements of contingency planning. In New 

10

York City’s case, network backup and redundancies made all the difference in data 

recovery. 

Voice communication, on the other hand, was among our most critical problems. 

I recommend having a contingency plan in place to access alternate carriers, if possible utilizing alternate conduit, central offices and technologies. A robust combination of landline, wireless and VoIP technologies is invaluable for ensuring fast recovery. Such combination provides governments with the flexibility to deploy the fastest 

and best ‘‘fit’’ under unpredictable circumstances. 

WHAT NEW YORK CITY IS DOING AND WHAT WE NEED 

What We are Doing 

Briefly, I would like to summarize the steps New York City is taking in the wake 

of September 11, to improve our communications infrastructure:

• Geographic Information System—I have mentioned the city’s GIS, or mapping, 

application. We are going to be mapping all the broadband fiber in the city, and 

who owns the fiber, on our GIS. With this knowledge at the city’s fingertips, 

in the event of another service outage, we will be able top even more quickly 

restore service through MARC. • MARC—The city is revising MARC based on this experience. We are attempting 

to formalize participation in the consortium by wireless carriers, and to improve 

the city’s coordination with federal and state regulatory and emergency management authorities. In addition to running MARC restoration drills, we will be 

reaching-out to our business community to determine whether and how the private sector may benefit from MARC. • Supporting Business Community—The city is coordinating with the downtown 

business community to assist in their development of a redundant telecommunications infrastructure. At the same time, the city intends to work with other 

private sector representatives and telecommunications disaster recovery experts 

to gain a comprehensive picture of private initiatives already underway—at the 

corporate-level, industry-level and business district level—to assess areas in 

which the city can play a supportive, or complementary, role. We also want to 

impress on businesses, based on DoITT’s unique vantage-point as a franchising 

agency, that they have options based largely on the infrastructures already in 

place for redundant and resilient service (and that they do not need to move 

their businesses elsewhere). • New Fiber Loops—The city is issuing a request for proposals to develop in an 

alternative fiber loop, that will link all of the critical city buildings in lower 

Manhattan, on a wholly separate fiber conduit path. Trying to be creative, the 

city has also found that we have vacant water pipes, which have been unused 

for 100 years, just sitting there in pretty good shape. We are trying to convert 

these old pipes into alternate conduit, and have seen a great deal of interest 

in developing that additional disaster recovery option. • Wireless Facilities on City Buildings—In addition, city-owned building will now 

be used for siting wireless facilities. In the past, we have been reluctant on this 

front, due partly to community concerns. Nonetheless, the city has determined 

that it is in the public’s best interest to proceed with an initiative to use our 

buildings to enhance coverage in the most critical geographic areas. • Reducing Last Mile Costs—We are also attempting to address reducing the cost 

for competitive telecommunications providers to get access to the last mile. In 

the City, there are still hundreds of large office buildings that do not have 

broadband connections. The city is going to issue requests for proposals to try 

to greatly reduce the cost of getting into the buildings (i.e., by constructing 

‘‘laterals’’) through mini-consortiums. This would greatly reduce the related construction costs, and reliance of copper connections to a single central office. 

What We Need 

Channel 16—As first responders, the city Police, Fire and other emergency services must be assured that they will have sufficient bandwidth to save lives, and protect themselves, in emergencies. In this respect, I can not overstate the importance 

to the city of being provided with the permanent right to utilize the Channel 16 

radio spectrum (482 MHz—488 MHz). 

The city will soon be petitioning the FCC to remove the conditions under which 

it granted a waiver in 1995 to twelve metropolitan area agencies for use of Channel 

16 radio to construct a public safety radio network. Under its original terms, the 

waiver was to last a minimum of five years, after which time it could be terminated 

by the FCC for digital television use. 

The NYPD utilizes Channel 16 for its data communication needs, and has completed installation of Channel 16 interoperability channels for use by first respondVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:36 Jun 01, 2006 Jkt 091395 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\91395.TXT JACKF PsN: JACKF
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ers in the Metropolitan area. City Emergency Medical Services (EMS) uses Channel 

16 to dispatch ambulance service. And the Fire Department is in the process of deploying thousands of ‘‘fire-ground’’ radios to support firefighter communication requirements at fire response sites. Following a comprehensive consulting study, 

Channel 16 will be further built-out to support a voice and data requirements of 

City agencies, including Police, Fire, EMS and other critical agencies, and to provide 

interoperability between first responders. 

A permanent right to Channel represents our most critical post-September 11 

public safety spectrum need, which cannot be accommodated via the overcrowded 

800 MHz public safety spectrum, or by Channels 14 or 15. Ultimately, it represents 

a unique opportunity for the City to develop a state-of-the-art communications system. Because City agencies operate primarily in the frequency bands that encompass Channels 14 and 15, a permanent grant of contiguous Channel 16 spectrum 

would permit interoperability, and enable the utilization of existing radio equipment. This would avoid radio replacement costs running in the hundreds of millions 

of dollars. Alternatively, the reallocation of Channel 16 to broadcasters could create 

significant interference with the City’s operations on Channel 15. 

Municipal Franchises 

There appears to be a trend underway, both regulatory and legislative, to ‘‘deregulate’’ local jurisdiction over telecommunications providers in general, and the socalled ‘‘information services’’ offered by ILECs and cable companies in particular. 

The city disagrees with the legal underpinnings for such proposals, and we will be 

filing comments with the FCC making our case. Today, from a policy standpoint, 

I would like to point out that the city’s experience demonstrates that franchises do 

not hinder deployment of services. Moreover, franchise fees provide municipalities 

with fair compensation for the use of public property. Most relevant to this proceeding, however, an overlooked aspect of local regulation is that it provides municipalities with leverage to guarantee carrier to participate in coordinated restoration 

initiatives, like MARC. And it also provides municipalities with leverage to gain access to critical infrastructure information, such as that needed for GIS mapping. 

Finally, there is a need for improvement on the wireless front. Although wireless 

carriers participated voluntarily and commendably on the city’s MARC after September 11, they are as an industry not accustomed to having any binding accountability to local government. Since wireless plays such a critical function in emergency first response, and in providing communications of last resort in an emergency, it would be useful for the federal government to consider how the industry 

can be better brought into the fold in disaster recovery planning. 

CLOSING 

In conclusion, I would say that New York City suffered a devastating blow on September 11. We were knocked down; but we are getting up, I think, faster than anyone expected. We are doing exactly the kinds of things to reevaluate and improve 

our telecommunications infrastructure that are necessary to revitalize the city government and private industry.

Senator INOUYE. Thank you very much, Mr. Cangemi. 

Before I call upon Mr. Souder, Senator Burns, do you have any 

statement? 

STATEMENT OF HON. CONRAD BURNS,

U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA 

Senator BURNS. I have a statement, Mr. Chairman. I just thank 

you for holding this hearing and I will just submit my statement 

for the record. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Burns follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CONRAD BURNS, U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA

I would like to thank the Chairman for holding today’s hearing, which concerns 

a topic of critical importance to our national security. Today’s hearing will review 

the rapid response to the September 11 attacks by our public safety officials and 

commercial wireline and wireless carriers, which required nothing short of heroic 

effort under the most extreme pressure imaginable. Additionally, this hearing will 

look to the future to determine how best to create a unified, robust national communications infrastructure. The searing experience of September 11 revealed the imVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:36 Jun 01, 2006 Jkt 091395 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\91395.TXT JACKF PsN: JACKF
12

portance of redundant networks, multiple facilities-based providers and priority access for public safety officials. Additionally, as we venture into the complex area of 

comprehensive spectrum reform, we should bear in mind the vital nature of spectrum to those on the front line of homeland defense—our police, fire, medical, public 

health and other emergency response agencies. 

I want to draw particular attention to the very heart of our public safety communications infrastructure, the 911 network. In the wake of the attacks on America, 

the underpinning of our entire civil defense effort is our ability to communicate during times of crisis. For this reason, we must maintain our focus on building out the 

next generation of wireless enhanced 911 services. Enhanced 911 is a key component of our national emergency communications system and so is a top priority for 

this Subcommittee. The tools that will prove most valuable in responding to additional attacks will also save countless lives in individual as well as mass emergencies. 

The Subcommittee will certainly benefit from the expertise of our distinguished 

witnesses as we grapple with these difficult issues. I would like to particularly welcome Chris McLean, who will be testifying today on behalf of the ComCARE Alliance. Chris has been a tireless advocate for the building of the next generation of 

public safety communications—an integrated, digital, nationwide emergency communications system. I enthusiastically support this worthy goal and look forward to 

working to implement ComCARE’s ‘‘E-Safety Program.’’ The ‘‘E-Safety Program’’ 

calls for the support of state planning and deployment of Integrated Emergency 

Communications Systems in Model States, additional capacity for emergency networks and many other positive ideas. 

In 1999 Congress laid out a ‘‘Road Map’’ for Public Safety in the digital age. As 

the Chairman of the Senate Communications Subcommittee, I authored the e–911 

bill, which thanks to the hard work and support of many of my colleagues such as 

Sen. Wyden, was passed into law. The e–911 bill did a couple of very important 

things, and recognized some important needs in regards to the activity here today: 

It made 9-1-1 the universal number for wireless phones. No matter where you are 

in America, 9-1-1 is THE number to connect to emergency responders via your wireless phone. Wireless knows no boundaries. Safety and security shouldn’t either. 

The bill also called for statewide planning and coordination. America has over 

60,000 emergency, law enforcement, or similar agencies. Simply put, we can’t go 

town by town, city by city to improve our emergency response system. There is a 

need to bring folks together, leverage investments and resources, cooperate with 

both the public and private sector to establish an infrastructure that improves emergency response. 

In August of this past year, Montana did just that. Working closely with 

ComCARE, we put together a tremendously successful e–911 summit. The summit 

was attended by nearly 200 public safety officials, industry representatives and interested citizens from around the state who came together to discuss the challenges 

and opportunities facing emergency response. The focus of both the Montana 911 

summit and today’s hearing is on how to utilize the tremendous advances being 

made in wireless technologies to make sure that our citizens have access to the best 

public safety network possible. 

While the passage of the e–911 bill was a tremendous leap forward in the development of our nationwide emergency response capability, our work is far from finished. In fact, much remains to be done. While the carriers have made some 

progress on building out e–91I, their efforts need to be expanded and accelerated. 

I was disappointed that they were not able to meet the initial deadline of October 

I of last year, which required them only to begin the process of providing automatic 

location identification for cellphones. 

On February 1st of this year, the wireless carriers reported their e–911 deployment progress to the FCC. In those reports, two of the six major wireless operators—Verizon Wireless and Sprint—reported that they were on schedule. The other 

four carriers reported that they were not on schedule, and two of those asked for 

waivers of the waivers that the FCC gave them last year. While I understand that 

we are in the midst of challenging economic times in the communications sector, 

every effort must be made to build out these vital e–911 services. 

Creating a 21st century, digital emergency communications network will require 

constant effort and oversight. I believe that hearings such as the one the Chairman 

is holding today are vital to this nation reaching its goal. As Americans we are facing some great challenges in not only improving our emergency response system but 

preparing for future unexpected acts of aggression. Addressing these issues together, in a unified approach, we have an opportunity to not only save an individual’s life, but enhance our ability to respond to events of any magnitude. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman.

13

Senator INOUYE. Without objection, so ordered. 

Senator Wyden. 

STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN,

U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON 

Senator WYDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief. 

I think it is particularly helpful that you are holding this hearing 

right now, Mr. Chairman, because I think this is a question of 

making sure that we not lose the momentum. There is clearly an 

opportunity to focus, and I am interested in working with you on 

the issues. 

In addition, as I think people from New York know as well, I am 

going to be introducing legislation very shortly to create what 

amounts to the technology equivalent of the National Guard. We 

have found that there were a tremendous number of people in the 

private sector, in companies, for example, like Intel, that were willing to donate both personnel and equipment to try to help to deal 

with these problems. As the folks know from New York, there were 

some logistical problems in utilizing all that talent, simply because 

we had never faced a challenge of this magnitude. So I will have 

some questions when we get to that point, Mr. Chairman. But I so 

appreciate your leadership, because this is what it is going to take 

to keep the momentum alive and really get some results. 

Senator INOUYE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Souder, I am one of your constituents. I live in Montgomery 

County. So I thank you very much for the service there. It is yours 

now. 

STATEMENT OF STEVE SOUDER, DIRECTOR, MONTGOMERY 

COUNTY, MARYLAND 9-1-1 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS 

CENTER 

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Really, although I do work in Montgomery County, I was for the previous 16 years Director of the Arlington County, Virginia, 9-1-1 center, during the period of time of September 

11th and really would like my testimony to be testimony that is 

brought to the Committee really from my public safety communications colleagues throughout the metropolitan Washington area who 

collectively worked together to mitigate the events of September 

11th. 

I am sure everyone in this room has indelibly etched in your 

mind where you were in that fateful hour between about 8:45 and 

9:45 on September 11th. But I would ask the question, does anybody remember where they were 20 years prior to that on the 

afternoon of January 13th, 1982? Probably not. But for those that 

may recall, that was a snowy day in Washington, D.C., and there 

was an airplane on the runway at National Airport preparing to 

take off for a return flight to Tampa, Florida. 

That was Air Florida Flight 90. It took off in the midst of a snowstorm that had blanketed the city and it was unsuccessful. It 

crashed onto the 14th Street Bridge, into the ice-clogged Potomac 

River, and all but five of the passengers aboard perished. 

Because that event happened where it did, technically in Washington, D.C., less than 100 yards from the Virginia shoreline, and 

14

coincidentally only one quarter mile from the Pentagon, the same 

group of first responders responded to that event that did the event 

at the Pentagon on September 11th—Arlington County, Alexandria, National Airport, Washington, D.C., Fairfax County, Montgomery County. 

When they arrived, all of them well-meaning, none of them could 

talk to the other agency, because 20 years ago they were all operating on very divergent radio systems supported by various portions of the radio spectrum. It was literally a disaster within itself, 

because if you cannot communicate you cannot effectively operate. 

In this very room after that event, there were hearings held 

about that event and the communications difficulties that were encountered were highlighted and discussed. We are pleased and you 

should be proud that because of those hearings the needs of public 

safety were addressed, addressed in the fact that the FCC opened 

up a portion of the radio spectrum heretofore unavailable to public 

safety, commonly today referred to as 800 megahertz. That 800 

megahertz radio spectrum allowed the Washington, D.C., area to, 

as a result of the tragic events of January 13th, craft a plan, set 

a goal, for being better prepared to address whatever might befall 

this community in the future. 

As a result of that, in over the past 20 years five major communities within the metropolitan Washington area have transitioned 

to 800 megahertz radio. By the end of this calendar year, three 

more major metropolitan area communities will do so. When combined to the communities that surround Baltimore, Maryland, we 

virtually have a seamless network of public safety first responders 

radio communications systems between north of Baltimore and 

south of Washington, D.C. 

Consequently, on September 11th when the plane struck the 

Pentagon and the first responders responded they were able to do 

so in a far more effective fashion than had been the case 20 years 

prior to that. The communications was virtually seamless, flawless, 

and very effective. It was not perfect, but it certainly was very effective. 

That is a result of long-term planning, consolidating your resources, sharing information with your neighbors, and having a design for really want you want to do. However, just like my colleague from New York mentioned, there were difficulties. There 

were challenges. To highlight but two of them—and the chair mentioned in his opening remarks about the impacts of wireless or cellular communications and these little things we call cell phones. 

There are about 160 million of them in the United States today and 

they tell me that every 24 hours another 7,000 subscribers sign on. 

We public safety have become just as dependent upon them as 

has the general public and the business community. Surely one of 

the quick things that occurred on September 11th was cellular 

gridlock. Although we did have our radio systems, that is not to say 

it is the only way we communicate, and we could not communicate 

on cellular telephones. We were in gridlock. 

So one of the things that I believe really needs to be looked at 

very clearly is what is loosely referred to as cellular priority access, 

but bringing that priority access down to the first responders level, 

with discipline, with organization, with priority, with a procedure 

15

to follow. But clearly, we need to have access to those cellular telephones in the future. 

Similarly, although the event went very well in the early hours 

of the event, by about mid-afternoon when many other assets arrived on the scene, assets that we do not normally communicate 

with, assets that were not, like ourselves, equipped with 800 megahertz radios, we could not communicate with them nor they communicate with us. We were fortunate in that we were able to develop a work-around because we had the good fortune of being able 

to draw upon a stock of excess radios and quickly programmed 

them and distributed them. But that took time and it took effort, 

critical time and critical effort. 

So we really need, I believe, also to address the issue of how do 

we establish that interoperability, that word that very few of us uttered just a few short years ago and now is on everyone’s tongue? 

How do we develop that interoperability between not only the first 

responders who respond every day across county and city borders 

to assist each other, but to make that interoperability available to 

the Federal assets, whether it is Defense Department, Justice Department, Treasury Department, or others, so that we can have the 

same level of interoperability communications with them as we do 

with our brothers and sisters in the fire and in the law enforcement service. 

Although we have been very successful in Washington and are 

proud of it, the unfortunate thing is that less than ten miles from 

where we sit today one of our major suburban communities is not 

able to join in that network of commonality in radio systems because, although the FCC was gracious in allocating certain portions 

of the 800 megahertz radio spectrum and we have used it, I think, 

wisely and efficiently, unfortunately, because spectrum is a finite 

natural resource, at least locally we need more 800 megahertz so 

that we can bring into the fold, if you will, those other agencies, 

those other jurisdictions who cannot acquire that spectrum right 

now because it has all been exhausted. 

I think one of the persons that will testify in the second portion 

of this hearing, Mr. Glen Nash from APCO, will speak to the Committee about that very issue and the importance of spectrum to 

public safety, because in the wireless age in which we all live and 

where it is the cell phone and the pager and the PDA and a host 

of other wireless devices, we are all competing for that finite natural resource that we call spectrum. 

So it is very, very important that priorities be set, that the 

public’s need can be recognized, but also that public safety’s needs 

can be recognized also. 

I, like my colleague from New York, thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

Senator INOUYE. Thank you very much, Mr. Souder. 

If I may, I will begin the questioning. The events of that day 

soon became a matter of national concern. Everything from blood 

banks to security became a matter of national concern. How did 

your office coordinate with other State and Federal offices in order 

to provide relief for the city? Were you able to do that? 

Mr. CANGEMI. Yes. What we had is a centralized Office of Emergency Management and, although it was destroyed in 7 World 

16

Trade Center, we actually physically located along a pier, and at 

that location we had authorities from other States essentially set 

up cubicles with work stations, computers, Internet access, wireless 

access. Cell phones were distributed at the site; developed identification cards for security. But at that one centralized Office for 

Emergency Management, there were work stations for our various 

representatives from the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, not-forprofits that were providing assistance, State officials, other governmental officials. 

Physical proximity I guess was the answer. Representatives from 

each of those organizations were able to physically kind of co-locate 

and that greatly helped. 

Senator INOUYE. I can understand the interoperability of the system in the greater Washington area, but did you have some sort 

of connection with other States other than Virginia and Maryland 

and Washington, D.C.? 

Mr. SOUDER. Unfortunately, we did not. We were able to meet 

our immediate needs by simply calling upon the immediate resources that all three major jurisdictions in this area provide, 

namely the District of Columbia as the hub, Northern Virginia, and 

suburban Maryland. Those folks from Northern Virginia and from 

Maryland respectively went out to their State level emergency 

management personnel for the assistance that they needed. 

Of course, we had the good fortune, because FEMA is located 

here in our community, that they were quick to respond and assist 

as well. But even FEMA and Virginia Emergency Management and 

Maryland Emergency Management, because they are on divergent 

radio systems, are not able to communicate effectively with those 

that have already been there and really are seeking their assistance. 

Senator INOUYE. If 9–11 should occur now, can you communicate 

with them now? 

Mr. SOUDER. We could only do so in the manner that we did on 

the 11th, which would be by sharing with them, if we had available, excess radios so that they could communicate with us. The 

good fortune that we had on September 11th is because several of 

those communities that I mentioned earlier that are going to become 800 megahertz users by the end of this calendar year, the 

portable radios that their firefighters and EMT’s and law enforcement personnel are going to eventually be issued were in fact in 

those communities in boxes, yet to be issued, yet to be programmed. So we had the good fortune of having more than a thousand portable radios, as you might say, in the closet. 

We were able to retrieve those radios quickly, program those radios, charge the batteries for those radios, which all took time, but 

nevertheless we could quickly do it over the course of about 4 

hours, and then virtually hand them or distribute them out to 

those people that were coming to assist us, like the State level, like 

the military, and like the Federal assets as well. 

Senator INOUYE. Obviously, the tragedy of 9–11 can occur in any 

other major city. Have you been able, both of you, to share your 

experience and knowledge with other places? 

Mr. CANGEMI. Yes. I have actually made a similar presentation 

to the National Association of Public Utility Commissioners, so that 

17

was addressed at the State level. Each of the 50 States were represented at that hearing. I made a presentation in Florida. I have 

been contacted by the Clark County-Las Vegas emergency management officials. A colleague of mine at my agency has also been in 

contact with many other municipalities. 

I think they are all interested in our MARC, Mutual Aid and 

Restoration Consortium, model, our Emergency Management Command Center model, and are interested in perhaps replicating it at 

their local level as well. 

Mr. SOUDER. I have also had that good fortune of being invited 

to speak at a number of conferences on these very same issues. Although nothing that we did in Washington, in the metropolitan 

Washington area, was terribly unique, but it was done with cooperation and collaboration. I think when we have explained to our 

colleagues across the Nation that was really the foundation of what 

we did, it has kind of opened their eyes to perhaps a new business 

model for doing local government where the sharing of resources 

and the planning collectively can really work for the good of not 

only one agency, but an entire region. 

Senator INOUYE. In your initial discussions with your colleagues 

throughout the land, were you convinced that they were ready? 

Mr. SOUDER. I think ‘‘ready’’ is probably a relative term. They 

might be ready as they are doing business today, but I think when 

they have realized how dramatically our world has changed since 

September 11th and the fact that there are threats and possibilities out there that heretofore we had not given a lot of thought to, 

combined with the fact that when hearing the way other communities deal with things both routinely as well as in a disaster, it 

has provided an opportunity for some new thought to be given as 

to the way that business is conducted, particularly in public safety 

communications and the way in which communities and regions respond to both routine as well as a major disaster, yes. 

Senator INOUYE. Are you convinced that other communities are 

trying to improve their facilities? 

Mr. CANGEMI. I think that the other communities are greatly interested. I have been actually fielding dozens of calls and have 

shared a copy of our Mutual Aid and Restoration Consortium 

agreement with a number of other municipalities. It is not something that they actually were familiar with. They had not ever even 

really contemplated having a consortium of competitors working as 

cooperatively as we had contemplated back in 1992. So perhaps it 

has some steam and will be able to be replicated. 

Senator INOUYE. I have a few other questions, but let me yield 

to Senator Burns. 

Senator BURNS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Souder, could you give me an idea of Montgomery County’s 

infrastructure? Do you have one central communications center 

that you dispatch and receive calls? 

Mr. SOUDER. That is correct. In the business that is commonly 

referred to as a PSAP, a public safety answering point. In Montgomery County, as well as in most of the other communities 

throughout the metropolitan Washington area, they are served by 

one communications center that serves the entire community as 

well as all of its public safety resources. 

18

Senator BURNS. Now, whenever a call comes in, an emergency 

call comes in, say it comes in from a—say you have a residence on 

fire, just a fire call, an ordinary fire call. Does your fire department—each fire department in the county—and there are individual, I would imagine, jurisdictions—do they operate on the same 

frequency or different frequencies? 

Mr. SOUDER. They all operate on the same common radio system, 

as well as the same common radio frequencies within that system. 

The assignment of a given frequency is done at the PSAP or the 

dispatch center, so that the command and control of that event is 

really controlled at the PSAP and each unit and each event is given 

its separate channel or frequency to talk on. 

Senator BURNS. Is the same true with your police? 

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, it is. 

Senator BURNS. Now, tell me, in our PSAP or whatever, you receive a call, you call that policeman in that jurisdiction. Then can 

you monitor their conversation between them and their headquarters, and do you do that? 

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, we can, and yes, we do. We would be their 

headquarters, so we would be able the monitor the conversations 

that were taking place both between the unit and headquarters as 

well as between units and units. 

Senator BURNS. I am thinking of New York and redundant systems. You mentioned your redundant systems. Tell me about—you 

say now you are going to have broadband wired redundant systems. How about wireless? 

Mr. CANGEMI. As far as wireless goes, from a local perspective we 

have not actually had that much kind of interaction with the wireless folks because we do not have regulatory authority over the 

wireless industry. But one of the plans—what we were able to deploy in New York was wireless 128K modem access. There is a 

company called Metrocom that actually is in bankruptcy. I wrote 

a letter to the bankruptcy court following September 11th, which 

allowed them to actually restart the company again, to the detriment of some of the creditors, but I found that they were understanding. 

What we do is we have our light poles in New York City have 

antennas on the light poles. That is an extraordinarily fast means 

of communicating wirelessly. We were able to actually use that. We 

have plans to reinvigorate a similar system in New York going forward. 

Senator BURNS. Voice and data? 

Mr. CANGEMI. It is not currently set up for voice. It is just data 

right now. But I think it is possible to actually have some voice on 

the network as well. 

Senator BURNS. Mr. Souder, have you ever asked your vendors 

if the police wanted to communicate with fire—let us say under the 

circumstances of a deployment of police handling security, fire trying to deal with their situation. Yet they cannot talk to each other 

by radio because both of them are operating on different frequencies. Have vendors ever come up with a radio device that will 

switch frequencies on the individual radio? 

Mr. SOUDER. Well, within the 800 megahertz type of radio system that is in use in our metropolitan area and many other areas 

19

of the country, those systems would allow for the law enforcement 

personnel to communicate with the fire and rescue personnel on an 

as-needed basis on the same system and, when necessary, on the 

same channel. So that really is one of the tremendous advantages 

that are associated with the 800 megahertz trunking technology. 

Senator BURNS. Tell me, in order to bring you up to speed how 

much more spectrum do you think you require out there to really 

be effective? 

Mr. SOUDER. The APCO organization which Mr. Nash will represent at the next portion of this hearing will speak to that. I think 

one of the problems is that the spectrum that has been allocated 

recently by the Commission, that is commonly referred to as that 

which used to be assigned to television channels, is spectrum that 

unfortunately will not under the best of circumstances be available 

to public safety until December 31st of 2006. That is only initially, 

and by nature of some formulas that are associated with how and 

when that spectrum in reality will be available, predicated upon 

the amount of digital televisions that are in service in a given particular geographical area will influence that. 

So we really need that spectrum, I believe, much sooner than the 

31st of December in the year 2006. We need it today. But even if 

we got it then, I am not sure that would be really meaningful, in 

that because of the passage of that date, if there has not been that 

transition to digital television, what is in theory ours cannot be 

ours until that 85 percent saturation point of digital televisions has 

taken place in a given market area. 

Senator BURNS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator INOUYE. Thank you. 

Senator Wyden. 

Senator WYDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me begin with you if I can, Mr. Cangemi. Am I pronouncing 

that right? 

Mr. CANGEMI. Yes. 

Senator WYDEN. Great. I think your testimony is especially important because it seems to me, and sort of the attitude I bring to 

this is, that New York City is arguably the most sophisticated 

place on the planet from a communications standpoint and yet we 

had what amounts to a total meltdown for a period of time. I was 

struck at my hearing where one of the fire chiefs who responded 

to the problem said that at one point his only means of communicating directions to firefighters on the front lines was handwritten notes delivered by runners on foot. So for a period of time 

there was just a complete meltdown. 

As I have studied what has gone on in New York, it seems to 

me you did a lot of things very well in terms of coming back. Now 

the question is sort of where do we go from here. That is what I 

want to ask you some questions about. 

Let me begin in terms of this concept of trying to utilize the 

many people in the private sector who would like the help, the 

companies with people and equipment, and ask you whether you 

think it would be useful to have a preexisting database, a database 

that would be created now and would be in place and updated, so 

as to have an ongoing list of available private sector technology and 

20

communications resources that you could call on if you were faced 

with another attack like September 11th? 

Mr. CANGEMI. Absolutely. Many of the participants on the MARC 

calls were those kinds of companies, folks that did not have any obligation to be participating on our calls and all they wanted to do 

was help and make their resources available. Large telecommunications equipment companies provided donations of equipment, donations of trailers to bring up telecommunications as quickly as 

possible. To have a database like that would actually be extraordinarily helpful going forward. 

Senator WYDEN. Good. That is one thing we will include. 

One other aspect of this. You know, this country has got a strategic petroleum reserve in order to have a measure of protection 

against a calamitous situation with respect to oil. It seems to me 

I think we would be well served by having what amounts to a strategic technology reserve in effect. It could be a virtual technology 

reserve where companies could pledge equipment and resources 

again if there was a problem. 

Would that be useful to you? 

Mr. CANGEMI. Absolutely. We had our own reserves for Y2K 

planning and there was a certain amount of generosity on behalf 

of the companies in the days following September 11th. But from 

a global perspective I think that would be helpful nationally. 

Senator WYDEN. Mr. Souder, do you agree? I gather you already 

have some reserves with respect to radios and that kind of thing 

and that strikes me as plenty useful. There is a lot of interest in 

that at home in Oregon even for things like fighting forest fires. 

But my sense is that the private companies would be willing to do 

a whole lot more, and I gather you would be sympathetic to something like that as well? 

Mr. SOUDER. Absolutely. I think, in credit to them—and I know 

it occurred in New York and it certainly occurred in our area—is 

that the response by the private sector to the needs of the public 

sector could not have been better. It was good fortune, though. Not 

that it would not have come forward, but everything was lined up 

right, if you will. It was a beautiful day, kind of a fall day, clear 

skies, middle of the day. There were not a lot of the things that 

could impair that, if you will. 

But that was good fortune. Picture it happening in Oregon in the 

middle of a snowstorm in the middle of the winter and it may not 

come together quite as smoothly as that. So to have the kind of 

structured database of resources available clearly would ensure 

that it could come together regardless of what the circumstances 

were. 

Senator WYDEN. The next area I would like to explore with you 

is that the key to making this work is to ensure that it is first responder-friendly, that all of these resources from the private sector 

really help the first responders. The last thing people from Intel, 

say, want to do is basically stand around and get in the way when 

people in New York and D.C. are trying to respond to these kinds 

of things. 

Do you have any thoughts or suggestions with respect to how to 

make sure that this is first responder-friendly and that these reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:36 Jun 01, 2006 Jkt 091395 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\91395.TXT JACKF PsN: JACKF
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sources from the private sector complement the kind of work that 

your people are doing, Mr. Cangemi? 

Mr. CANGEMI. I agree. There had been a proceeding in front of 

the FCC regarding wireless priority and a Federal agency had actually tried to establish a wireless priority, kind of creating these 

super-cell phones that would in the event of an emergency have access and everyone else would kind of fall down the priority list. I 

was amazed that New York City first responders were not included 

on that. 

Senator WYDEN. Were not included? 

Mr. CANGEMI. Were not. We submitted comments describing how 

as first responders we were there in the days following the World 

Trade Center and it took approximately a week before we saw a 

presence at the Federal level in terms of FERC, those kind of emergency responders. So we think it is a great idea. We just want to 

make sure that kind of priority access gets in the hands of the first 

responders proportionately. 

Senator WYDEN. Mr. Souder? 

Mr. SOUDER. I would agree with that comment also. We have 

reached out to our six major wireless carriers in the metropolitan 

area, wanting to meet with them and see if we cannot orchestrate 

a system whereby, should an event of this magnitude occur in the 

future and we have cellular gridlock again, that notwithstanding 

the efforts of the Senate and the House and the FCC along these 

lines, that we would having a working partner in the form of the 

carriers, so that they could do whatever they could do internally to 

their systems to kind of address the problem, if you will. 

Mr. CANGEMI. Just a follow-up. We have actually already addressed that with a company that wants to bring up the wireless 

data network in New York City and they have assured us that as 

far as the modems that New York City emergency workers would 

have, we would be able to have priority access. So that is critical 

to us. 

Senator WYDEN. Did you bump up against any obstacles in taking donations? I have heard reports that there are some legal constraints in terms of what you can take because of a suggestion that 

somehow, in some way, someone would enrich themselves or something like that. I have heard of credentialing questions or people, 

for example, who came to New York City and had difficulty getting 

credentialed. 

Again so I am clear on this, Mr. Cangemi, I think you all did a 

lot of things very, very well. This is not in any way supposed to 

be some broadside. To the contrary, the question is trying to think 

down the road a little bit to deal with these questions for the future. I would be interested in your response on that. 

Mr. CANGEMI. I am sorry? As far as the donations? 

Senator WYDEN. Any obstacles with respect to what you could 

take and how you could use it, your thoughts on the credentialing 

issue, that general area. 

Mr. CANGEMI. Honestly, Senator, in the days following September 11th I kind of put my General Counsel hat down and acted 

as a Deputy Commissioner and tried to get the job done. We had 

an open kind of system, so that all the calls and the donations and 

those kinds of offers were being made with their competitors hearVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:36 Jun 01, 2006 Jkt 091395 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\91395.TXT JACKF PsN: JACKF
22

ing it, so it kind of allayed some of the fears I may have had if 

there were any accusations of favoritism as a result of that. 

We had this open system. There were 40 of the largest telecommunications providers communicating at the same time, with 

the opportunity to assist equally. Any offers that made sense to us 

were accepted and that offer was available to everybody. 

As far as credentialing, I leave that to the emergency management folks to answer. They were at first very hesitant to credential 

certain representatives. I was able to provide them with a list of 

our MARC, Mutual Aid Restoration Consortium, participants and 

their respective companies, and that helped with credentialing of at 

least the companies that participated in our conference calls. 

Senator WYDEN. I know my time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator INOUYE. Senator Burns. 

Senator BURNS. I have no other questions. 

Senator INOUYE. I would just like to ask one question. In every 

community there are radio stations and TV stations that have been 

designated for emergency signals. Did that system work on that 

day? 

Mr. CANGEMI. Senator, I actually saw a news story in the New 

York Times about how that system was not deployed following September 11th, how there was kind of this actual—there were personnel, staffed 24 by 7, who were supposed to do that. 

The main antenna that serves broadcast in New York City was 

on top of the World Trade Center. The folks who were only served 

by that antenna did not receive any kinds of television type motivation. As far as cable television goes, the system in place seemed 

somewhat antiquated because of the news coverage that existed on 

a multitude of channels. So while it was not employed, it did not 

seem as if there was a lack of information, at least to the customers in the New York City area that had web access or cable television access in the days following September 11th. 

Senator INOUYE. Mr. Souder? 

Mr. SOUDER. Although I do not have direct knowledge of it, my 

understanding is that in this area the news media was very effective in broadcasting the events that were occurring at the Pentagon 

and some of the traffic issues that were associated with that. But 

I am not sure that the Emergency Broadcast System per se actually was activated, and my understanding is that is an issue that 

is being looked at this time. 

Senator INOUYE. Gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee I thank 

you very much. 

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. CANGEMI. Thank you, sir. 

Senator INOUYE. Now may I call upon the Counsel of ComCARE 

Alliance, Mr. Christopher A. McLean; the President of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International, Mr. 

Glen Nash; the Group President for New York and Connecticut of 

Verizon, Mr. Paul Crotty; the Vice President of Operations, New 

York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, AT&T, Ms. Gloria Harris; and 

the Chairman, CEO, and President of Time Warner Telecom, Ms. 

Larissa Herda. 

May I first call upon Mr. McLean. 

23

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER A. MCLEAN,

COUNSEL, COMCARE ALLIANCE 

Mr. MCLEAN. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

If I may be indulged in a point of personal privilege, I want to say 

as a former staffer to Senator Jim Exon, it is indeed a very deep 

personal and professional honor to appear before this Committee. 

The ComCARE Alliance is a not-for-profit coalition of over 75 organizations in the medical, emergency response, telecommunications, transportation, and technology sectors, dedicated to advancing policy and technologies to improve emergency communications in individual and mass events. 

The war on terrorism will be won or lost on information. Emergency responders on the front lines of homeland security need information to do their jobs. It is their most important tool. Every 

day we send first responders into harm’s way without the information tools they need to save our lives or protect their own. Without 

change, the jobs of our heroic emergency responders will get even 

more difficult. 

In general, the emergency communications network of America is 

voicecentric, with minimal data capabilities. Emergency calls are 

being dropped, operators are being overwhelmed, responses are delayed for lack of location information, communications systems can 

quickly become gridlocked, there is little ability to share data 

among multiple emergency response agencies or to communicate 

securely across jurisdictional and agency lines. 

What is needed is a coordinated and integrated approach to upgrading all emergency communications, and this Committee gave a 

very good blueprint for that pathway in enacting the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999. 

The E-Safety program was developed with the help and guidance 

of experts in the field and was adopted by the ComCARE Alliance 

board of directors. Some of those experts include Jenny Henson 

from the State of Montana, the 9-1-1 administrator, and Gary 

Haycox of Intel from the State of Oregon. 

The E-Safety program is designed to address the Nation’s need 

in mass emergencies in a way that will significantly improve our 

ability to handle thousands of daily individual emergencies as well. 

The E-Safety program has eight essential elements: 

Point one, we need to increase the capacity and reliability of 

America’s communications network. Emergency response starts 

with a call for help from a citizen and every effort must be made 

to ensure that there is sufficient fixed and wireless bandwidth deployed to be able to handle call and data volume in times of emergency. Being connected saves lives. The availability of robust wireless, wireline, and satellite networks enhances public safety and security. 

Point two, we need to deploy modern end-to-end emergency communications systems. Every emergency—every emergency agency 

should have at least one broadband connection and at least one intelligent work station. 

Point number three, location technologies need to be deployed. 

Knowing the location of an emergency is critical to speeding response. If you were to make a call to 9-1-1 from your home phone 

in most parts of this country, the emergency responder would have 

24

your street address on their screens in an instant and help can be 

dispatched even if you are unable to talk. They do not have that 

capability when you call from a large complex like the Capitol because the call goes through a PBX system, or from a wireless 

phone. 

Where location is being deployed is in the car. Telematics leaders 

like Onstar and ATX are making Americans safer by delivering location safety products, and the Congress should encourage those 

types of activities. 

Point number four, there needs to be support for State planning 

and deployment of integrated systems in model States. Leading 

States are ready to bring together all stakeholders, and grants 

should be made available to help create model deployments in 

these leading States. Places like Montana where Senator Burns 

chaired an E-Safety summit are ready to lead the way and to bring 

modern emergency communications tools to their everyday response to emergencies. 

Point number five, we need to have two basic tools for all emergency agencies to move into the E-Safety realm: a national emergency electronic registry and event mapping capability. There is no 

comprehensive electronic directory of all emergency response and 

public health agencies, nor is there a directory of the type mentioned by Senator Wyden. The national nonprofit registry being developed by the ComCARE Alliance could help fill that gap. 

We also need to encourage the broad use of shared electronic 

mapping of emergency event information. An emergency event web 

site could help solve the PSAP readiness riddle for enhanced 9-1-

1 capabilities for wireless communications. 

Point number six, we need to increase emergency response training. Wherever ComCARE goes we hear a common theme: Emergency response professionals want and need more training, and in 

times of emergency the public needs reliable information and instructions on how to move from danger to safety. Fortunately, 

America has a time-tested system to alert the public to weather 

dangers through the NOAA Weather Radio Network. Mr. Chairman, no one has done more for NOAA than you and the members 

of this Committee. 

I am especially proud of my former agency, the Rural Utilities 

Service, for its leadership and efforts to close the NOAA Weather 

Radio gaps in rural America. What is needed now is for NOAA and 

the National Weather Service to continue and rapidly expedite 

their work to make the weather radio system a true all-hazards 

warning system. 

Point number seven, we need to develop research and new safety 

applications. Congress should encourage major public and private 

efforts to develop critical civil defense and emergency applications 

which can use the basic E-Safety platform. 

Point number eight, we need to support a national education and 

outreach effort. All the key members of the emergency response 

community, from first responders to 9-1-1 operators to the folks in 

the hospital and emergency rooms, need to be involved in understanding what together they can do with new technologies. 

This is a very unique and important moment to form an integrated approach to emergency communications and response. That 

25

approach was very clearly put forward by this Committee in the 

Wireless Communications Public Safety Act of 1999. Mr. Chairman, this Committee has done so much to advance emergency preparedness and response. The E-Safety program seeks to build on 

that solid record of success, and we welcome at the ComCARE Alliance the opportunity to work with the Committee to help make 

America safer. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McLean follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER A. MCLEAN, COUNSEL, COMCARE ALLIANCE

The E-Safety Program 

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am Christopher A. McLean, 

counsel to the ComCARE Alliance. As a former staffer for Senator Jim Exon, it is 

a deep personal and professional honor to appear before this Committee. 

ComCARE stands for Communications for Coordinated Assistance and Response 

to Emergencies. The ComCARE Alliance is a not-for-profit coalition of over 75 organizations in the medical, emergency response, telecommunications, transportation 

and technology sectors dedicated to advancing policy and technologies to improve 

emergency response in individual and mass events. 

The ComCARE Alliance salutes all the American heroes in public safety who daily 

put their lives on the line for their communities as well as those who work with 

little recognition and fanfare to be the information bridges between those agencies, 

and between the public and public safety. 

Our nation is engaged in a war unlike any other. In this war, America’s greatest 

civil defense weapons are information and the ability to communicate. 

The war on terrorism will be won or lost on information. It was one piece of information relayed to passengers in a plane over Pennsylvania on September 11th 

which brought heroic action to save the lives of many, many people in the nation’s 

Capitol. 

Police, fire, medical, public health and other emergency responders on the front 

lines of homeland security need information to do their jobs. It is their most important tool. 

Indeed, every American has a role to play in making America safer. The vigilance 

of individual citizens and the emergency communications systems of the nation are 

valuable defensive weapons. 

We would not send soldiers into battle without being well armed and well protected. Unfortunately, every day, we send first responders into harm’s way without 

the information tools they need to save our lives and protect their own. 

The emergency communications systems in many parts of the country are antiquated and, in some rural communities, they are struggling without even basic 9-

1-1 systems. 

Without change, the jobs of our heroic emergency responders get even more difficult. 

In general, the emergency communications network is voice centric. It does not 

often utilize modern communications or information management tools which are so 

common now in industry. There are too often large disparities between the information capabilities of emergency agencies in the same jurisdiction, and between well 

funded urban and suburban communities and rural areas. Every day in large and 

small cities around the nation, emergency calls are being dropped, 9-1-1 operators 

are being overwhelmed with multiple calls, and responses are delayed for lack of 

location information. In mass emergencies, wireless and wireline communications 

systems can quickly become grid-locked. At the scene of an emergency, there is very 

little ability to share data among multiple emergency response and public health 

agencies, or to communicate securely across jurisdictional and agency lines in an 

emergency or in anticipation of an emergency. 

What is needed is a coordinated and integrated approach to upgrading all emergency communications. We need to evolve current voice grade systems and civilian 

network capacity into modern, robust, networks capable of improving response to 

mass disasters and every day emergencies. 

The ComCARE Alliance has been working in the field of emergency communications for more than four years. Immediately following the September 11th attacks, 

the Alliance convened a working group of our members to consider the lessons 

learned from September 11th and lay out an action agenda for a quick start proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:36 Jun 01, 2006 Jkt 091395 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\91395.TXT JACKF PsN: JACKF
26

gram to enhance our emergency communications infrastructure. The E-Safety Program is the result of those efforts. It was developed with the help and guidance of 

experts in the field and adopted by the ComCARE Alliance Board of Directors. 

The E-Safety Program proposes to enhance homeland security by helping bring 

21st century capabilities, commonly used in e-Business today, to emergency response, deploying integrated, interoperable and interconnected wireline and wireless 

systems and applications. The E-Safety program is designed to address the nation’s 

need in a mass emergency in a way that will significantly improve our ability to 

handle thousands of daily individual emergencies as well. 

The E-SAFETY PROGRAM has eight essential elements. In short, they are:

• Increase the Capacity and Reliability of America’s Wired and Wireless Communications Networks; • Deploy Modern End-to-End Emergency Communications Systems; • Deploy Enhanced 9-1-1 for Wireline, Wireless and PBX; Deploy Telematics for 

automobiles; • Support State Planning and Deployment of Integrated Emergency Communications Systems in Model States; • Provide the two basic E-Safety tools to All Emergency Agencies: • National Emergency Electronic Registry; and • Event Mapping Capability. • Augment and Increase Emergency Response Training; • Make a Commitment to Research, Develop and Deploy New Safety Applications 

and Devices; • Support National Education and Outreach, Bringing Together All the Key 

Emergency Stakeholder Communities

I am pleased to discuss the specifics of each. 

Point 1. Increase the Capacity and Reliability of America’s Communications

Networks. 

Every effort must be made to ensure that sufficient fixed and wireless bandwidth 

is deployed to handle call and data volume in times of emergency. Enhancing the 

capacity, capability and reliability of our nation’s essential telecommunications networks should be a matter of national security. 

Imagine if a citizen needed to communicate information about subsequent terrorist attacks at twelve noon of September 11th. In all likelihood, that call would 

not go through. 

Today, the wireless phone has become an indispensable safety device. Consumers 

carry wireless phone for convenience of conversation, but most often, ‘‘just in case 

of an emergency.’’ On September 11th and increasingly in day-to-day life, our wireless networks reach their capacity. Enhancing that capacity through sound spectrum policy, new technology and cell site policy will enhance public safety. We need 

to ensure that the wireless safety net stretches broadly and with as few holes as 

possible. 

In the war on terrorism, it could be a vigilant citizen on a cell phone or in a 

telematics equipped vehicle who observes and reports a hijacked truck, suspicious 

activity at an airport, or terrorist or criminal activity. And similarly, we must provide sufficient spectrum for public safety agencies’ own use. 

Providing adequate spectrum and cell site locations to meet needs in times of 

mass emergency also works to ensure that the phone works in instances of a crime, 

a crash or a medical emergency. Being connected saves lives. Now more than ever, 

we cannot afford to let wireless dead zones become deadly zones. 

All carriers should be encouraged to invest in their networks. The availability of 

robust wireless, wireline and satellite networks enhance public safety and security. 

Point 2. Deploy Modern End-to-End Emergency Communications Systems. 

We need to empower and tie all emergency response and public health agencies 

together with broadband connections and basic modern information technology. 

Every emergency response and public health agency such as police, fire, 9-1-1, hospital and health care facilities should have at least one broadband connection and 

one intelligent work station. 

What worked on September 11th were broadband internet connections and wireless IP connections. Today many emergency responders do not have basic information infrastructure. 

For example, one of our members, the American Public Health Association, reported that only about one half their members had broadband connections and 

about 10% did not even have e-mail. 

High speed networks would connect responders to the tools of next generation 

emergency response such as a national emergency electronic directory, data sharing 

27

systems, incident mapping, and other applications. Responders need the ability to 

send, receive and move real time emergency information among and between multiple agencies. 

Point 3. Deploy Enhanced 9-1-1: Wireline, Wireless and PBX; Deploy Telematics 

Knowing location is critical to emergency response. The most effective and efficient methods of Enhanced 9-1-1 deployment must be used, including overall state 

planning and organization. The deployment of telematics safety systems in cars 

should also be strongly encouraged. 

If you were to make a call to 9-1-1 from your home phone, in most parts of this 

country, the emergency responder would have your street address their screen automatically. Help can be dispatched, even if you do not talk. 

If you were to call from this room, the 9-1-1 reported address would be ‘‘Capitol 

complex.’’ Location information speeds response. It is vitally important that the federal government, at least, ensure that its phones are locatable and encourage the 

private sector to work with emergency responders to find solutions. An excellent example of public/private partnership is in Washington State where Bob Oening, State 

9-1-1 Administrator worked with Boeing to provide locations for phones on its vast 

Washington State network. 

On the wireless side, today, wireless calls account for nearly 40% of 9-1-1 calls 

in some communities. Today, wireless phones are not locatable, although commercial technologies to do so are available. Make that same 9-1-1 call from your cell 

phone from the plaza in front of the Capitol, and the dispatcher will have no idea 

where you are. Indeed, the call could be answered in Virginia. This Committee has 

done a great deal to raise the profile of this important issue. 

In the car, telematics is one of the most important safety features to be developed 

in recent years. By providing a hands free communications link, navigation, automatic crash notification and a mayday alert, powered by telecommunications and location technology, the telematics leaders in the auto industry are making Americans 

safer by delivering location and safety products. Those efforts should be encouraged. 

Point 4. Support State Planning and Deployment of Integrated Systems in Model 

States. 

Leading states are ready to bring together all stakeholders, plan sophisticated, integrated emergency and transportation communications and information systems, 

and then deploy them. New information technologies hold great promise in helping 

bridge the gap between urban and rural response capabilities. 

Grants should be made available to create models of deployment in these leading 

states for other states to emulate, and to encourage state emergency communications planning. 

This Committee understands well the importance of coordinated state, federal, 

local and private sector planning. Thanks to the leadership of members of this Committee, the Congress enacted legislation which includes the clear blueprint for action. 

In enacting the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999 (WiCAPs 

’99) the Congress called for a coordinated, end to end response to emergency communications planning. 

Working together, communities are stronger than working separately. Several 

States have taken leadership role in beginning to give life to the vision of WiCAPs 

’99. ComCARE is proud to be working with these states to advance the vision of 

an integrated approach to emergency communications planning. 

Just days before September 11, Senator Burns convened an historic public safety 

summit in Helena, Montana. The ComCARE Alliance was honored to participate. 

By bringing people together, and continuing a formal dialogue, participants are discovering that they have common needs, new opportunities to share and leverage resources and the support of the State’s political leadership to get the job done. We 

look forward to continuing to work with the public safety community in Montana. 

In Virginia, the Virginia Department of Transportation is funding a ground breaking effort in the Shenandoah Valley to create a 21st Century emergency communications capability. Thanks to the leadership of Congressmen Wolf, Goodlatte and Boucher the Shenandoah Valley is quickly becoming a test bed for new thinking in 

emergency communications. 

In Washington State under the leadership of Senators Murray and Cantwell and 

with the support of the Washington State Center for the Digital Bridge, a Washington State E-Safety Summit is planned for this March 26th. 

And in Oregon, Senator Wyden’s Net Guard proposal has inspired the public safety and technology communities in Oregon to begin a dialogue on next generation response technologies. 

28

Through these efforts, communities learn that they are not alone. They see opportunities to leverage existing funding sources and technology projects. The private 

sector discovers that there are innovation solutions for public/private partnership 

and resources well spent can solve multiple problems. 

Point 5. Provide Two Basic Tools to All Emergency Agencies: National Emergency 

Electronic Registry and Event Mapping Capability. 

There is no comprehensive, electronic directory of all emergency response and 

public health agencies. Therefore neither the President nor any other appropriate 

entity has the ability to send emergency warnings or data to all or some emergency 

responders or public information outlets in a particular area. The national non-profit registry being developed by ComCARE will fill that gap. 

We also need to encourage broad use of shared electronic mapping of emergency 

event information. Emergency data and information can be sent to a shared map 

resource by emergency managers, telematics companies, wireless carriers, commercial transportation and others, and displayed/shared by all relevant emergency responders. These enabling technologies, combined with broadband connections to a 

safety network create a basic 

E-Safety platform on which a wide variety of other safety applications can operate. 

Point 6. Augment and Increase Emergency Response Training 

New threats and new technologies require new training. There is a continuous 

need to ensure that new employees and volunteers are fully prepared for the challenges that face our nation. Fortunately, new communications technologies can 

make training more efficient. The same broadband platform for emergency response 

can be used for a host to digital training uses in times of peace and calm. 

Where ever ComCARE goes, we hears a common theme. The hard working professionals in the emergency response field want more training. We especially need to 

share the lessons of September 11th and the anthrax attack. 

The public also needs to be informed of their role in the war on terrorism. Public 

information is a vital government role. 

In times of emergency, the public needs reliable information and instructions on 

how to move from danger to safety. Fortunately, America has a time tested system 

to alert the public to weather danger through NOAA weather radio network. The 

ComCARE Alliance applauds the Committee for its work and support for the NOAA 

all hazards warning network initiative. NOAA Weather Radio saves lives and it is 

the nation’s largest most expansive radio network. It is an important backbone network for emergency warnings. I am especially proud of my former agency, the Rural 

Utilities Service for its leadership in efforts to close the NOAA weather radio gaps 

in rural America. In the Senate farm bill, the stage is being set to finish the job. 

NOAA and the National Weather Service must continue and expedite its work to 

make the Weather Radio System a true all hazards warning system. 

Point 7. Make a Commitment to Research, Develop and Deploy New Safety

Applications and Devices 

We must encourage major public and private efforts to develop critical civil defense and emergency applications which can use the basic E-Safety platform. This 

requires a significant university-based, emergency response research capability; 

rapid, industry-based open standards development efforts; and major public and private investments in new safety applications and devices. 

Point 8. Support National Education and Outreach, Bringing Together All the Key 

Emergency Stakeholder Communities 

We need to involve all the key members of the emergency response community 

in understanding—together—what is possible with the new technologies, and in 

planning, deploying and creating new operations protocols based on them. 

ComCARE and its non-profit membership associations like Emergency Nurses Association, National Emergency Number Association, American Public Health Association and the American College of Emergency Physicians should be given the resources to hold national, state and local conferences, and to run communications 

programs with agency and private sector partners, focused on best practices and 

new technologies. They are ready to step up to the plate and help bring emergency 

communications and response into the 21st Century. 

To achieve the E-Safety program will require some new legislation and appropriations, but significant elements of the E-Safety program can be accomplished through 

a coordinated approach to existing programs and homeland security and through cooperation with the private sector. Billions of dollars have already been appropriated. 

The President has appointed a respected leader to head the Office of Homeland SeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:36 Jun 01, 2006 Jkt 091395 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\91395.TXT JACKF PsN: JACKF
29

curity. This is a unique and important moment to forge an integrated approach to 

emergency communications and response. That approach was very clearly put forward by this Committee in WiCAPs ’99. It is fully consistent with the Administration’s approach to federalism and homeland defense. This is a moment and an opportunity which should not be lost. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for inviting ComCARE to be represented at today’s hearings. The individual members of this Committee and the Committee as 

a whole have done so much to advance emergency preparedness and response. The 

E-Safety program seeks to build on that solid record of success and we welcome the 

opportunity to work with the Committee to find ways to make America Safer. 

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Senator INOUYE. Thank you very much, sir. 

Then I will call on Mr. Nash. Mr. Nash. 

STATEMENT OF GLEN NASH, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF 

PUBLIC-SAFETY COMMUNICATIONS OFFICIALSINTERNATIONAL, INC. 

Mr. NASH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Glen Nash. I 

am an engineer with over 29 years experience in the design of public safety communications systems and I am the President of the 

Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International, more commonly known as APCO. 

APCO is the Nation’s oldest and largest public safety communications organization. The majority of APCO’s 15,000-plus members are State or local governmental employees who manage and 

operate the communications systems used by police, fire, emergency medical, disaster relief, and other public safety agencies. 

The events of September 11th forced all of us to examine the 

vital role played by public safety agencies. These first responders 

literally are the front line troops, not only in the domestic war on 

terrorism, but also in the day to day reality of living in a less than 

perfect society. 

To do their jobs effectively, public safety agencies need a variety 

of tools. At or near the top of the list of those tools lies effective 

radio communications. Public safety agencies use radio communications for command and control and to provide vital information and 

other resources that enable field personnel to do their jobs better. 

Additionally, effective communications between and amongst onscene police officers, firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first responders is critical. 

To achieve these goals, there are two intertwined communications issues that need to be addressed on behalf of our public safety 

agencies. First is spectrum capacity and second is interoperability. 

Public safety agencies in many areas face dangerous congestion on 

existing channels due to limited spectrum. This lack of spectrum 

also makes it impossible for many public safety agencies to implement the technologies that would make their field operations more 

effective. Furthermore, it impacts the ability of different agencies 

to communicate with each other, as they often are forced to operate 

on separate incompatible frequency bands. 

In 1996 it was my pleasure to serve on the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee that documented the spectrum and interoperability problems. The Committee identified the need for 97.5 

megahertz of new spectrum, including 25 megahertz needed within 

5 years. Unfortunately, on September 11th, 2001, exactly 5 years 

30

after the PSWAC report was released, no new spectrum had been 

made available nationwide for public safety use. 

Yes, the 1997 Balanced Budget Act required the FCC to reallocate 24 megahertz of spectrum from television channels 60 to 69 

for public safety use. The FCC has complied with that requirement 

by reallocating specific TV channels for public safety use in what 

is now called the 700 megahertz band. However, the act also stipulates that incumbent broadcasters can continue to operate in this 

band until December 31st, 2006, or until at least 85 percent of the 

households in the relevant market area have access to digital television, whichever is later. 

That 85 percent provision creates uncertainty as to when the 

spectrum will ever become available. This makes it impossible for 

most State and local governments to plan, fund, or begin to design 

systems utilizing this new spectrum. Therefore, we urge Congress 

to establish a firm date for the availability of this spectrum for 

public safety use. We are joined in this effort by the International 

Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Association of Fire 

Chiefs, the National League of Cities, the National Association of 

Counties, and many other organizations who agree that Congress 

needs to revisit this issue. 

While making the 700 megahertz band available for public safety 

use will help address the lack of adequate spectrum, it is not a 

panacea for resolving public safety’s interoperability problem. Currently public safety agencies operate in ten different frequency 

bands, many of which are incompatible with each other. The obvious solution is to put all public safety agencies into a single radio 

band. However, no single block of radio spectrum has yet been 

identified which is capable of satisfying the entire public safety requirement for communications. Furthermore, moving all existing 

public safety users to a new band would impose tremendous costs 

upon State and local governments. 

Therefore, we encourage Congress, the NTIA, and the FCC to 

consider making available frequency bands that are immediately 

adjacent to existing public safety spectrum allocations. As I discussed earlier, Congress attempted to do this in 1997 when it required the FCC to make available spectrum in the 700 megahertz 

band, which is immediately adjacent to existing public safety spectrum at 800 megahertz. However, this 700 megahertz spectrum is 

not currently available in many areas of the country. We need to 

have a firm date for the availability of this spectrum to support our 

Nation’s police, fire, and emergency medical personnel. 

Senator Burns, I would like to expand upon a question that you 

asked of Mr. Souder regarding whether agencies on different frequencies are able to talk with each other. The answer to that question really is it depends. First off, as I indicated earlier, public safety agencies operate on ten different frequency bands, many of 

which are incompatible with each other. In some areas of the country agencies have been able to congregate together, as they have 

done here in the Washington metro area, to operate in one of those 

bands or at least in immediately adjacent bands, which would 

allow for some compatibility. If this has occurred, it is technically 

possible for them to intercommunicate. 

31

However, there is a second problem that comes into that. It involves the issue of prior planning and it really requires the agencies to have sat down prior to an event that they do not know is 

coming and they do not know the magnitude of what it is going to 

be and to have laid out a plan of how they would intercommunicate. 

Over the years we have had many incidents that I have gone 

back at and looked at as an after-action report where the complaint 

has been made that the agencies were unable to communicate with 

each other. As we have looked at their radios, they in fact had common radio channels. They were able to communicate. They just did 

not know it. They had not done the preplanning that they really 

needed to do and, as Mr. Souder indicated, a critical part of this 

is for the agencies involved to get together and discuss how they 

would intercommunicate and what they would do when the event 

happens that they do not expect. 

If, on the other hand, they are operating on totally different frequency bands, technically it is not technically possible for them to 

intercommunicate, at least directly over the radio, and we have to 

work at developing other plans and alternatives. That really becomes the problem even if we develop regional coordination systems, as was done in the D.C. metro area here. As the event grows 

and we reach further and further out for assistance, we are bringing in people who are not a part of that original plan and it becomes more likely that they are operating in a different frequency 

band and therefore will be unable to communicate directly when 

they arrive on scene. 

With that, in closing I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman and the 

Members of the Subcommittee, for conducting these important 

hearings and for providing me an opportunity to discuss the critical 

communications problems facing public safety agencies in these difficult times. APCO stands ready to work with Congress, the FCC, 

and other interested parties in resolving these issues as quickly 

and as efficiently as possible. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nash follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GLEN NASH, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC-SAFETY

COMMUNICATIONS OFFICIALS-INTERNATIONAL, INC. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman 

My name is Glen Nash. I am the President of the Association of Public-Safety 

Communications Officials-International, Inc. (APCO), and I am here today on 

APCO’s behalf. I have over 29 years experience in the design, installation and maintenance of public safety communications systems and currently serve as Senior Telecommunications Engineer with the State of California Department of General Services. Please note, however, that I am here today on APCO’s behalf, and not in any 

official capacity for the State of California. I also currently serve as Chair of the 

Technology Subcommittee of the FCC’s Public Safety National Coordination Committee (NCC), and I was an active participant in the joint FCC/NTIA Public Safety 

Wireless Advisory Committee (PSWAC). 

APCO, founded in 1935, is the nation’s oldest and largest public safety communications organization. APCO has over 15,000 members, most of whom are state or 

local government employees who manage or operate communications systems for police, fire, emergency medical, disaster relief, and other public safety agencies. APCO 

is certified by the FCC as a frequency coordinator for public safety mobile radio 

channels, and has long played a major role in public safety radio spectrum and wireless E9-1-1 issues before the Commission. 

The events of September 11 have forced all of us to re-examine our nation’s priorities, especially those related to our police, fire, EMS and other agencies charged 

32

with the protection of life, health, and property. These ‘‘first responders’’ literally 

are the frontline troops not only in the domestic war on terrorism, but also in the 

day-to-day reality of living in a less than perfect society. 

Today, more than ever, our nation’s public safety agencies must have the tools 

they need to perform their critical tasks. Communications is at or near the top of 

the list of those essential tools. Public safety communications, in turn, depends upon 

an adequate supply of appropriate radio spectrum dedicated for public safety use. 

Public safety agencies use radio communications not only to dispatch personnel 

to the scene of an incident, but also as a link between field personnel and a resource 

center so that they can request additional assistance and/or information to properly 

handle the incident. Of particular importance is on-scene portable radio communication between various public safety personnel responding at the scene of a crime-inprogress, fire, flood, explosion, vehicle accident, or other emergency. This is true 

whether we are talking about the events such as those of September 11; emergencies associated with floods, earthquakes and weather-related emergencies; or 

day-to-day responses to crime, fire, accidents and medical emergencies. Now, with 

new Homeland Security responsibilities being placed upon state and local public 

safety agencies, the need for effective radio communications is heightened even 

more. Unfortunately, for far too many years, public safety agencies across the nation 

have faced a severe shortage of radio spectrum available for their communications 

systems. These shortages were documented in 1996 by the Public Safety Wireless 

Advisory Committee (PSWAC), a blue-ribbon committee created by NTIA and the 

FCC. The PSWAC Report, which was adopted on September 11, 1996, determined 

that public safety users would require an additional 97.5 MHz of radio spectrum by 

2010, and would need approximately 24 MHz within five years of the Report. Unfortunately, exactly five years later, on September 11, 2001, that 24 MHz was still not 

available for nationwide public safety use, for reasons that I will discuss in a moment. 

The lack of sufficient radio spectrum for public safety has several significant consequences. In many metropolitan and other densely populated areas, public safety 

agencies face dangerous congestion on their radio systems. In some instances, public 

safety agencies operate with hundreds of users per channel, far more than is safe 

under ‘‘normal’’ day-to-day circumstances, let alone major emergencies. Demand for 

channel capacity has been increasing with population growth and density. Now, 

with new Homeland Security responsibilities being placed on public safety personnel, there will be even greater demand for public safety spectrum. 

Inadequate spectrum also prevents public safety agencies from implementing new 

communications tools, such as wide area mobile data systems that can provide law 

enforcement officers, firefighters, and EMS technicians with a wealth of critical onscene data. This includes not only high speed text delivery (such as criminal background information), but also, with sufficient spectrum, high resolution images such 

as mug shots, fingerprints, and building diagrams. While the FCC recently allocated 

spectrum in the 4.9 GHz band for certain public safety data and video functions, 

use of that band will be limited to relatively short distance transmissions. The 4.9 

GHz band is not expected to provide a spectrum home for wide-area, mobile data 

systems. 

The lack of spectrum also has a direct and significant impact on interoperability. 

All too often, public safety personnel from different agencies responding to the same 

emergency cannot communicate with each other, because they operate on incompatible, non-interoperable radio systems. The lack of interoperability is generally the 

result of different agencies being forced to operate on different radio frequency 

bands. The most effective way to address that problem is to migrate agencies in the 

same geographic area to common, or at least compatible, radio frequency bands. Unfortunately, that’s not possible in many areas as there is not enough spectrum in 

any one band to accommodate all, or even most, of the public safety users in the 

region. New allocations, especially if adjacent to an existing public safety spectrum 

allocation, would greatly enhance interoperability with existing users, while at the 

same time providing capacity for new, multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional radio operations. 

Congress tried to address some of these issues in 1997, when it required the FCC 

to allocate 24 MHz of spectrum for public safety purposes from the 746–806 MHz 

band (TV channel 60–69). This was consistent with the 1996 recommendations of 

the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee. The FCC then did its part. It reallocated TV channels 63, 64, 68, and 69, for public safety and adopted rules to promote 

interoperability among all users of the band and the adjacent 800 MHz public safety 

bands. Indeed, the Commission allocated approximately 10% of the new band for nationwide public safety interoperability, and required that all radios in the new band 

33

be capable of operating on the interoperability channels. The Commission also 

adopted a digital interoperability standard (Project 25) for the band, to ensure that 

digital equipment from different manufactures would still be interoperable. 

However, in most of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, the new spectrum allocated for public safety was not available on September 11, and will not be available until TV broadcasters on channels 63, 64, 68, and 69 (and in many cases the 

adjacent channels), release those channels as part of the digital television (DTV) 

transition. The problem facing public safety is not only that the spectrum is not currently available nationwide, but also that there is no firm date for when the spectrum will become available. The 1997 Balanced Budget Act, which required the FCC 

to allocate spectrum for public safety, allows incumbent broadcasters to continue operation on TV channels 60–69 until December 31, 2006, or until some uncertain, future date when at least 85% of the households in the relevant market have access 

to DTV signals. 

That 85% provision creates uncertainty as to when (or if) the spectrum will become available, and makes it impossible for most state and local governments to 

plan, fund, or construct systems using the spectrum allocated for their public safety 

operations. For example, the State of California has a tremendous need to upgrade 

the radio systems for its own agencies, but we cannot build a statewide system that 

does not include the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas. Unfortunately, those 

are among the metropolitan areas where TV stations block use of the newly allocated public safety spectrum. Many other large public safety agencies across the 

country face the same dilemma. 

APCO has therefore joined with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, 

the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and other organizations to urge that Congress establish an early and firm date for the newly allocated 

public safety spectrum to become available for actual operations. 

There are also important steps that the FCC needs to take. For example, we remain deeply concerned about the rules adopted to protect future public safety users 

of the new spectrum from interference caused by new commercial mobile radio services in the same band. These are commercial users who would receive licenses pursuant to the 700 MHz band auctions currently scheduled by the FCC. We do not 

believe that the interference provisions are adequate, based upon studies conducted 

by the Telecommunications Industry Association, and have petitioned the FCC to 

reconsider its rules. 

The interference that we fear in the 700 MHz band is similar in some respects 

to current interference problems that many public safety agencies already face in 

the nearby 800 MHz band. The FCC is about to initiate a proceeding on that issue, 

which includes a proposal that would also provide additional spectrum relief for 

public safety agencies in that band. 

Finally, I want to note that many public safety agencies will continue to operate 

in the UHF (450–470 MHz, plus, in some areas, portions of 470–512 MHz) and the 

VHF High Band (150–170 MHz) for the foreseeable future. Indeed, due to the low 

cost of equipment and good propagation characteristics, the VHF High Band is the 

most heavily used public safety frequency band. However, that band is extremely 

overcrowded and is in desperate need of ‘‘breathing’’ room to relieve congestion and 

facilitate wide-area interoperability plans. In that regard, we were pleased that Congress required the Department of Defense to study the potential for sharing of its 

nearby 138–144 MHz band, which we understand is lightly used in at least some 

portions of the nation. DOD has submitted a classified study to the Congress on this 

issue, and we look forward to learning more about the results of that study, and 

moving as quickly as possible towards actual sharing of the band with state and 

local government public safety agencies wherever feasible. 

In closing, I want to thank you Mr. Chairman and members of your Subcommittee 

for conducting these important hearings, and for providing me an opportunity to discuss the critical communications problems facing public safety agencies in these difficult times. APCO stands ready to work with the Congress, the FCC, and other interested parties in resolving these issues as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Senator INOUYE. Thank you very much, Mr. Nash. 

May I now recognize Mr. Crotty. 

STATEMENT OF PAUL CROTTY, GROUP PRESIDENT FOR NEW 

YORK AND CONNECTICUT, VERIZON, INC. 

Mr. CROTTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Burns. 

34

My name is Paul Crotty. I am Verizon’s Group President, New 

York and Connecticut, and I am pleased to be here today to discuss 

our experiences after the terrorist attack in September. 

On September 11th I stood at the corner of Veasey and West 

Street amidst the debris of 1 and 2 World Trade Center, which had 

collapsed by 10:00 o’clock in the morning. I saw our brave firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical technicians carrying on heroically amid utter destruction. I thought of our 1600 

employees at 140 West Street and 500 employees at 2 World Trade 

Center and prayed that they had escaped. We lost two employees 

at the World Trade Center plus another employee at the Pentagon. 

As horrific as that scene was, Verizon’s building at 140 West 

Street was still functioning. What happened at 5:00 p.m. changed 

that. 7 World Trade Center twisted on its frame and collapsed, and 

as it fell number 7 ripped out a large portion of the east-facing wall 

of our building and then collapsed into our cable vault. 

Our outside plant in Manhattan is below ground and in lower 

Manhattan ‘‘below ground’’ means below sea level. The pulverized 

cement and fiberglass dirt and other airborne debris blew into our 

equipment floors, covering our sophisticated electronic equipment 

with up to five inches of soot-like material. 7 World Trade Center’s 

collapse into and through our cable vault cut up our outside cable 

plant like so many strings of spaghetti. 

Our sub-basements were flooded by ruptured water mains. Even 

after the water mains were secured, our basements continued to 

flood with the runoff from water used to fight the fire at 7 World 

Trade Center, which burned steadily for 2 weeks and intermittently for another 6 weeks after that. 

We have now restored service in lower Manhattan. We are in the 

process of replacing equipment at 140 West Street and rebuilding 

our outside plant. 

I have already mentioned our brave uniformed forces, but I 

would be remiss if I did not also say something about Mayor 

Giuliani and Governor Pataki. They were both outstanding in every 

way. Their presence and quiet leadership kept us going. They confronted danger and uncertainty with a calming and reassuring 

strength. 

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your visit and the visit of other members of your Committee. It was very important to keep the spirits 

up and to keep us involved knowing that our efforts at Ground 

Zero were supported by the ranking members of the Congress and 

indeed by all citizens of the United States. 

Our building at 140 West Street contained four switches which 

had the capacity to serve a city the size of Cincinnati. The damage 

to our building was severe. Altogether we lost ten cellular towers 

along with 300,000 voice lines and 3.6 million data circuits affecting 14,000 businesses and 20,000 residential customers. 

Although this was a disaster at a particular point in our network, the network itself continued to function. Many customers reacted to the tragedy by telephoning their families to let loved ones 

know they were safe. That made call volumes spike up to 100 percent higher than on a normal day for both wireless and wireline 

telephones. We worked with other carriers and we processed these 

volumes. 

35

Verizon had the process and people in place to deal with the restoration job of this magnitude. We approached this in an organized 

fashion. Our first priority was to restore service immediately for 

emergency services—police, fire, medical, governmental agencies. 

To accomplish this, we harnessed our emergency preparation planning, we quickly mobilized a team and set our plan in motion. We 

were able to take advantage of redundancy that was built into the 

network to accomplish immediate restoration of critical functions. 

Mr. Cangemi has already mentioned the Office of Emergency 

Management, which moved. It had its office at 7 World Trade Center. When 7 World Trade Center collapsed, it was relocated first to 

the police academy and then to Pier 92 on the west side of Manhattan. 

Within 36 hours we had installed over 500 voice lines in 15 T–

1’s, so that when the Mayor put the Emergency Management Center back in operation it had representatives from every city, State 

and Federal agency that was involved in responding to the disaster, along with other agencies such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army not-for-profits, which were also emergency responders. 

The city’s 9-1-1 system had designed redundancy and automatic 

backup. It never failed. Not a single call was missed on September 

11th. In addition, our optical network rerouted 90,000 data circuits 

immediately. 

Our second priority was to do the work necessary for the New 

York Stock Exchange and the Mercantile Exchange to reopen on 

September 17. In the weeks following we restored the American 

Stock Exchange. When the New York Stock Exchange opened on 

Monday, September 17, it handled over 2 billion shares, a record 

number. 

To make this happen we had to do a number of things. First of 

all, as I indicated, Con Edison lost power. 7 World Trade Center 

also contained two sub-stations for Con Edison, and when 7 World 

Trade Center collapsed we lost power throughout lower Manhattan. 

Therefore the power for our Broad Street station was provided by 

standby diesel power for a period of up to 12 days. 

Verizon also rerouted or rebuilt high-capacity data circuits that 

passed through West Street. We provisioned 1.5 million lines and 

2 million data circuits in 6 days and we ported more than 150,000 

telephone numbers that had been assigned to our equipment in 

West Street facilities to equipment in other locations. We acted as 

systems integrators and project leader for coordinating efforts of 

suppliers, other carriers, major stock exchange and Security Industry Automation Corporation customers. We again would like to 

publicly thank the many carriers and equipment makers who went 

out of their way to share resources in that time of crisis. 

I also want to mention the extra work of Verizon’s men and 

women, what worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for months 

at a time. One of our major problems with our work force was convincing them that they had to go home at the end of the shift. We 

had tremendous cooperation from our collective bargaining representative, the Communications Workers of America. 

The end result was that Verizon got a huge amount of capacity 

to many customers and got it there quickly. 

36

Our third priority was to restore services to all affected residential and business customers. Wireless technology played an important part in that story. We deployed seven ‘‘cells on wheels’’ and 

16 temporary cell sites almost immediately after September 11th. 

That allowed us to replace wireless service that was disrupted by 

damaged cell sites. Within 1 week we had 150 percent of the capacity in lower Manhattan that we had on September 10th. 

We provided customers with alternatives to their regular service 

through mega-call forwarding. We made our 4,000 pay phones on 

the streets of Manhattan free for over a week and we brought in 

extra pay phones which provided free pay phone service in the affected area in lower Manhattan. We provided over 5,000 wireless 

phones for small business customers. We provided the Secret Service and other Federal agencies with wireless devices to help offset 

equipment loss when their offices in the World Trade Center were 

destroyed. 

Our business solutions group visited 900 small businesses a day 

and our emergency office in New York City’s business recovery center was taking orders from 400 walk-in customers a day. We 

worked one on one with large business customers, including our 

wholesale customers, and with 40 carriers which connected through 

Verizon’s facilities, to help them restore services. We opened a special office in Chinatown to help residence customers. 

The good news is that we were able to get our customers back 

into service quickly, in many cases through gerry-rigged arrangements. Much of this work will have to be redone now as debris is 

cleared from manholes and we can get into our underground facilities. 

While this was going on in New York, we had the similar attack 

at the Pentagon. We also had major efforts there. At the Pentagon 

we had about 40 people who operate the communications system 

pursuant to a contract with the Federal Government, a system that 

never went down, not even for a minute. The people there were not 

evacuated as the situation did not warrant it, and in fact two of 

our employees, by reporting to the Defense Secretary’s office on the 

position of the fire relative to a critical telecommunications switch, 

were responsible for saving it. We set up mobile wireless cell sites 

in Arlington. 

Finally, at the plane crash site in western Pennsylvania we provided the additional wireline and wireless capacity needed by the 

emergency response personnel at that site. 

As to lessons learned, what did we learn from all this? Well, first 

we learned about the resiliency of our telephone network, Verizon’s 

and those of other provider. They all proved their worth. While call 

volume spikes caused temporary difficulties, by the close of business on September 11th those difficulties were largely under control. Diversity of routes, redundancy of facilities, and experience 

with recoveries were keys to putting the right resources at the 

right place to resolve a very complex problem. 

The economy remains the biggest uncertainty in the aftermath of 

September 11th. We were already feeling the effects of the economic slowdown before this. We need to look for prudent ways to 

stimulate investment, innovation, and consumer confidence. This is 

37

particularly so in lower Manhattan. We are rebuilding our network 

and we must have users to make our investment worthwhile. 

We also came away from September 11th and the recovery efforts 

with new clarity on the larger issues facing the communications industry. First, true competition comes from diverse technologies, 

whether it is wireline, wireless, cable, or the Internet. With regard 

to telecommunications, facilities-based competition demonstrated 

that it is the real competitive alternative, not resale of pieces of the 

existing network. 

The fact the service restoration in lower Manhattan occurred as 

quickly as it did demonstrates the value of large-scale facilitiesbased local networks. Scale and scope matter. Verizon’s ability to 

draw on the resources of a national company was invaluable. The 

value of large facilities-based competitors is evident. They tend to 

have the scale and experience to help the Nation recover quickly. 

Fiber, broadband, and diverse technology are crucial because 

they improve survivability. Fiber and broadband to large business 

customers works and has never been more important. Also, fast 

Internet access was vital to consumers. Broadband service to the 

home helped keep America connected and productive. In the crisis 

people were able to choose from several technologies to handle their 

communications. If wireless did not work, often email and Instant 

Messaging did, and if wireline did not work then often wireless 

would. When it was impossible for people to drive to their place of 

work, they could telecommunicate over broadband networks. New 

high-speed information technology—our national strength. 

With regard to security issues, Verizon gets plenty of practice in 

system recovery efforts. We have more than 1,000 recovery efforts 

every year of various scale, manmade and natural, from airplane 

crashes to ice storms, major floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes, to 

trucks hitting telephone poles and people digging up and cutting 

our underground plant. Our experience with these situations 

helped make the September 11th recovery run effectively. 

But we had never experienced anything like this, which seemed 

to be a witch’s brew of every disaster known and unknown, and 

they occurred in three separate places simultaneously. 

What have we learned? There are two major lessons. First, we 

need to take a fresh look at security of telecommunications networks, and we are already well along with that process. 

Second, the country needs to develop national policies related to 

access to critical network assets, cybersecurity, and the redundancy 

and diversity of networks. At Verizon we have a regular aggressive 

schedule of security audits and continual discussions with the security community about new threats. These practices have been the 

cornerstone of our regular cycle of security improvement and testing. 

We share information with and work closely with the national security and emergency preparedness agencies at the Federal, State, 

and local levels. We have complied with the FCC’s telecommunications service priority guidelines. Agencies such as New York 

City’s Mutual Aid and Restoration Consortium, the FBI’s National 

Information Protection Center, the National Communications System, and the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee are illustrative of the agencies that we work with. Many of 

38

* 7 World Trade Center also housed 2 Con Edison substations. When the substations were 

lost, lower Manhattan lost its power. Even today, lower Manhattan is powered by a 13,000 volt 

‘‘extension cord’’ which runs on the sidewalks and streets of lower Manhattan. 

those discussions are very candid and involve vulnerability assessments and plans. 

Of course, we continue to work with both the FCC and our New 

York State regulatory agency, the Public Service Commission. 

Since September 11th Verizon has additional efforts under way 

to further improve the security, survivability, and rapid recovery of 

our networks. We have undertaken a review of which assets need 

additional hardening. That means a physical inventory of our 5100 

central offices and hundreds of key buildings, with rankings for significance and thus priority attention for hardening. Mostly this 

means beefing up physical security, such as perimeter and 

entryway, some better monitoring, in a few cases interior partitioning. 

We have heightened attention to prevent and discover unauthorized cyber-intrusion. We caught and were the first to report a 

major computer virus to the National Information Protection Center right after September 11th. We continue our regular security 

audits that Verizon conducted even before September 11th and we 

promptly address any findings of noncompliance or design weakness. 

I thank the Committee and you, Mr. Chairman, for your attention to critical infrastructure matters, and I will try to answer any 

questions you may have further along in the program. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Crotty follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PAUL CROTTY, GROUP PRESIDENT FOR NEW YORK AND

CONNECTICUT VERIZON, INC. 

Mr. Chairman, my name is Paul Crotty, and I am Group President New York/ 

Connecticut. I am pleased to be here today to discuss our experiences after the terrorist attack in September. 

On September 11, I stood at the corner of Vesey and West amidst the debris of 

1 and 2 World Trade Center which had collapsed by 10 am. I saw our braver fire 

fighters and police officers and emergency medical technicians carrying on heroically 

amid utter devastation. I thought of our 1600 employees at 140 West Street and 500 

employees at 2 World Trade Center and prayed that they had escaped. We lost 2 

employees at the World Trade Center, plus another employee at the Pentagon. 

As horrific as that scene was, Verizon’s building at 140 West St. was still functioning. What happened at 5pm changed that. 7 World Trade Center * twisted on 

its frame and collapsed. As it fell, it ripped out large portions of the east facing wall 

and then collapsed into our cable vault. Our outside plant in Manhattan is below 

ground and in lower Manhattan, below ground means below sea level. The pulverized cement and fiberglass, dirt and other airborne debris blew onto our equipment 

floors covering our sophisticated electronic equipment with up to 5 inches of sootlike material. And 7 World Trade Center’s collapse into and through our cable 

vaults cut up our outside plant like so many strings of spaghetti. 

Our sub basements were flooded by ruptured water mains. Even after the water 

mains were secured, our basements continued to flood with the run off from the 

water used to fight the fire at 7 World Trade Center which burned steadily for 2 

weeks and intermittently for another 6 weeks after that. 

I have mentioned our brave uniformed faces. I would be remiss if I did not also 

say something about Mayor Giuliani and Governor Pataki. They were both outstanding in every way. Their presence and quiet leadership kept us going. They confronted danger and uncertainty with a calming and reassuring strength. 

Synopsis of Events 

Lower Manhattan. Our building at 140 West Street contained 4 switches which 

had the capacity to serve a city the size of Cincinnati. The damage to our building 

39

was severe. Altogether, we lost ten cellular towers, along with 300,000 voice lines 

and 3.6 million data circuits—affecting 14,000 businesses and 20,000 residential 

customers. 

Although this was a disaster at a particular point in our network, the network 

itself continued to function. Many customers reacted to the tragedy by telephoning 

their families, to let loved ones know they were safe. That made call volumes spike 

100% higher than a normal day, for both wireless and wireline telephones. We 

worked with other carriers and processed these volumes. Verizon had the process 

and people in place to deal with restoration job of this magnitude. We approached 

it in organized focused way: 

Our first priority was to restore service immediately for emergency services—police, fire, medical, government agencies. To accomplish this, we harnessed our emergency preparation planning—we quickly mobilized a team and set our plan in motion. We were able to take advantage of redundancy that was built into the network 

to accomplish immediate restoration of critical functions. 

The City’s 911 system, which had designed redundancy and automatic backup 

never failed—not a single call was missed. In addition, our optical network re-routed 

90,000 data circuits immediately. 

Our second priority was to do the work necessary for the New York Stock Exchange and the Mercantile Exchange to reopen on September 17. In the weeks following, we restored the American Stock Exchange. When the NY Stock Exchange 

opened, it handled over 2 billion shares, a record number. To make that happen:

• As I indicated Con Ed lost power and we operated on standby diesel power for 

12 days at our Broad Street facility. 

• Verizon rerouted or rebuilt high capacity data circuits that passed through West 

Street. 

• Verizon provisioned 1.5 million lines and 2 million data circuits in six days. 

• We ported more than 150,000 telephone numbers that had been assigned to 

equipment in our West Street facility to equipment in other locations and 

• We acted as systems integrator and project leader for coordinating efforts of 

suppliers, other carriers and major NYSE and Securities Industry Automation 

Corporation (‘‘SAIC’’) customers. We again publicly thank the many carriers and 

equipment makers who went out of their way to share resources in that time 

of crisis.

The end result was that Verizon got a huge amount of capacity to many customers—and got it to them quickly. 

Our third priority was to restore service to all affected residential and business 

customers. Wireless technology played an important part in that story 

We deployed seven ‘‘cells on wheels’’ and 16 temporary cell sites almost immediately on 9/11. This allowed us to replace wireless service that was disrupted by 

damaged cell sites. Within one week we had 150% of the capacity in Lower Manhattan we had on September 10. 

We provided customers with alternatives to their regular service through mega 

call forwarding, 4000 free payphones and 5000 wireless phones for small business 

customers. We provided the Secret Service with 300 wireless devices to help offset 

equipment lost when their office in the World Trade Center was destroyed. Our 

Business Solutions Group was visiting 900 small businesses a day, and our emergency office in NYC’s Business Recovery Center was taking orders from 400 walk 

in business customers a day. We worked one-on-one with large business customers, 

including our wholesale customers and with 40 other carriers which connect through 

Verizon facilities to help them restore services. And we opened a special office in 

Chinatown to help residence customers. 

The good news is that we were able to get our customers back into service quickly—in many cases, through jerry-rigged arrangements. Much of this work will have 

to be re-done as debris is cleared from manholes and we can get to underground 

facilities. 

Pentagon. While all this was going on in New York, there were also major efforts 

in Northern Virginia. At the Pentagon, we had about 40 people who operate the 

communications system—a system, by the way, that never went down, not even for 

a minute. The people there were not evacuated, as the situation didn’t warrant it; 

and in fact, two of our employees, by reporting to the Defense Secretary’s office on 

the position of the fire relative to a crucial telecommunications switch, were responsible for saving it. Verizon provides service to the Department of Defense under 

WITS 2001 contract. 

We set up mobile wireless cell sites in Arlington. Finally at the plane crash site 

in Western Pennsylvania we provided the additional wireline and wireless capacity 

needed by emergency response personnel at those sites. 

40

Lessons Learned 

What did we learn from all this? 

First, the resiliency of telephone networks—Verizon’s and those of other providers—proved their worth. While call volume spikes caused transitory difficulties, 

by close of business on September 11, those difficulties were largely under control. 

Diversity of routes, redundancy of facilities and experience with recoveries were the 

key to putting the right resources at the right places in a complex problem. 

The economy remains the biggest uncertainty in the aftermath of Sept. 11. We 

were already feeling effects of economic slowdown before this. We need to look for 

prudent ways to stimulate investment, innovation and consumer confidence. This is 

particularly so in lower Manhattan. We are rebuilding our network and we must 

have users to make our investment worthwhile. 

We also came away from 9/11 and the recovery efforts with new clarity on larger 

issues facing the communications industry. 

True competition comes from diverse technologies (wired, wireless, cable, Internet). With regard to telecommunications, facilities based competition demonstrated 

that it is the real competitive alternative, not re-sale of pieces of an existing network. The fact that service restoration in lower Manhattan occurred as quickly as 

it did demonstrates the value of large- scale facilities-based local networks. 

Scale and scope matter. Verizon’s ability to draw on resources of a national company was invaluable. The value of large facilities- based competitors is evident—

they tend to have the scale and experience to help the nation recovery quickly. 

Fiber, broadband, and diverse technology are crucial because they improve survivability. Fiber/broadband to large business customerworks and has never been more 

important. Also, fast Internet access was vital to consumers; broadband service to 

the home helped keep America connected and productive. In the crisis, people were 

able to choose from several technologies to handle their communications—if wireless 

didn’t work, often e-mail and Instant Messaging did, if wireline didn’t work, often 

wireless did. When it was impossible for people to drive to their place of work, they 

could telecommute over broadband. New, high speed communications technologies 

are a national strength. 

Security Issues 

Verizon gets plenty of practice in system recovery efforts. We have more than 

1000 recovery efforts every year of various scales man-made and natural: from airplane crashes to ice storms, major floods, hurricanes and tornadoes, to trucks hitting telephone poles and to people digging up or cutting our underground plant. Our 

experience with these situations helped make the 9/11 recovery run effectively. 

But we have never experienced anything like this which seemed to be a witches 

brew of every disaster known—and unknown. And they occurred in 3 separate 

places, simultaneously. What have we learned? Two major lessons: First. we need 

to take a fresh look at security of telecommunications networks—and we’re already 

well along on that. Second, the country needs to develop national policies related 

to access to critical network assets, cybersecurity, and the redundancy and diversity 

of networks. 

At Verizon, we have a regular, aggressive schedule of security audits, and continual discussion with the security community about new threats. These practices 

had been the cornerstone for our regular cycles of security improvement and testing. 

We share information with and work closely with National Security and Emergency Preparedness agencies—at the federal, state and local levels. Agencies such 

as NYC’s Mutual Aid and Restoration committee, the FBI’s National Information 

Protection Center, the National Communications System, and the National Security 

Telecommunications Advisory Committee are illustrative. Many of those discussions 

are very candid and involve vulnerability assessments and plans. 

Since 9/11, Verizon has additional efforts underway to further improve the security, survivability and rapid recovery of our networks. 

We have undertaken a review of which assets need additional hardening. This 

means a physical inventory of all 5100 central offices and hundreds of key buildings, 

with ranking for significance—and thus priority attention for hardening. Mostly this 

means beefing up physical security—such as perimeter and entryways, some better 

monitoring, and in a few cases interior partitioning. 

We have heightened attention to prevent and discover unauthorized cyber-intrusion. We caught and were the first to report a major computer virus to National 

Information Protection Center right after 9/11. 

We continue our regular, aggressive security audits that Verizon conducted even 

before 9/11. And we promptly address any findings of non-compliance or design 

weakness. 

41

I thank the Committee for its attention to critical infrastructure matters, and I 

will try to answer any questions that you have.

Senator INOUYE. Thank you very much, Mr. Crotty. 

May I now recognize Ms. Harris. 

STATEMENT OF GLORIA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF

OPERATIONS—NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY AND CONNECTICUT, 

AT&T WIRELESS 

Ms. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee: Thank 

you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am Gloria 

Harris, Vice President, Field Operations, New York, New Jersey, 

and Connecticut, of AT&T Wireless. Today my testimony will focus 

on how AT&T Wireless responded to the events of September 11th 

as well as the steps we are taking in the aftermath of 9–11 to enhance our emergency response procedures and to make our wireless network as strong as it can possibly be. 

The horrific events of September 11th had a profound effect on 

our Nation’s critical telecommunications infrastructure. AT&T 

Wireless’ network was pushed to its limits both in New York and 

Washington, D.C. I am proud to say, however, that our robust system withstood the assault, thanks in great part to our dedicated 

employees who worked around the clock and who also refused to 

go home, and followed our established emergency procedures. 

Problems for our network began almost immediately after the 

first plane hit the World Trade Center. Although our facilities sustained no direct damage at that time, thousands and thousands of 

AT&T Wireless subscribers in New York and Washington who 

under normal circumstances would not be using their wireless service at all simultaneously picked up their phones and began to 

dial—some to contact loved ones, some to call for help, and some 

to say goodbye. 

We also began handing out wireless handsets to emergency workers at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, all of whom started placing calls immediately to coordinate rescue and recovery efforts. 

Traffic on our network in Manhattan increased by as much a 150 

percent from the same day the previous week, and in certain areas 

of the city there were 360 percent more call attempts than AWS 

usually experiences. 

Around 4:00 in that afternoon, the burden to our network increased dramatically as a result of the complete destruction of 

Verizon’s major switching office, which was directly across the 

street from World Trade Center. Not only did that Verizon switch 

serve 45 of our cell sites, the landline customers in the affected 

area had nowhere to turn for service but to their wireless carriers. 

Just minutes after the north tower was hit, we activated our 

highest level of disaster response with national, regional, and local 

coordination on a 24 by 7 basis. As part of these activities, we established a 96-port conference bridge which remained open day and 

night for weeks after September 11th. Although intended to manage internal resources, that bridge soon became an essential mechanism for communication among dozens of different agencies. Police, fire, and other emergency responders regularly dialed in order 

to distribute and obtain information about rescue and recovery acVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:36 Jun 01, 2006 Jkt 091395 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\91395.TXT JACKF PsN: JACKF
42

tivities and public safety dispatchers used the conference facilities 

to request our assistance in tracking callers to 9-1-1. 

Obstacles encountered in trying to restore wireless service in the 

New York area were enormous and, surprisingly, had much to do 

more with bureaucratic hassles than with technical problems. First 

we discovered that bringing equipment into Manhattan on September 11th and ensuing days would be a significant challenge because all bridges into the city were closed and all flights had been 

grounded. 

Even after equipment arrived at its destinations, however, we 

had serious problems in getting our ‘‘Cells on Wheels,’’ our COW’s, 

as we call them, permitted and parked in locations that had line 

of sight to our network. While New York authorities were quite cooperative, certain other nearby localities wanted us to go through 

full-fledged zoning proceedings, which normally could take weeks 

or even months, before we could site and activate these temporary 

facilities. 

But perhaps the biggest obstacle to our recovery activities was in 

our attempt to obtain and retain access to Ground Zero for our employees, contractors, and vendor employees. This seemed to be primarily an issue of too little coordination among dozens of agencies. 

While the police department might let us bring our equipment into 

the area in the morning, a few hours later the fire marshal would 

deny access to the same equipment or require another burdensome 

round of paperwork. 

The final hurdle we faced was the lack of sufficient spectrum to 

support our recovery operations and the increased call burden. Because many customers in Manhattan had no wireline service and 

because rescue workers were using AT&T Wireless phones for 

Ground Zero communications, our network remained severely overloaded for weeks. 

Accordingly, on September 12th we went to the FCC and, with 

the cooperation of NextWave Communications, we requested a special temporary authorization to use NextWave’s unused spectrum 

in the New York market. The FCC responded immediately and that 

very day we had approval to use those bands. 

By September 27th, through the addition of these channels as 

well as the deployment of COW’s and the expedited construction of 

new sites, we had added enough capacity in Manhattan to permit 

almost 5,000 additional simultaneous calls. By the following day, 

we had permanently restored all but three of the recoverable sites. 

While our primary focus during the days surrounding September 

11th was on averting a network disaster and continuing to maintain critical wireless service to public safety and commercial users, 

we were also heavily involved in supporting the ongoing search and 

recovery efforts at Ground Zero and the Pentagon in other ways. 

Immediately after September 11th, for example, we activated, registered, and handed out more than 5,000 wireless phones to approximately 50 organizations, including the Red Cross, FEMA, the 

Department of Transportation, and the City of New York. 

In addition, together with the Wireless Emergency Response 

Team, a newly formed coalition of wireless and wireline telecommunications carriers and infrastructure providers, we equipped 

three-person teams with spectrum analyzers, directional antennas, 

43

and portable generators and sent them out to search for signals 

emanating from cell phones at Ground Zero. 

We also used customer records to identify all the calls placed to 

9-1-1 from the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and, at 

FEMA’s behest, called those numbers to determine if the callers 

needed further assistance. While no survivors were located in either location, we contacted many people who were thought to be 

missing and helped to bring closure to family members who lost 

their loved ones on September 11th. 

So the question now is where do we go from here? What have we 

learned from September 11th that could make our network stronger and ensure uninterrupted service during emergencies for both 

public safety personnel and our customers? Since September 11th 

AWS has taken a number of steps internally to ensure that we can 

respond effectively to a disaster on a nationwide level and across 

all critical units of our company. In addition, in light of the finite 

capacity of all telecommunications networks, we have been working 

to come up with a practical solution to ensure those with the greatest need are able to place and receive calls. 

Emergency agencies’ need to communicate is obviously critical, 

but 9–11 taught us that the ability of our existing customers to 

place calls is no less important. Indeed, it was a wireless call that 

gave passengers on a plane likely bound for the White House or the 

building we are standing in right now the information they needed 

to avert an even larger disaster. 

Accordingly, we have been working cooperatively with the members of the wireless community and the national communications 

system to develop a plan that will give priority access to certain 

emergency personnel in times of severe network congestion, while 

at the same time reserving capacity for customers. We think that 

the wireless priority access plan currently being discussed goes a 

long way towards ensuring that the facilities we have are used in 

the most efficient and effective manner possible. 

Now I will spend just a few minutes suggesting how you, Congress, can help us in our efforts to strengthen our network. First, 

as I indicated earlier, one of the most significant problems we faced 

in attempting to restore service to customers and emergency workers after September 11th was coordinating with the dozens of Federal, State, and local agencies and offices to bring the necessary 

equipment to the affected areas, to obtain permits to site those 

temporary facilities, and to ensure that our employees had continual access to the equipment once it was in place. 

One suggestion I have to ensure smoother sailing in the future 

would be to empower FEMA or another Federal agency to oversee 

issues involving the access of essential companies, such as telecommunications providers like AT&T Wireless, to disaster areas. 

Should we ever face a similar circumstance—and I pray that we do 

not—the agency could distribute universal badges which the companies could then hand out to their employees as necessary. 

The next major action Congress could take to help ensure the development of a comprehensive wireless network is to assist us in 

our efforts to obtain more spectrum. AT&T Wireless is in the enviable position of having enough spectrum to provide services to our 

customers’ demand through the first part of this decade. As we 

44

begin to roll out advanced technologies on a wider scale, we will require additional bandwidth to provide the types of services our subscribers tell us they want and at the same time to be able to assist 

public safety agencies with their needs. 

Much of the globally harmonized spectrum that wireless carriers 

need is woefully underutilized today by existing licensees in those 

bands and should be reallocated promptly. 

Today, based on the lessons learned from 9–11, we have begun 

to take the necessary steps to ensure that our network and service 

to our customers and emergency personnel remain strong for years 

to come. We hope that we can count on you to also take actions 

that will safeguard the wireless industry’s continued effort to serve 

the public, both in times of disaster and in times of peace. 

Thank you for this opportunity to share our findings today. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Harris follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GLORIA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS—

NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY AND CONNECTICUT, AT&T WIRELESS

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss how the wireless industry’s ubiquitous and robust telecommunications networks enhance public 

safety, assist emergency personnel, and permit crucial contact among families and 

friends on both a daily basis and in times of crisis. I am Gloria Harris, Vice President, Field Operations—Tristate Area, of AT&T Wireless Services, Inc. (‘‘AWS’’). 

Today, my testimony will focus on how AWS responded to the events of September 

11, 2001, including how we used our existing procedures and outstanding personnel 

to avert a potential network disaster. Even as cell sites across New York City failed 

due to a wireline switch outage, and thousands upon thousands of callers turned 

on their wireless phones at the same time, I am proud to say that our network remained solid. I will also tell you about the steps AWS is taking in the aftermath 

of 9–11 to enhance our emergency response procedures and to make our wireless 

network as strong as it can possibly be. 

I. HOW WE RESPONDED. 

Impact on the Wireless Network. At 8:45 a.m. on September 11, 2001, American 

Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center 

complex. This unspeakable terrorist act was just the beginning of what would soon 

become this century’s most horrific national tragedy. It also put an enormous strain 

on our nation’s telecommunications networks, including AWS’s wireless systems, 

which were crucial not only to the rescue, recovery, and law enforcement efforts that 

were immediately launched, but to the ability of American citizens to reach loved 

ones in a time of crisis. 

Between 9:00 and 10:30 a.m. on September 11, additional planes were piloted into 

the South Tower of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, another plane 

crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and both World Trade Center towers collapsed. By mid-afternoon, there were power outages throughout lower Manhattan 

and six AWS cell sites were out of service. 

To complicate matters, thousands and thousands of AWS subscribers in New York 

and Washington, who, under normal circumstances, would not be using their wireless service at all, simultaneously picked up their phones and began to dial—some 

to contact loved ones, some to call for help, and some to say goodbye. In addition, 

AWS handed out wireless handsets to emergency workers at Ground Zero in lower 

Manhattan, all of whom started placing calls immediately to coordinate rescue and 

recovery efforts. Traffic on our network in Manhattan increased by as much as 150 

percent from the same day the previous week, and in certain areas of the city there 

were 360 percent more attempts to make calls than AWS usually experienced. Our 

systems in Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh were being used up to and beyond capacity as well. 

Around 4:00 p.m., the burden to AWS’s network increased dramatically as a result 

of the complete destruction of Verizon’s major switching office, which was directly 

across the street from the World Trade Center. Not only did that Verizon switch 

serve 45 AWS cell sites—most of which were in lower Manhattan—the landline customers in the affected areas had nowhere to turn for service but to their wireless 

45

carriers. Verizon obviously was intent on restoring service for its own customers and 

consequently was unable to reroute AWS’s traffic from the impaired cell sites. By 

the evening of September 11, 47 AWS cell sites were out of service, one cell site 

had been completely destroyed, all of lower Manhattan had sustained a complete 

commercial power failure, and wireless call volumes remained extremely high in 

light of the failure of the wireline network. 

What We Did. Notwithstanding the incredible strain of increased call volumes and 

impaired cell sites, AWS’s wireless network in New York and everywhere else remained strong. This is due in large part to our ability to draw upon the lessons 

learned and the procedures developed from many years of responding to hurricanes, 

tornados, and floods, as well as planned day-long disaster simulations. Specifically, 

in every market in the United States in which it provides service, AWS has a disaster field office. When not needed, these offices serve as conference rooms or storage areas, but they are equipped with redundant telephone lines, back-up power 

sources, food and medical supplies, and manuals outlining the steps to be taken in 

disaster situations. Each of our disaster field offices reports to one of our eight regional Emergency Operations Centers, whose activities are coordinated by AWS’s 

National Emergency Operations Center in Bothell, Washington. Clearly, no established procedures could have prepared us for the events of September 11, but they 

did enable AWS to avert a potentially catastrophic network failure. 

Just minutes after the North Tower was hit, AWS activated its highest level of 

disaster response. AWS’s National Emergency Operations Center coordinated efforts 

at the national, regional, and local levels by identifying all available personnel and 

equipment to support recovery and repair activities in New York and Washington, 

D.C. We also set up a regional staging ground in Paramus, New Jersey, and used 

that location for the delivery of portable generators, network equipment, and ‘‘Cells 

on Wheels’’—or ‘‘COWs’’—from across the country. Many of our Manhattan employees were asked to report to a central disaster field office, where they were accounted 

for and where they began preparing for cell site recovery. 

In addition, on September 11, AWS established a 96-port conference bridge to 

manage technical resources among our national and regional operational centers 

and the affected disaster field offices. That bridge, however, which remained open 

day and night for weeks after September 11, was not used solely by AWS personnel. 

Rather, police, fire, and other emergency responders regularly dialed in to the 

bridge in order to distribute and obtain information about rescue and recovery activities. Similarly, public safety dispatchers used the conference facilities to request 

AWS’s assistance in tracking callers to 911. As it turned out, AWS’s conference 

bridge was an essential mechanism for communication among dozens of different 

agencies, as well as a way for AWS to coordinate its own internal recovery efforts. 

AWS’s primary activity on September 11 and the following days was to assess the 

extent of the impairment to our service in New York and Washington, D.C. and to 

prioritize service restoration efforts. Since we could not rely on Verizon to install 

new facilities for us or to reroute traffic from its destroyed lower Manhattan switch, 

we had to figure out alternate ways to provide service in the areas around the impaired cell sites. Initially, this was accomplished by the mobilization of COWs or by 

adding additional equipment and capacity to nearby cell sites. 

Bringing equipment into Manhattan on September 11 and the ensuing days, was 

a significant challenge because all bridges into the city were closed and all flights 

had been grounded. Accordingly, we worked with the New York City Office of Emergency Management and the Mayor’s office to obtain permits or waivers to carry our 

equipment over the closed infrastructure and to secure escorts for the trucks. 

We also faced serious obstacles in getting the COWs permitted and parked in locations that had a line-of-site to our network. While New York authorities were 

quite cooperative, certain other nearby localities wanted us to go through full 

fledged zoning proceedings, which normally could take weeks or even months, before 

we could site and activate these temporary facilities. AWS personnel, however, 

worked around the clock to obtain approvals from local authorities, establish microwave links, and test the temporary facilities. Within 21 hours after deployment, 

AWS activated its first COW in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey. 

Shortly thereafter, a second COW was sent to Brooklyn to further support Manhattan’s network capacity. And, at the Pentagon’s request, we deployed a third COW 

to the Pentagon. Ultimately, AWS activated a total of 17 COWs: 15 in New York, 

one in Washington, D.C., and one in Pennsylvania. In addition, AWS deployed 12 

portable generators to support the cell sites without commercial power. 

Over the next several days, AWS brought 26 technicians from other AWS markets 

across the country to assist in New York, where the network was the most impacted. The technicians worked to integrate COWs into the permanent infrastructure, repaired AWS’s damaged equipment, implemented a solution to permit law enVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:36 Jun 01, 2006 Jkt 091395 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\91395.TXT JACKF PsN: JACKF
46

forcement wiretapping, and recovered court-ordered surveillance systems used by 

law enforcement agencies. In addition, at the request of the New York Police Department, network engineers initiated, coordinated, and implemented the addition 

of over 6,000 emergency voice mail message hours in Queens, Manhattan, and Rochelle Park, thereby increasing the number of voice mail messages allowed in subscribers’ mailboxes. 

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to our recovery activities was in our attempts to obtain—and retain—access to Ground Zero for our employees, contractors, and vendor 

employees. This seemed to be primarily an issue of too little coordination among 

dozens of state and local agencies. While the police department might let us bring 

our equipment into the area in the morning, a few hours later, the fire marshal 

would deny access to that same equipment or require another burdensome round 

of paperwork. Verizon and Con Edison apparently did not encounter these difficulties because they were considered utilities, while AWS was not. 

On September 11, the most immediate danger to our network was the enormous 

increase in calls being placed by our customers and emergency workers. During the 

peak of the crisis, we instituted load shedding procedures by deactivating non-essential features on a number of switches, such as Caller ID, performance measurement 

capability, and fraud detection, to avoid a complete crash of our New York system. 

The result was similar to that achieved by shutting windows on a personal computer—it helped provide more capacity for traffic routing. While there nevertheless 

were periods during the day in which accessing our network required multiple attempts, the system remained solid. 

It quickly became clear to AWS, however, that it required additional spectrum to 

support recovery operations and the increased call burden. Accordingly, on September 12, AWS, with the cooperation of NextWave Communications, obtained a 

special temporary authorization from the Federal Communications Commission, 

which allowed it to access 10 MHz of unused spectrum licensed to NextWave in the 

New York market. By September 27, through the addition of these channels, as well 

as the deployment of COWs and other temporary equipment, and the expedited construction of new sites, AWS had added enough capacity in Manhattan to permit almost 5,000 additional simultaneous calls. It also added 630 new voice paths in 

Washington, D.C. by September 14, and 158 voice paths in Pennsylvania by September 12. These new channels provided the necessary capacity to compensate for 

the site losses at Ground Zero and to accommodate the additional call volume 

around the White House, the Pentagon, and the crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 

At the same time as it was activating COWs and adding equipment at adjacent 

cell sites in the affected areas, AWS was performing surveys of all 47 lost cell sites 

to determine how service could best be restored on a permanent basis. By September 28, AWS had restored all but three of the recoverable cell sites using microwave facilities or AWS’s own backhaul facilities, as well as working with Verizon 

to reroute traffic. 

AWS’s rescue efforts. While AWS’s primary focus during the days surrounding 

September 11 was on averting a network disaster and continuing to maintain much 

needed wireless service to public safety and commercial users, it also supported the 

ongoing search and recovery efforts at Ground Zero and the Pentagon in other ways. 

Immediately after September 11, for example, AWS activated, registered, and handed out more than 5,000 wireless phones to approximately 50 organizations, including the Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (‘‘FEMA’’), the Department of Transportation, and the City of New York. With these phones, AWS donated over 1.3 million minutes of airtime usage. In addition, AWS waived all 

airtime charges for calls made and received on September 11 by east coast customers between Massachusetts and Virginia. AWS employees also worked around 

the clock at phone distribution and recharging centers located near the disaster 

areas. Similarly, AWS coordinated the delivery of safety kits, radios, goggles, 

breathing filters, gloves and radio equipment to the impacted areas to sustain its 

own efforts and to support local emergency response teams in their recovery efforts. 

To aid in the various search and rescue efforts, AWS joined the Wireless Emergency Response Team (‘‘WERT’’), a coalition of wireless and wireline telecommunications carriers and infrastructure and equipment providers. AWS allocated channels for the WERT activities and donated spectrum analyzers to support recovery 

missions. Both in conjunction with WERT and on its own initiative, AWS also established three-person teams of AWS technicians to assist emergency response personnel in searching for possible survivors in the World Trade Center rubble. Each 

team, equipped with a spectrum analyzer, a directional antenna, and a portable generator, was sent out to search for signals emanating from cell phones at Ground 

47

Zero. Tragically, these teams found no survivors—only phones that had been left on 

by WTC workers. 

In addition, AWS assisted FEMA in its efforts to locate those lost in the World 

Trade Center and the Pentagon by providing them with customer information that 

detailed which customers had placed calls from inside the Towers, the Pentagon, 

and nearby buildings. We identified all the calls placed to 911 from those locations 

and proceeded to call back each calling party to determine if they needed further 

assistance. While no survivors were located in either location, AWS contacted many 

people who were thought to be missing and helped bring closure to family members 

who lost their loved ones on September 11. 

AWS also supported law enforcement personnel and kept rescue teams from danger by discrediting false reports. In addition, AWS provided U.S. Marshals with network information and frequencies for the equipment used to help locate cellular 

calls. In conjunction with these efforts, AWS provided guidance to 911call centers 

by giving recommendations for trapped survivors’ cell phone usage to conserve battery power and maintain the best possible signal. 

II. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? 

As the foregoing shows, given its existing procedures, training, and outstanding 

personnel, AWS was in a very good position to respond to the 9–11 crisis from a 

network operations standpoint. Despite the loss of 47 cell sites, largely due to the 

destruction of Verizon’s wireline switch at Ground Zero and an incredible increase 

in calls on September 11 and the following days, AWS kept its network up and running, obtained additional spectrum, added temporary cell sites, and addressed urgent requests for service, equipment, and facilities from displaced residential and 

business customers, as well emergency response agencies and utility workers. 

9–11 also taught AWS, however, that there are many ways in which it could improve its emergency procedures and be better prepared for disasters of any sort that 

impact the nation’s vital telecommunications infrastructure. Therefore, as soon as 

the initial crisis had subsided in the days following September 11, AWS personnel 

from all areas of the company got together to brainstorm about what had gone 

wrong, what had gone right, and what it should do from that day forward to make 

use of the lessons learned from 9–11. 

AWS Crisis Management Team. Although, as described above, AWS had in place 

on September 11 a multi-level disaster response team that was able to deploy quickly and respond efficiently to dozens of network outages and other problems, we came 

to the conclusion that our existing procedures were focused too heavily on just the 

operational part of our business. For that reason, we have now created a Crisis 

Management Team that operates at the highest levels and covers all functions of 

the company. This team has representatives in every AWS market, company vice 

presidents at the regional level, and AWS’s Chief Operating Officer at the head. 

Personnel from customer service; environmental, health and safety; financial; 

human resources; legal; marketing; real estate; insurance, as well as network operations and every other corporate unit of AWS participate in this group and bring 

their particular expertise and interests to the table. Already, we have established 

business recovery plans for each critical unit of the company. We believe that our 

Crisis Management Team will help ensure that AWS can respond effectively to a 

disaster on a nationwide and business-wide level. 

Priority Access. One thing 9–11 made abundantly clear is that wireless phones are 

crucial to the nation’s ability to communicate during a disaster. Wireless service allowed people trapped in buildings to call for help and, in some cases, to call their 

loved ones for the last time, allowed passengers on a plane likely bound for the 

White House—or the building we are in right now—to obtain information in time 

to avert an even larger disaster, and allowed residents of New York, Washington, 

D.C., and across the nation to let their sons, daughters, husbands, and wives know 

they were safe. Wireless phones also were essential for firefighters, police, and other 

emergency response personnel in those cities to coordinate their rescue efforts, and 

for utility workers to coordinate their repair and salvage efforts. 

In light of the limited capacity of any telecommunications system, it is necessary 

for carriers to balance competing demands for network time. Emergency agencies’ 

need to communicate during a crisis obviously is crucial, but, as we discovered on 

September 11, the ability of AWS’s existing customers—workers, parents, airline 

passengers—to speak to each other and to call for help was no less important. Accordingly, since September 11, AWS has been working to come up with a practical 

solution to ensuring that those with the greatest need are able to place and receive 

calls. To this end, AWS, together with other members of the wireless community 

and the National Communications System have been working cooperatively to develop a plan that will give access to the next available wireless voice channel to cerVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:36 Jun 01, 2006 Jkt 091395 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\91395.TXT JACKF PsN: JACKF
48

tain National Security/Emergency Preparedness personnel in times of severe network congestion, while at the same time reserving capacity for customers. 

Obviously, no network can be built to a capacity to accommodate all customers 

and emergency agencies during disasters of the magnitude experienced on September 11. However, we want to ensure that the facilities we do have are used in 

the most efficient and effective manner possible. We think that the wireless Priority 

Access Plan currently being discussed goes a long way toward accomplishing that 

goal. 

Need for Government Assistance. AWS is taking all the steps it can in preparing 

the company to respond to disasters—both natural and manmade—that affect the 

ability of U.S. citizens to communicate. We believe that the procedures we are establishing today will make us better able to coordinate across all functions of the company in order to patch holes blown in our network as well as respond to customer 

and government problems quickly. There are a number of issues beyond our control, 

however, that, if not addressed, have the potential to make these efforts significantly less effective. Accordingly, we are asking Congress and federal agencies to 

help ensure that wireless carriers are able to obtain access to disaster sites, have 

sufficient spectrum to meet future consumer demands, and that they can site towers 

efficiently, all of which are necessary to create the robust networks required to withstand, and recover rapidly from, any type of disaster. 

First, as indicated earlier, one of the most significant problems we faced in attempting to restore service to customers and emergency workers after September 11 

was coordinating with dozens of federal, state, and local agencies and offices to 

bring necessary equipment to the affected areas, to obtain permits to site those temporary facilities, and to ensure that our employees had continual access to the 

equipment once it was in place. One suggestion we have to ensure smoother sailing 

in the future would be to empower FEMA or another federal agency to oversee 

issues involving the access of essential companies, such as telecommunications providers like AWS, to disaster areas. Should we ever face similar circumstances (and 

we pray we do not), that agency could distribute ‘‘universal’’ badges, which the companies could then hand out to their employees as necessary. 

Second, the primary constraint on the development of a comprehensive wireless 

market is the lack of adequate spectrum. AWS is in the enviable position of having 

enough spectrum to provide the services our customers demand for the first part 

of this decade. As we begin to roll out advanced technologies on a wider scale, however, we will require additional bandwidth to provide the types of services our subscribers tell us they want and at the same time be able to assist public safety agencies with their needs. The government’s primary role in the development of voice 

and broadband wireless networks—one which only it can fulfill—is to ensure that 

spectrum that meets the technical and practical needs of carriers is available. Additional bandwidth is absolutely essential if the wireless industry is to be able to meet 

future consumer needs, much less respond to such needs during times of disasters. 

Much of the globally harmonized spectrum that AWS and other wireless carriers 

need is woefully underutilized by existing licensees in those bands today. Unfortunately, however, the process for reallocating such spectrum is moving slowly and unevenly. The Federal Communications Commission has declined to make certain 

fixed wireless bands available to existing mobile operators and, despite the failure 

of the mobile satellite service (‘‘MSS’’) industry to use even a fraction of the spectrum currently allocated to it, it continues to ask the agency to license more MSS 

operators. It also remains unclear if or when additional spectrum used by the Department of Defense and other federal agencies could be freed up for commercial 

use. 

In this time of bandwidth scarcity, it is unreasonable to let spectrum lie fallow. 

There are dozens of wireless carriers today that would willingly spend billions of 

dollars for the spectrum held—but barely used—by some current satellite and 

broadcast licensees and government agencies, and would construct the networks and 

serve customers immediately. If 9–11 shows anything, it is that the wireless infrastructure is no longer a luxury service or merely a backup network to the facilities 

other carriers have in the ground and strung on poles. Rather, it is a vital, robust, 

and primary means of communication everyday, and especially in times of crisis. Accordingly, AWS respectfully requests that Congress to do everything within its 

power to ensure that spectrum is distributed in a manner that permits the wireless 

industry to grow and to create the strong networks the country needs. 

Finally, while insufficient spectrum remains one of the greatest barriers to wireless deployment, the inability of wireless carriers to site the towers and other facilities they need to provide such service without unreasonable delay or expense also 

remains a huge obstacle. Although Congress has directed federal agencies to make 

federal property available for wireless telecommunications siting, the agencies often 

49

delay approval of applications for unreasonable periods of time or attempt to collect 

excessive fees for the use of federal lands. Similarly, localities regularly ignore 

Congress’s admonition that they not use their zoning authority to prohibit the provision of wireless service. It can sometimes take years to site a tower and the costs 

of zoning hearings and litigation are often enormous. These delays and expenses not 

only affect the quality of service for consumers today, they reduce AWS’s ability to 

deploy the redundant facilities needed to respond to the loss of cell sites in disasters. 

Although Congress has made it clear to federal, state, and local agencies that they 

should not stand in the way of wireless deployment, apparently the message needs 

to be stronger. Accordingly, AWS urges Congress to set explicit guidelines for the 

amount of time an agency can take to respond to a siting request and for holding 

hearings on that request. In addition, we ask Congress to ensure that the fees the 

agency charges for use of the government property are truly just and reasonable. 

Misleading public safety ‘‘solutions.’’ Since September 11, a number of parties 

have come forward with alleged ‘‘solutions’’ to the problems faced by emergency response agencies in communicating during crises. Not surprisingly, each of these 

plans requires the government to bestow upon the proposing party free and exclusive spectrum without having to go through the process of competitive bidding like 

similarly situated carriers. In addition—and not surprisingly again—none of these 

proposals provides a real answer to public safety’s communications problems. 

One recent proposal, for example, which has been presented to the FCC by Nextel 

Communications Inc., purports to address interference between public safety operations and commercial systems by swapping various channels in the 800 MHz band. 

Although this plan would provide Nextel with more desirable contiguous spectrum—

including an entirely gratuitous 10 MHz of MSS spectrum—it does not completely 

resolve any interference issues because public safety radios would still need to be 

redesigned to filter out interfering signals. More significantly, however, Nextel’s proposal would leave hundreds of private radio licensees out in the cold—either paying 

to relocate their operations to bands with poorer propagation characteristics or lack 

of available equipment, or operating on a secondary basis to public safety systems. 

As even the public safety community recognizes, private radio operators provide crucial telecommunications capabilities to gas, electric, water, and other utility companies, which work side by side with emergency response teams during disasters. It 

makes no sense to curtail utilities’ ability to communicate, or require them to expend substantial sums to relocate, to remedy isolated instances of interference that 

can largely be resolved by better design of public safety radios and the cooperation 

of affected CMRS providers. 

Similarly, certain MSS licensees are now attempting to convince the FCC that 

their satellite systems are capable of enhancing public safety, homeland defense, 

emergency service, and military systems in rural areas . . . but . . . only if the agency allows them to use the satellite spectrum they received for free to compete as 

terrestrial wireless providers in urban markets. It is not at all clear why these licensees think they will have any more success in sustaining a rural-only satellite 

business (and thereby promoting public safety in rural areas) than they have had 

thus far, when virtually all customers and revenue would come from their (entirely 

separate) urban terrestrial operations. It is clear, however, that these licensees expect to use the ORBIT Act, which precludes the auctioning of satellite spectrum, as 

a means to use their free spectrum to fulfill their terrestrial aspirations. In other 

words, MSS licensees plan to use free spectrum to compete against companies that 

paid billions of dollars for their licenses. Rather than permit spectrum allocation 

and auction decisions to be based on dubious, at best, public safety promises, AWS 

urges Congress to clarify that the ORBIT Act may not be expanded beyond all semblance of its original meaning. 

September 11 taxed resources of all telecommunications carriers in the United 

States far beyond what we had ever expected or planned for. Nevertheless, we are 

proud to say that AWS’s established procedures, robust facilities, and dedicated employees allowed it keep its network up and running and to restore impaired service 

in record time. They also allowed us to devote resources directly to the emergency 

rescue and recovery efforts underway in New York and Washington, D.C. 

Today, based on the lessons learned from 9–11, we have begun to take the steps 

necessary to ensure that our network—and service to customers and emergency personnel—remain safeguarded in the event of almost any disaster. Many of these activities are internal to AWS or involve coordination and cooperation between the 

wireless and public safety communities. The intervention of Congress, however, is 

absolutely critical to our ability to obtain the spectrum and site the redundant tower 

50

and transmission facilities that are needed to create truly robust wireless networks. 

We hope that we can count on you for this help.

Senator INOUYE. Thank you very much, Ms. Harris. 

Now may I call upon Ms. Herda. 

STATEMENT OF LARISSA HERDA, CHAIRMAN, CHIEF

EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND PRESIDENT, TIME WARNER 

TELECOM 

Ms. HERDA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Members 

of the Subcommittee: My name is Larissa Herda. I am Chairman, 

CEO, and President of Time Warner Telecom, and I want to thank 

you for the opportunity to talk to you today about what can be done 

to enhance the reliability and robustness of the Nation’s communications network. 

Before I tell you who we are, I would first like to tell you who 

we are not. We are not Time Warner Cable, we are not AOL, nor 

are we a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner. We have nothing to do 

with movies, entertainment, Bugs Bunnie, or Roadrunner. AOL 

Time Warner is a large shareholder, but they do not provide funding to our company and they do not manage our business. We are 

a separately managed, separately publicly traded company. 

Time Warner Telecom is actually one of the few viable companies 

that are competitive local providers providing telecommunications 

services over our own fiber networks in a local metro area. Today 

we provide service in 44 markets across the country serving 21 

States. 

In my testimony today, I will provide a brief summary of our experience during the September 11th attack. I will also explain how 

the existence, design, and operation of our network provides essential disaster prevention and recovery solutions to the public and 

the private sector business customers. I will offer my recommendations as to the types of public policy decisions that will ensure that 

Americans have access to a robust and reliable communications 

network. 

The terrorist attack on September 11th not only reinforced how 

essential communications are in a time of crisis, but it also raised 

important questions about the capabilities and durability of our 

Nation’s telecommunications infrastructure. A halt in communications would cripple many elements of everyday life. Time Warner 

Telecom was instrumental in restoring communications service to 

the public and private sector after the 9–11 attack. Our network 

fortunately was only minimally damaged during the attack. Because of our significant fiber investment and the redundancy and 

diversity that we built into our network, none of our customers 

that were riding exclusively on our fiber network were affected. Nobody lost service. 

Unfortunately, as Mr. Cangemi indicated earlier, New York City 

Hall did lose phone service following the attacks and, although we 

were not serving them at the time—we did not actually have fiber 

infrastructure into their building at the time, my team, working 

day and night—as my fellow panelists from AT&T Wireless and 

Verizon said, I do not think any of these technicians ever left during that time. It was really amazing, the amount of work that 

these people went through, and my team as well. They worked day 

51

and night pulling fiber into the building and they were able to install 300 phone lines for city hall in less than 48 hours in, obviously, a very difficult and dangerous environment. They had to 

wear respirators and climb many stairs to do it. 

Turning up this type of service, just to give you some perspective, 

would normally take a minimum of, well, under optimal situation 

maybe 30 to 90 days, because of the need to acquire permits and 

to construct facilities in the right of way and to gain building access. So you have to gain building owner’s permission generally to 

enter the buildings. 

If our fiber had already been in the building, we could have installed service within a few hours, and in fact we had many customers who had lost service from their other providers and we were 

able to turn up their services almost immediately that day and in 

days following that. 

Additionally, we worked with the Department of Information, 

Telephone and Technology, Mr. Cangemi’s organization to identify 

other municipal offices that needed service restored. I can honestly 

say there was a tremendous amount of cooperation between all the 

carriers that were functioning in the city that day. In such a dramatic situation, I think it was clearly beneficial to have multiple 

providers in the market to be in a position to be able to restore the 

critical services. 

Many businesses—prior to September 11th many businesses understood the value of building redundancy and diversity into their 

communications data systems. But obviously, since September 11th 

they are much more focused on that today. 

The best way in our opinion to minimize disruption of critical infrastructure is to avoid having a single point of failure through diverse and redundant network facilities. Customers can obtain optimally—they can obtain optimal diversity by obtaining services from 

two different facilities-based providers. By doing so, customers decrease the likelihood of complete service outage if one of their competing carriers’ services goes down. Also, having an established relationship with more than one carrier facilitates the replacement of 

services. 

Since 9–11 we have increased security at all of our facilities, implemented more thorough disaster prevention and recovery plans, 

and presented a series of seminars to educate the business community on the value and process of building redundancies into their 

communications systems. But most importantly, we have always 

constructed our network in a manner designed to eliminate single 

points of failure. 

To illustrate this, you all should have a diagram of our network 

here that will explain our network architecture. On this diagram 

there are four squares in each of the corners of the page that represent our central offices. This one is specific to Manhattan, but 

our networks pretty much look like this in every city that we go 

into. You can see the fiber distribution rings coming out from each 

of the central offices. There are distribution rings to serve customers, to serve carriers, to connect up to the local exchange offices. Then there is a big ring, a big backbone ring that connects 

up all of these offices as well. 

52

If there is a fiber cut in any of these locations, services are automatically rerouted within 50 milliseconds, which is essentially faster than the blink of an eye, and customers do not experience an 

outage. In fact, between the two bottom central offices, 60 Hudson 

and 23rd Street, we did have a fiber cut on September 11th. However, none of our customers lost service because the technology 

kicked in, the diversity worked, and we are obviously very thankful 

for that. 

The ability to access more than one facilities-based carrier is the 

best way to minimize disruption to critical infrastructure and reduce down time and loss of major business functions in the event 

that there is a service disruption that cannot be avoided. 

Government can help ensure that public and private sectors have 

access to these services by reducing the barriers to construction 

that currently exist. Many customers want network diversity, but 

too often we are not able to meet that demand because we cannot 

get permits that we need to access the right of way from the municipalities or we cannot get the building owners to give us permission to enter the buildings in a timely and cost effective manner. 

These two barriers of construction are a problem for us because 

they limit our ability to grow our business. But they also restrict 

access to the public good and deny businesses the ability to purchase critical services from their provider of choice. 

While I encourage you to address these general issues in the 

marketplace, there are some things that the government can do 

very easily today to help us address some of the issues. Number 

one, they can require that the Federal Government—that they need 

to obtain service from at least two different facilities-based providers in each of their buildings whenever that is possible. Number 

two, only enter into lease agreements with landlords that will allow 

other telecommunications providers into the building that are either selected by the Federal Government or any other tenant in the 

building and to allow them to have physical access into the building promptly and at fair rates on reasonable and nondiscriminatory 

terms. It is my understanding that these conditions can be added 

through the Federal telecommunications procurement process and 

that can be done now by issuance of an executive order. 

In conclusion, the need for diversity highlights the important 

benefits of a competitive telecommunications market. There is no 

question that the telecom industry has been affected by the downturn of the economy, but the need for competition is more important now than really ever before. Businesses and government offices need access to diverse networks. They need quality services at 

affordable prices, policies that promote competition are critical, and 

strict enforcement of the 1996 Act remains the most important tool 

that the government has to encourage the competition. 

Setting aside the other advantages of competition, the attacks of 

September 11th and the demonstrated support by the competitive 

telecom entrants such as Time Warner Telecom and the ability of 

all the carriers that were involved, including obviously the tremendous job done by the incumbent in restoring those critical services, 

proves the strategic value of competitive fiber facilities-based providers. 

53

I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify before you 

today and I am happy to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Herda follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LARISSA HERDA, CHAIRMAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

AND PRESIDENT, TIME WARNER TELECOM

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

On behalf of Time Warner Telecom Inc. I would like to thank the committee for 

the opportunity to talk to you today about the impact the September 11th disaster 

had on the nation’s communications infrastructure. My name is Larissa Herda and 

I am the Chairman, President and CEO of Time Warner Telecom (‘‘TWTC’’), which 

has grown to be one of the largest new competitive entities in the telecommunications industry. We exist today because of the pro-competitive policies adopted in 

the Telecommunications Act of 1996. We are unique in a number of respects. 

TWTC builds its own local and regional fiber optic networks and delivers ‘‘lastmile’’ broadband data, dedicated Internet access, and voice services to small, medium and large businesses. We provide service to a diverse customer base across the 

country. The Company currently serves business customers in 44 U.S. metropolitan 

areas. Since the passage of the 96 Act, we have invested more than $2.0 billion in 

building a network infrastructure and have created over 2,500 high-tech jobs nationwide. 

The terrorist attacks on September 11 not only reinforced how essential communications is in times of crisis, but also raised important questions about the capabilities and durability of our nation’s telecommunications infrastructure. As executives 

and governments across the world now attempt to anticipate and prevent similar 

disasters, the imperative of a sound and resilient communications infrastructure has 

moved to the forefront of national consciousness, as a halt in communications would 

bring to a standstill airlines, the stock exchange, banks, television, radio to name 

just a few elements of everyday life. 

In my testimony today I will provide a brief summary of TWTC’s experience following the September 11th attack, explain how the of the existence, design and operation of our network provides essential disaster prevention and recovery solutions 

to public and private sector business customers and offer my recommendations as 

to the types of public policy decisions that will ensure that Americans have access 

to a robust and reliable communications network. 

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 New York City 

Time Warner Telecom was instrumental in restoring communications service to 

the public and private sector after the 9.11 attack. Our network, fortunately, was 

only minimally damaged by the attack. Because of our significant fiber investment, 

and the redundancy and diversity that we built into our network, none of the customers that were exclusively on our network lost service. Unfortunately, New York’s 

City Hall did lose its phone service following the attacks. Although TWTC was not 

providing service to the city building at the time, my team, working day and night 

pulling fiber into their building, was able to install 300 phone lines for City Hall 

in less than 48 hours—in a difficult and dangerous environment I might add. This 

type of service would normally take a minimum of 21 days to install because of the 

need to acquire permits to construct facilities in the right of way and gain the building owners permission to enter the building. (If our fiber was already into this building, we could have installed service within a few hours.) 

Additionally, we participated in regular meetings with the city’s Department of 

Information, Telephone and Technology (DOITT) to identify other municipal offices 

that needed service restored. With the cooperation of the incumbent telephone company and other telecom providers, the industry was able to identify which companies had network in place and restored service where it was needed. Although the 

incumbent telephone company was working valiantly to restore service, in such a 

dramatic situation it was clearly beneficial to have multiple providers in the market 

to restore critical services. 

Disaster Recovery Requires Both Prevention and Recovery 

Many businesses understood the value of building redundancy into their communications and data systems prior to 9.11, but many more are focused on it today. 

The best way to minimize disruption to critical infrastructure is to avoid having a 

single point of failure through diverse and redundant network facilities. 

Customers can obtain diversity primarily by obtaining services from two different 

facilities-based carriers. By doing so, customers decrease the likelihood of a complete 

54

service outage if one of their competing carriers’ service goes down. Also, having an 

established relationship with more than one carrier facilitates the replacement of 

services. 

The Time Warner Telecom Network 

We have constructed our network in a manner designed to eliminate single points 

of failure. For example, in NYC we have switches in two locations—one on 61st 

street and one on 23rd. We build our network in a ring topology that provide a diverse and redundant electronics in order to reduce the likelihood that service will 

be lost in the event of a failure in any part of the network. I’d like to take a moment 

to explain our network architecture. 

Since 9.11, we have increased security at all our facilities, implemented more 

thorough disaster prevention and recovery plans, and presented a series of seminars 

to educate the business community of the value and process of building 

redundancies into their communications systems. For illustrative purposes, I have 

provided the committee with the materials used for some of these seminars. 

Policies That Promote Facilities-Based Competition Give Customers Access 

To a Critical Tool Needed To Plan Against a Single Point of Failure 

Businesses must have access to more than one facilities-based carrier. This access 

is essential to minimize disruptions to critical infrastructure and to reduce downtime and loss of major business functions in the event a disruption cannot be avoided. Government can ensure the public and private sectors have access to these services by reducing the barriers to construction that currently exist. 

Barriers To Construction 

In order to recognize the goal of true facilities-based competition, companies must 

physically construct their own fiber network. There is incredible demand for these 

services in the marketplace. But too often we are not able to meet that demand because we can’t get the permits we need to access the right of way or we can’t the 

building owners permission to enter a building in a timely and cost-effective manner. These two barriers to construction—the failure of building owners to open their 

buildings to competitors and the failure of municipalities to approve construction 

permits under reasonable terms, quickly and on a competitively neutral basis are 

a problem for me because they limit my ability to grow my business. But they also 

restrict access to a public good and deny businesses the ability to purchase critical 

services from providers of their choice. 

Building Access 

In order to serve customers with our own facilities, we need to take our fiber directly into the customer’s buildings. In order to do this we must obtain access into 

the buildings in which are customers are tenants. In the initial aftermath of 9.11 

we found building owners in NYC much more cooperative in providing access to 

their buildings. Unfortunately, we are now seeing them return to the practice of delaying this access and imposing unreasonable costs on the price of access. How soon 

they have forgotten the lessons of 9.11. While I encourage you to address the building access issue for the entire marketplace, there is something that government can 

do easily today. 

First, the federal government should be required to purchase local telecommunications services from at least two providers with distinct network facilities in each 

market where choice is available. Present law permits, but does not require, purchases from two or more vendors. This requirement is necessary to ensure that federal agencies have telecommunications services that are diverse and redundant. 

This is a crucial element to protect the ability of the federal government to remain 

in operation and communication with the public and others during a disaster or 

other emergency, and to increase the stability of our government’s networks. 

Diversity involves establishing physically different routes into and out of and a 

building, and different equipment; so as to better ensure continued operations in the 

event that one route or network is impacted adversely by a disaster or other form 

of interference. 

Redundancy involves having extra capacity available, generally from more than 

one source, and also incorporates aspects of diversity. Not only does redundancy entail having capacity in reserve to handle sudden increases in demand or partial outages, but it also entails securing service from more than one provider where practicable. The use of multiple providers increases the probability that service will be 

maintained or restored in the event of a disaster, emergency, or carrier-specific 

problem, and decreases the chances that all communications capabilities will be affected in the same way at any given time. It ensures the availability of two distinct 

55

workforces to serve the customer and the opportunity to try two different approaches to solve a common or related problem. 

This requirement will help the federal government to reap the benefits of continued competition. Having multiple providers and diverse facilities enables the federal 

government to increase or decrease the use of a provider or set of facilities, thus 

creating continued incentive on the part of the carriers to provide good service, favorable pricing and continued innovation and cooperation. A multi-vendor strategy 

provides valuable leverage to federal tenants. 

Ensuring that multiple companies will have a greater opportunity to provide local 

service and serve federal tenants is a way to promote and advance the goals of the 

Telecommunications Act of 1996 while at the same time providing a valuable benefit 

to the federal government in its capacity as a purchaser of telecommunications services. This requirement also would create an economic stimulus that would promote 

telecommunications investment, competition, and jobs. 

Second, where the federal government seeks to lease space from a private landlord, absent special circumstances, the federal government should do so only in 

buildings where any telecommunication provider(s) it or any other tenant selects 

can have physical access to the building promptly at fair rates and on reasonable 

and nondiscriminatory terms. 

This requirement is vital to ensure that federal lease dollars are spent only in 

buildings where federal and other tenants have the right to choose multiple facilities-based telecommunications providers in order to secure diversity and redundancy 

in telecommunications services to better ensure continued communications during 

a disaster or provider-specific emergency. 

Without this requirement, building access by facilities-based telecommunications 

providers would be at the discretion of the current or future building owner. Even 

if federal or commercial tenants chose a single telecommunications provider, that 

choice could be thwarted, and the landlord could choose a different carrier. 

This requirement also is necessary to ensure that savings from the competitive 

procurement of local telecommunications services by the federal government can actually be realized—otherwise the chosen provider(s) may not be able to obtain building access on fair and reasonable terms. 

Federal leasing dollars should not be showered on buildings that block, impede 

or delay telecommunications competition and thereby harm federal and other tenants—those dollars should be spent in a way that allows the federal government 

and other tenants to reap the benefits of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and 

thus spurs the development of network facilities. 

Even before the national security implications of access to diverse and redundant 

telecommunications service were highlighted, there has been bipartisan congressional concern to secure building access for telecommunications providers in buildings with federal tenants. 

Last Congress, Senators Stevens, Hollings, Lott and Dorgan, and Congressmen 

Tom Davis and Rick Boucher, introduced legislation that would require, absent special circumstances, that federal tenants only lease space where telecommunications 

carriers can have nondiscriminatory access to them. 

Congress, aware that the former Administration was considering the issuance of 

an Executive Order imposing a requirement similar to the one discussed here (the 

EO was drafted but never issued), adopted language last year in the Conference Report to accompany HR 4475, an appropriations bill, Report 106–940, noting that the 

conferees were ‘‘aware that . . . potential cost savings may be jeopardized by building access limitations for telecommunications providers.’’ The Conference Report 

noted the pendency of legislation on building access and then directed the executive 

branch to ‘‘identify building telecommunications barriers and take necessary steps 

to ensure that telecommunications providers are given fair and reasonable access 

to provide service to Federal agencies in buildings where the Federal government 

is the owner or tenant.’’

President Bush, as Governor of Texas, signed landmark legislation going well beyond the modest step urged here of requiring that federal leasing dollars be committed only to buildings allowing facilities-based telecommunications carriers building access on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms so that they may serve 

a tenant who selects them. The Texas law signed by Governor Bush affords any tenant the right for a carrier with whom he, she or it contracts for service to obtain 

building access promptly on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms. And it was 

implemented aggressively by the Governor’s appointees to the Texas Public Service 

Commission so as to deter landlords from thwarting consumer choice. 

56

Access To Rights of Way 

Timely and cost-effective access to municipal rights of way is also critical for the 

construction of alternative fiber optic networks. Too often municipalities delay this 

construction by attempting to charge unreasonable rates and impose unreasonable 

terms and conditions on this access. In conjunction with other telecommunications 

carriers—including long distance carriers, competitive local exchange carriers and 

incumbent local exchange carriers—TWTC has called for the FCC to intervene. The 

coalition has proposed the following recommended measures to promote reasonable 

access to public rights-of-way:

• Access to public rights-of-way should be extended to all entities providing intrastate, interstate or international telecommunications or telecommunications 

services or deploying facilities to be used directly or indirectly in the provision 

of such services (‘‘Providers’’). 

• Government entities should act on a request for public rights-of-way access 

within a reasonable and fixed period of time from the date that the request for 

such access is submitted, or such request should be deemed approved. 

• Fees charged for public rights-of-way access should reflect only the actual and 

direct costs incurred in managing the public rights-of-way and the amount of 

public rights-of-way actually used by the Provider. In-kind contributions for access to public rights-of-way should not be allowed. 

• Consistent with the measures described herein and competitive neutrality, all 

Providers should be treated uniformly with respect to terms and conditions of 

access to public rights-of-way, including with respect to the application of costbased fees. 

• Entities that do not have physical facilities in, require access to, or actually use 

the public rights-of-way, such as resellers and lessees of network elements from 

facilities-based Providers, should not be subject to public rights-of-way management practices or fees. 

• Rights-of-way authorizations containing terms, qualification procedures, or 

other requirements unrelated to the actual management of the public rights-ofway are inappropriate. 

• Industry-based criteria should be used to guide the development of any engineering standards involving the placement of Provider facilities and equipment. 

• Waivers of the right to challenge the lawfulness of particular governmental requirements as a condition of receiving public rights-of-way access should be invalid. Providers should have the right to bring existing agreements, franchises, 

and permits into compliance with the law. 

• Providers should have a private right of action to challenge public rights-of-way 

management practices and fees, even to the extent such practices and fees do 

not rise to the level of prohibiting the Provider from providing service. 

• The Commission should vigorously enforce existing law and use expedited procedures for resolving preemption petitions involving access to public rights-ofway. 

About Time Warner Telecom 

Company History 

Time Warner Telecom began in 1993 as part of the Time Warner Entertainment 

Limited Partnership. The focus of the Company was to provide cable/phone services 

to residential and business customers using hybrid fiber coax (HFC) technology. 

After an extensive pilot program to test residential service, Time Warner Communications evolved into a company that offers business phone services over fiber-optic 

networks. 

In 1997, the Company added voice circuit switches and began operating as a business CLEC. In 1998, Time Warner Communications became a separate entity from 

Time Warner Entertainment and began to operate as Time Warner Telecom Inc. 

During 1999, TWTC became EBITDA positive, acquired an ISP, built a national IP 

backbone and went public, offering 18,000,000 shares on the NASDAQ exchange. 

We trade under the symbol: TWTC. In August 2000, TWTC successfully bid, during 

an open auction bankruptcy proceeding, for most of the assets of GST Telecommunications. This allowed us to double the size of the company and extend our operating 

footprint throughout the Western United States. By end of 2001, TWTC offered telecommunications services over its own fiber optic networks in 44 markets in 21 different states. 

Ownership Structure 

We are very proud to carry the Time Warner name. As I described earlier, TWTC 

was initially created as division of Time Warner Entertainment. While Time Warner 

57

Inc, now AOL Time Warner, owns 44% of Time Warner Telecom Inc. stock, Time 

Warner Telecom Inc. is an independently owned and operated company. The most 

important point, from both your perspective and mine, is that we have no financial 

backing from AOL Time Warner. We obtain the capital we need to do business the 

same way the rest of the independent CLECs obtain theirs, through debt and equity 

offerings in the financial markets and from operating cash flow. 

Company Growth 

During a time when the news is full of stories on bankruptcies and employee layoffs we are expanding our network and hiring new people. In 1996 TWTC had 500 

employees, the majority of them located in the corporate headquarters in Littleton, 

Colorado. Today we have approximately 2500 employees and are providing service 

and employing people in 21 states. Time Warner Telecom’s growth plans focus on 

geographic expansion, extension into new market segments and development of new 

data and Internet-based products and services. Our success to date is the result of 

building and deploying our extensive local and regional fiber optic networks all the 

way to the end user’s building and providing a diverse physical alternative to the 

incumbent LEC. Our expertise is in selling complex network services that customers 

want and need over these networks. We execute and deliver on a sound business 

plan. We provide high quality broadband service to a diverse segment of the small, 

medium and large businesses in the country. In 1996 we had already constructed 

5000 route miles. Today that has almost doubled to approximately local 9800 route 

miles. TWTC has constructed more route miles than any other local competitive carrier in the U.S. The fiber optic infrastructure we have built is important because 

it allows us to continue to layer more products and services on our network. One 

of the distinguishing characteristics of our network is that we have been laying this 

fiber in metropolitan areas; and the networks are large, averaging 400 route miles 

per city. We’re building fiber where it is needed most, the last-mile. However, it is 

important that Congress recognize that the largest competitor in all of our markets, 

the local ILEC, has the ability to stymie our growth. Vigorous enforcement of the 

Act is the only elixir to the poison pill of anti-competitive behavior and abuse of 

market power. 

Service Provided 

This is how we do business. In every city that Time Warner Telecom lays fiber, 

the sales staff is required to prove in advance that there is business to be had. We 

don’t build a network just to show growth, we build a network to provide a service 

that is desired. This serves our customers and our shareholders well because it ensures our continued viability in the marketplace. And I can assure you that there 

is demand for the service we provide. In many cases we supplement the services 

that the incumbent carrier provides. Often, companies will come to us for their new 

business or for a specific portion of their telecom needs. As we prove our ability to 

provide this service, they give us more and more of their business. 

The fiber optic networks we have built allow us to offer our customers any technology, product or service solution. With virtually unlimited bandwidth, we can 

meet the rapidly changing demands of our customers. Our networks allow us to provide voice and data telecommunications services to a diverse customer base including public schools, private schools, universities, health care facilities, banks, the 

high-tech community, government agencies and military installations, law firms, 

public utilities, many small businesses, Internet Service Providers, insurance companies and most interestingly many of the telecommunications companies operating 

in the U.S. 

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Markets Served

Arizona: Phoenix, Tucson 

Colorado: Denver 

California: San Diego, Los Angeles/Orange County, Santa Barbara, San 

Luis Obispo, Bakersfield, Fresno, San Francisco, Oakland, 

Sacramento 

Florida: Orlando, Tampa 

Hawaii: Honolulu 

Georgia: Atlanta 

Illinois: Chicago 

Indiana: Indianapolis 

Minnesota: Minneapolis 

New Jersey: Northern Jersey City 

New Mexico: Albuquerque 

New York: Albany, Binghamton, New York City, Rochester 

North Carolina: Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Fayetteville 

Ohio: Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton 

Oregon: Portland 

South Carolina: Columbia 

Tennessee: Memphis 

Texas: Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio 

Washington: Seattle, Spokane, Vancouver 

Wisconsin: Milwaukee 

In Conclusion 

The need for diversity highlights the important benefits of a competitive telecommunications market. There is no question that the telecom industry has been 

affected by the downturn in the economy. But the need for competition is more important now than ever. Businesses and government offices need access to diverse 

networks, and they need quality services at affordable prices. Policies that promote 

competition are critical, and strict enforcement of the 96 ACT remains the most important tool the government has to encourage competition. 

Setting aside the advantages of competition, the attacks of September 11th and 

the demonstrated support by competitive telecom entrants such as Time Warner 

Telecom in restoring critical services, proves the strategic value of competitive fiber 

facilities based providers. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I am happy to answer 

any questions.

Senator INOUYE. Thank you very much, Ms. Herda. 

Listening to the testimony of the two panels, it is apparent to me 

that the problems that existed on 9–11 are still with us. The word 

‘‘interoperability’’ is still a desired goal. Some have mentioned 

training of professionals, and the unknown factor of what is it 

going to cost. We have no public policy to speak of at this moment. 

So my question to all of you: Is there an agency in the government of the United States that can serve as a lead agency for the 

purposes you have articulated today? 

Mr. CROTTY. Mr. Chairman, I believe that I cannot speak to 

interoperability of radio communications, which seems to be an 

emergency preparedness thing, but certainly the Congress of the 

United States and the FCC are best able to articulate policies that 

talk about the three things that the telecom providers were talking 

here at the table. That is for diversity and redundancy of our networks. Encouraging facilities-based competition can be done 

through pro-competitive policies and pro-investment policies. I 

think that would go a long way towards making our communications networks more robust. 

Right now we have a policy which seems to favor resale. That is 

not a policy that has worked too terribly well in lower Manhattan. 

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When our network goes and other people are riding on that network, all the customers who are taking service from these resale 

providers, they are knocked out as well. 

As the President of Time Warner mentioned, and this is also true 

of AT&T, which had fairly robust facilities in lower Manhattan, as 

did MCI WorldCom, those providers who have scale and scope and 

do have diverse networks assisted materially in the rapid response 

to what happened on September 11th. I would suggest that is 

something that ought to be continued by investment policies and 

regulatory policies, investment policies sponsored by Congress and 

regulatory policies sponsored by the FCC. 

Senator INOUYE. Ms. Herda. 

Ms. HERDA. I would actually agree—I guess we do not do that 

very often, do we, as competitors? But I actually agree from our 

perspective, Congress and the FCC, for us as well the local PUC’s 

too in dealing with the local municipalities. Obviously, being able 

to construct into the buildings is very important. You have to get 

permission to do that. 

On September 11th and for quite a while after that, a lot of the 

standard intervals for those types of things were obviously lifted so 

that we could all get in there and provide the emergency services. 

Some of the things that I had suggested—that executive order 

would be very helpful for building access issues, to get permission 

from landlords, it sends the right message to the rest of the real 

estate community, that they need to let competitive providers into 

the buildings instead of trying to make money off of those services 

that are coming into the building. It would be much more beneficial 

for their customers to have access to multiple vendors. 

Senator INOUYE. Mr. Nash. 

Mr. NASH. From the public safety standpoint, we currently are 

faced with the situation that the systems are locally owned and operated by individual police, fire, and EMS companies. A lot of the 

problem relates back to the American culture of local control, and 

the control over the radio system comes into that. 

Nonetheless, over the last few years we have seen a number of 

efforts under way to bring together agencies to develop consolidated plans either on a regional basis or in some cases on a national basis. Currently within the FCC there is a Federal advisory 

committee operating known as the National Coordination Committee, looking primarily at the 700 megahertz band, but nonetheless we are having discussions about being able to bring together 

a plan for agencies to interoperate amongst themselves. 

Furthermore, at the Federal level there is an effort going on 

known as the public safety wireless network, which is a joint effort 

of the Department of Justice and the Department of Treasury 

which again is looking at the, if you will, proliferation of different 

public safety radio systems, including at the Federal level, and 

what we can do to try to bring those systems together and provide 

for some cooperation and coordination between agencies as we 

come together in disasters like this. 

Furthermore, again at the Federal level and dealing more, quite 

frankly, in the forestry conservation area, where we every year see 

tremendous fires, particularly out West, with many thousands of 

acres being burned down, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of 

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Land Management, and the resource agencies have banded together and created a centralized cache of equipment and frequencies and plans based out of Boise, Idaho, which again we make 

use of at the local level. 

So there are a number of different efforts going on, perhaps not 

as well coordinated as they should be, but a lot of efforts are out 

there going to try to bring together the interoperability problem. 

Senator INOUYE. Ms. Harris. 

Ms. HARRIS. I would agree with both my colleagues to the left 

and the right of me as we look at what I think the FCC and Congress can help with in either executive order in a number of areas: 

one particularly, to make sure there is enough spectrum; two, to 

make sure that, from a cell-siting perspective, that we can get access and get it quickly. We did find that some of the regulations 

and bureaucracy that was removed in order to respond to the 9–

11 crisis made it somewhat easier for us to get our COW’s placed, 

etcetera. But the process in general can be cumbersome and very 

lengthy to get cell sites on the air. So I think that would be very 

helpful as well. 

Senator INOUYE. Mr. McLean. 

Mr. MCLEAN. Mr. Chairman, the ComCARE Alliance believes 

that it will require unprecedented coordination between State, 

local, and Federal agencies. We have an opportunity with President 

Bush creating an Office of Homeland Security to have a focal point 

for the coordination. We have several models to look at. When the 

Congress and the President adopt a national telecommunications 

and technology priority, agencies across the Federal Government 

and in the State and local arena work together. 

A prime example of that was in 1996 when this Committee and 

the Congress and the President said, we will connect schools and 

libraries to the information infrastructure, and agencies across the 

Federal Government—Department of Education, Department of 

Commerce, the Department of Agriculture—focused, FCC, focused 

efforts to achieve that goal. 

With the Office of Homeland Security, we have an opportunity to 

say that we need to take emergency communications to a twenty 

first century level of connectivity. You can build on efforts, for example, that Senator Burns has started in his own State to be able 

to bring the parties together, and Senator Burns has a way of saying: check your jurisdictions at the door; let us just come around 

the table and work together and solve this problem. That is what 

needs to happen in all 50 States of this Nation. 

Senator INOUYE. Let me yield to Senator Burns. 

Mr. CROTTY. Mr. Chairman, could I add one further point? As a 

resident of Manhattan and I have lived and worked there almost 

all my professional life, one thing you can do—there is a story in 

Time Magazine this week about a ten-kiloton bomb which was 

going to be planted in Manhattan. Speaking as a New Yorker and 

somebody who was intimately involved in the emergency response, 

I think it was terrible for the Federal Government not to share 

that information with the city so that the city could have done 

something about it, either creating some kind of isolation zone or 

communicating in some fashion or developing their own security 

arrangement. 

61

After all, the City of New York responded to this terrible attack 

pretty much on its own. By the time FEMA showed up, we had 

many of the relief mechanisms already in place, up, functioning 

and operating, and operating very well indeed. 

So for the Federal Government to have this information and not 

be able to share it with our elected authorities I thought was a terrible commentary on the sharing of information. I would hope that 

you would be able to do something about that in the future so that 

information between the Federal Government and the local government is shared on a more open basis. After all, when you talk to 

the Federal Government they say the local authorities, that we 

should be reporting information to them all the time. When it 

comes the other way around, the Federal Government is not very 

good at sharing information with local authorities. I certainly 

thought that was a major, major flaw in the Federal Government’s 

involvement with New York City. They should have been sharing 

that information. 

Senator INOUYE. Senator Burns. 

Senator BURNS. Thank you. I cannot imagine you would get all 

excited about a little old bomb like that. 

Mr. CROTTY. Well, I am speaking now as a citizen who lives at 

60th and First Avenue. I was concerned about that, yes. 

Senator BURNS. I thank you for that information. 

Chris McLean, of course, helped us set our summit up in Montana and I would recommend to our colleagues that they do something like that. We are moving forward, I think, and coordinating 

our E–911 and our first responders and moving right along, although the deployment of the technology, that is just a little bit 

slower than we would like. But nonetheless, I understand that 

there is also economics involved, and we will work our way through 

those, too. 

Mr. Nash, as I mentioned in my statement, one of the most—

well, I guess I did not even give my statement. Deployment of E–

911 and of this service, deployment of this service, coordination between public safety and wireless operators to ensure it results in 

end to end systems that quickly and accurately locates wireless 9-

1-1 calls, how would you characterize the progress that you are 

making? 

Mr. NASH. At the moment the progress is somewhat disappointing. We see two sides of the problem. The carriers are moving along, but they also are repeatedly asking for waivers to extend 

the period of time they have to implement the technology. Some of 

that comes down to whether or not the solution they have selected, 

whether or not a vendor is able to supply that and it works. There 

are a lot of arguments that have come into it. 

What concerns us from the public safety side is that their continually returning to the Commission asking for an extension of the 

time just pushes this out. 

The other side of it is, from the public safety answering points 

of this, there is work that we also need to do to prepare the PSAP’s 

to utilize this information. That requires an infusion of money, and 

a lot of PSAP’s at the moment are short of cash in order to implement some of the new technologies, the mapping systems, the personnel that might be needed in order to implement that. 

62

So there are really two parts to the problem. We are working on, 

from APCO’s standpoint, on trying to equip the PSAP’s in order to 

make use of this information. They need to do some work with 

their legislative and governmental organizations to acquire the 

funding to do it. But at the same time, we feel it is really necessary 

to keep the pressure up on the carriers, for them to be moving forward rapidly in selecting a viable technology to implement and 

start putting that in place so that we can make use of that. 

It is vital information for our public safety people in order to respond to just the day to day emergencies that come up every day. 

More and more of those emergencies are being reported via 

wireline telephone—or wireless telephone, and we simply do not 

know where those people are to give them to help that they deserve. 

Senator BURNS. I thank you for that. I think there is still some 

concern in Congress about the deployment. 

Ms. Herda, I was interested in—and I have run into this before 

and I do not know how to approach this, because I am a strong believer in property rights and people should be able to do with their 

property and allow certain things on their property that they deem 

for themselves or whatever. Your permits for access in the buildings—sometimes the owner makes a deal with one company and 

denies the access of other companies. 

Is there any merit in the Congress taking a look at those situations in light of emergency conditions, that there should be at least 

maybe two providers granted access out of how many wants it, but 

nonetheless there should be two? 

Ms. HERDA. In light of emergency situations, you should always 

have at least two. It is interesting. Property rights issues are obviously a very sensitive issue when it comes to trying to get access 

into a building. The State of Texas has actually done a really good 

job in that regard in basically mandating a nondiscriminatory access into buildings. At a minimum what it does is it gives us a negotiating position with the building owners. 

We have never said that we needed to go into the buildings for 

free, unless the local exchange carrier is in it for free. But we have 

been always willing to pay with reasonable rates, to pay for the access into the buildings and for the distribution within the buildings. So it does not cost the building owners any money to have us 

in there and in fact it adds additional diversity, and it obviously 

has a tremendous amount of value in terms of emergencies. 

If the government mandated that there were at least two competitors in a building at a minimum, without putting any restrictions on having more in there, it would certainly go a long way. I 

think that, at a minimum, if the government mandated in their 

own buildings, in the buildings that the government leases today—

and there are many, many of those, and some of them are multitenant buildings, too, that serve public companies—private companies, rather, as well, that would absolutely go a very long way to 

moving the real estate community in that direction. I think that 

would be an excellent idea. 

Senator BURNS. I want to thank this panel because not only did 

they give us some idea of the challenges that they faced during 9–

11 in New York City and of course here in Washington, D.C., and 

63

also the things that they have recommended through their testimony on maybe some actions that the government should consider 

and some answers to some questions. I appreciate that. 

I look forward to reading some other testimony that we are going 

to take on this thing, Mr. Chairman. But that is basically all the 

questions I have. I appreciate the thoroughness of your testimony 

and your statements before this Committee. 

That is all I have. I have got a 4:30 appointment. Besides that, 

if we do not let these people get out of here everybody is going to 

be asleep out there. Have you noticed folks nodding off? 

Senator INOUYE. Well, I am going to keep the record open for 3 

weeks just in case you have any additional statements you would 

like to submit. 

I would also like to advise my Committee as to whether they 

would like to submit questions to you. I regret that they were not 

here, but, as I pointed out earlier, there are two events that made 

this not possible. But I wish to join my colleague in thanking all 

of you for your testimony. For a moment I thought I saw the dark 

shadow of Tauzin-Dingell over us. 

Mr. CROTTY. We were told to stay away from it. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator INOUYE. But it is good to see competitors sitting together 

in one panel and talking to each other. 

So with that, this will not be the first and last hearing on this 

matter, I can assure you, because I for one am still not convinced 

that we are ready for another big one, and it may happen. I hope 

not. 

So with that I thank you all very much. 

[Whereupon, at 4:37 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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