EMERGENCY WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS

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EMERGENCY WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
ANSI Homeland Security Standards Panel
(HSSP) Workshops on Standardization for
Emergency Communications and for Citizen
Readiness Schaumburg, IL USA

December 1, 2004

• Bernard Malone III
• 501-821-7650
• blmalone_at_lucent.com

Representative - Wireless Emergency Response Team
(WERT) Technical Manager - Lucent Technologies
Mobility Team Member American Radio Relay
League
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OUTLINE

• WERT and World Trade Center experience
• Concepts for future Emergency Wireless
  Communications support

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WERT Mission

• The Wireless Emergency Response Team
• was established on the night of September 11,
  2001
• to provide coordinated wireless industry mutual
  aid support
• for Search and Rescue efforts
• at the World Trade Center rubble.

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WERT WTC Summary Statistics

• No survivors were found
• 33 organizations participated
• 250 industry subject matter experts participated
• An additional 500 volunteers staffed the Public
  Call Center
• 5,039 calls received in the WERT Public Call
  Center
• 120 reports of a missing persons use of a cell
  phone or pager from the rubble
• 134 Key Learnings
• 23 Recommendations

Final Report www.wert-help.org/
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WERT Participating Organizations

• Arch Wireless
• Argonne National Labratory
• ATT
• ATT Wireless
• BellSouth
• CTIA
• Cingular Interactive
• EDO Corporation
• Ericsson
• FCC
• Lucent Technologies

SkyTel Sprint PCS Telcordia Technologies TruePosit
ion U.S. Department of Energy U.S. Marshals
Service, ESU U.S. Secret Service Verizon Verizon
Wireless VoiceStream Wheat International
Metrocall Motorola NCS NCC NRSC NRIC
Nextel NYPD NYC Mayors Office Nortel
Networks PCIA
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Operations
Coordination Command Center
Network Surveillance Analysis
Public Call Center
Service Provider Intelligence
Ground Zero Locating
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Approach

• Mission of the Coordination Command Center was to
  
• Provide leadership for the entire team
• Coordinate with authorities
• Manage media interfaces
• Facilitate intra-team communications
• Mission of the Network Surveillance Analysis
  Sub Team was to
• Look for any activity on call center list.
• Registration, Calls, or Text Messaging activity,
  
• Proactively screen 911 calls for false alarms.
• Identify cell site of 911 call.
• Look at call and registration history.

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Approach (continued)

• Mission of the Service Provider Intelligence
  Sub Team
• provide rapid response database lookup
  information associating service provider names,
  switch addresses, and tandem homing arrangement
  information with cellular phone numbers

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Approach (continued)

• Mission of the Public Call Center was to
• Off load calls from 911 command center and other
  government entities
• Receive calls and collect information about
  potentially trapped survivors
• Obtain cell and pager numbers for missing persons

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Approach (continued)

• The Mission of the Ground Zero Locating Sub Team
  is to . . .
• aid and assist in the location of and
  communication with trapped survivors who possess
  a variety of wireless personal equipment. There
  is a high probability that victims will have
  access to some sort of wireless device (e.g.
  phone, pager, FOB, etc.). This provides a unique
  opportunity for passive remote location and
  establishing a wireless link for remote
  communication

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Key Learnings - Examples

• What Worked Well
• high commitment of professionals/organizations in
  mutual aid
• pre-established federal coordination function of
  NCC
• ability to conduct rapid research
• Adapted fraud, billing and trouble shooting tools
  to quickly screen call center list and 911 calls.
• Provided guidelines via text messages for
  preserving battery life
• Provide extended network coverage into debris
  field using RF. repeaters, autonomous
  basestations, and basestation simulators.

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Key Learnings - Examples

• Areas for Improvement and Further Investigation
• pre-defined processes, definitions and templates
• broad language translation capabilities
• guidelines for communication with a trapped
  survivor between detection and location
• special instructions for 911 centers for handling
  wireless callers
• Handling 911 calls from a 3rd party
• Identifying Search and Rescue mobile phones
• Use of text messaging to communicate with a
  victim
• Would the techniques learned work in another
  disaster scenario
• The possible addition of an emergency mode for
  mobile equipment with extreme low-power and
  location beacons

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Final Report

• Subject Matter
• Describes Approaches Used
• Systematically reviews Key Learnings
• What Worked Well - Areas for Improvement -
  Areas Requiring Further Investigation
• Presents Recommendations
• Widely Reviewed
• U.S. FCC NRIC V, FEMA Emergency Response Teams,
  NENA
• COM CITEL (Ecuador, Brazil)
• ETSI EMTEL (France), Italy, Germany Networking
  Conferences
• IEEE COMSOC GLOBECOM01, ICC02,
• CQR Workshop 2002, Japan Network Security Seminar
• Available to Public www.wert-help.org

USA
Asia
Europe
South America
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Take Away's

• Keep rescue teams from danger by quickly
  discrediting false reports
• Assuring the public - both here and abroad - that
  all known technological approaches are being used
  to listen for any cellular or pager communication
  being sent
• Documented Key Learnings and Recommendations in
  the WERT Final Report being studied so that this
  capability can be enhanced and optimized
• WERT is established as an ongoing capability
  can be called on by the NCS or FEMA 7 days/week,
  24 hours/day

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OUTLINE

• WERT and World Trade Center experience
• Concepts for future Emergency Wireless
  Communications support

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Emergency Communications

• Preferred access to public networks by officials
• Dedicated emergency networks for First Responders
• Inter-working with public networks
• Interoperability among agencies networks
• Amateur Radio support of communications
• E911 emergency communications for victims
• Extended communications with victims beyond
  coverage boundaries ?
• Citizen-to-Citizen ?

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Concept The Rescue Network

• Some ability to communicate with disaster victims
  anywhere
• GOAL To communicate with and locate victims
• Critical when out of coverage area or surrounding
  network damage
• Effectively Extend the reach of wireless
  network communications
• Capabilities may be permanent or temporary
• Highly portable, quickly deployable, quickly
  provision-able
• Combination of hardware, software, operating
  techniques
• Network and mobile device

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Reference

• www.wert-help.org/ Wireless Emergency Response
  Team
• www.arrl.org American Radio Relay League
• www3.interscience.wiley.com/ Bell Labs Technical
  Journal
• (Wiley InterScience)
• www.citizencorps.gov/ Department of Homeland
  Security
• Citizen Corps

Thank You !
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Backup
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Amateur Radio

• . . . . A voluntary noncommercial communication
  service, used by qualified persons of any age who
  are interested in radio technique with a personal
  aim and without pecuniary interest.
• Regulated by FCC under Communications Act of 1934
• License structure Beginner to Expert
• Among its Purposes
• Recognition of value in providing emergency
  communications support
• Advancement of the radio art
• Expansion of pool of trained operators,
  technicians, electronics experts
• Promotion of International Goodwill

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Amateur Radio

• Over 680,000 Licensed Amateurs in U.S.
• Operating privileges from 1.8 Mhz - 24 Ghz
• Operate communications networks for fun and
  community service
• Communications volunteers with local Public
  Safety Organizations
• Active
• When regular communications infrastructure
  damaged or overloaded
• To provide interoperability among agencies
• Through coordinated organizations affiliations

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Amateur Radio Affiliations

• National level participation
• Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) ?
  FEMA
• Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) ? ARRL
• ARES affiliations
• Department of Homeland Security Citizen Corps
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
• National Communications System (NCS)
• American Red Cross
• Salvation Army
• National Weather Service
• Association of Public Safety Communications
  Officials
• ARRL ? SOA with Department of Homeland Security
  Citizen Corps
• Raise public awareness as safety resource
• Training accreditation for Amateur Radio
  Emergency Communications

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Recent Activity

• Hurricane Isabel -- September 2003
• Northeast blackout -- August 2003
• Midwest tornadoes -- May 2003
• Shuttle Columbia recovery effort -- Feb 2003
• Wildfires in Colorado -- June 2002
• Tornado in Maryland -- April 2002
• Flooding in Kentucky -- March 2002
• WTC Pentagon terrorist attacks - Sep 2001
• Storm Allison Flooding in TX LA - Jun 2001
• Earthquake in India -- January 2001
• Earthquake in El Salvador -- January 2001
• Ice storms in Southwest -- December 2000
• Tornado in Alabama -- December 2000
• Avalanche in Alaska -- March 2000

• Fires in Los Alamos, New Mexico -- May 2000
• Hurricane Floyd -- September 1999
• Tornadoes in Oklahoma and Kansas -- May 1999
• Colombian Earthquake -- January 1999
• Tornadoes in Arkansas and Tennessee -- Jan 1999
• Hurricane Mitch in Central America -- Nov 1998
• Flooding in Texas -- October 1998
• Hurricane Georges -- September 1998
• Tornadoes in Florida -- February 1998
• "500-Year Flood," N.D. Minn. - April 1997
• Western U.S. floods - January 1997
• Hurricane Fran - September 1996
• TWA plane crash - July 1996
• Oklahoma City Bombing - April 1995