Text Box: Legal and Regulatory Update Special Focus: Emergency Services Regulation Text Box: Page 4 ò Return to Page 1 Text Box: STC LINES—October 2005 Text Box: BY MARTHA BUYER LAW OFFICES OF MARTHA BUYER, PLLC Martha Buyer has just been named by the STC Board of Directors to the new position of STC Regulatory Resource. See Page 7. It’s been a busy time in the world of telecommunications law and policy. The massive disaster along the Gulf Coast has certainly raised the profile of issues affecting emergency and disaster response capabilities of those who need to communicate most desperately. Funding For First Responders We are all aware of the failures that occurred as a result of extensive power and wireline outages. But as recently as the week of September 12, when the issue of allocating funding for improved communications systems for first responders came before Congress , it became—and has remained--political. Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, the Association for Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) sent a letter to Congress requesting that the issues of communications systems interoperability be moved to the “front burner” immediately. The letter specifically asked that Congress pass legislation to address five key points: Set a hard date to clear TV stations from 700 MHz band radio spectrum already allocated for public safety. Boost federal grants supporting interoperable communications planning, staffing and equipment. Text Box: Improve the way funds are allocated to local governments to be used for upgrading or purchasing interoperable communications systems Provide federal grants to public safety answering points (PSAPs) to upgrade their 911 systems Look into the availability of additional spectrum for broadband public safety communications applications. Hurricane Non-Influences In response to the hurricane and APCO’s letter, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D. –Mich.) authored an amendment to provide $5 billion from the appropriations bill to pay for state and local interoperable communications systems. As Deep Throat once said, “follow the money.” While the amendment was defeated on a procedural vote despite the support of many first responder groups, Republican Senator Judd Gregg (R.-NH) argued that the bill would break a previously agreed upon spending cap, while further not specifically addressing Katrina–related issues. This is the second bill to have failed in the Senate regarding improvements to the telecom-munications infrastructure in the second week following Hurricane Katrina. Text Box: While major funding allocations have not yet been made, given the severity of the failures and the opportunities for infrastructure improvements, consultants would be well-advised, as Deep Throat once said, to “follow the money.” VoIP and E911 The deadline for mandatory requirement that VoIP providers “obtain affirmative acknowledge-ments from 100% of their subscribers” that those subscribers have read, understood and acknowledged an advisory concerning the limitations of VoIP with respect to E911 has been extended until September 28, 2005. However, many VoIP providers have been lobbying for an additional extension for compliance with E911 require-ments. The VoIP industry hopes to rely upon the goodwill that it has ostensibly received since Hurricane Katrina, although given that VoIP doesn’t work when there is no power, this claim, by the industry itself, may be disingenuous. Nevertheless, consultants need to be cognizant of these mandated requirements for clients who have installed VoIP facilities that may not yet be compliant. The bottom line is that the drop dead date (no pun intended) may be pushed back, but the FCC is committed to enforcing compliance on this issue and clients whose VoIP provider(s) is not currently compliant will ultimately be forced to step up their efforts.