FCC Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC)

This week, the FCC held the first session intended to introduce the Emergency Response Interoperability Center, ERIC. Representatives from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Chris Essid), the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Public Safety Communications Research Program (Derrick Orr), and the FCC (Admiral Barnett and Jeff Goldthorp) made brief opening remarks. Speakers were then asked to provide feedback and statements. Comments particularly important to public safety included the statements of Chief Harlan McEwen, representing the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST) and Bill Carrow, President-Elect of APCO. These statements are attached. The session was also summarized in Mission Critical magazine (see link below).

http://radioresourcemag.com/newsArticle.cfm?news_id=5335

The Commission believes that ERIC can be helpful in addressing issues such as wireless broadband technical requirements, roaming/interoperability, authentication/encryption, and priority access. While acknowledging the important role of the Commission, other speakers were concerned relative to potential duplications of effort and restrictive bureaucracy that slows the progress in developing and deploying wireless 700 MHz broadband. In particular, Chief McEwen’s statements identified concerns with the ERIC concept that were generally accepted by all participants as particularly critical to moving wireless broadband forward. There were also renewed calls for the transfer of the D Block to public safety instead of the proposed D Block auction.

Among the important issues discussed was a report from NIST stating that this agency will implement a test 700 MHz wireless broadband platform (see attached Federal Register statement). NIST stated that LTE is a “bleeding edge” technology and that it is important to have a test bed that helps public safety and manufacturers to understand how broadband will work in a first responder environment. NIST stated that they will work closely with the PSST and the broadband statement of requirements document developed through NPSTC.



Information from the original FCC release describing ERIC is below.

Concept Paper: Emergency Response Interoperability Center

Proposed Primary Mission - To establish a technical and operational framework that will ensure nationwide operability and interoperability from the outset in deployment and operation of the 700 MHz public safety broadband wireless network.

Proposed Responsibilities

Adopt technical and operational requirements and procedures for ensuring a nationwide level of interoperability, to be implemented and enforced through FCC rules, license and lease conditions, and grant conditions.

Adopt and implement other enforceable technical and operational requirements and procedures to address, at a minimum, operability, roaming, priority access, gateway functions and interfaces, interconnectivity of public safety broadband wireless networks.
Adopt authentication and encryption requirements for common public safety broadband applications and network usage.

Coordinate the interoperability framework of regulations, license requirements, grant conditions, and technical standards with other entities (e.g., the Public Safety Broadband Licensee (Public Safety Spectrum Trust), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Telecommunications and Information Agency, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)).

Proposed Structure

Location. Housed at FCC in the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau.

Public Safety Advisory Board. A board that is broadly representative of the public safety community will serve a central advisory role to ERIC. We anticipate that the board will primarily include representatives of all major national public safety organizations and regional, state, tribal, and local public safety entities. Participating Federal first responder agencies, vendors, and service providers may have secondary or ex officio status on the board.

Participating Federal Agencies. We recommend that DHS and NIST contribute to ERIC’s functions in their traditional areas of expertise via Memoranda of Agreement with PSHSB and potential staff detail assignments to ERIC:

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  DHS would participate in the areas of grant administration, public safety outreach and technical assistance, and best practices development.
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  NIST would participate in the areas of standards development, verification, testing, and validation.

Federal Partners Coordinating Committee. Federal agencies that regularly coordinate on state and local public safety communications matters (e.g., DHS, NTIA, DOJ) will have the opportunity to provide input into ERIC specific to 700 MHz broadband deployments.

APCOComments.pdf

NISTFederalRegister030210.pdf

FCCERICForumTR%20Daily.pdf

PSST-HRM-ERICForum.pdf