DHS Establishes Priorities for Second Year: "Drawing from the strategic plan, the Secretary has identified seven key priorities for the second year of the department. Each of the priorities includes specific actions that the department is committed to achieve by March 1, 2005."

DHS to start wireless pilot projects: "The Department of Homeland Security will call for industry to propose innovative wireless interoperability solutions through a broad agency announcement to be issued at the end of March, said Rick Murphy, program manager for Project Safecom. "

We have to talk: "On Monday in Grand Island, a town hall meeting was held at City Hall to discuss a proposal before state lawmakers that could go a long way in improving communication for public safety providers in Nebraska."

Getting in touch: Should the city and county merge dispatch operations?: The City of Springfield (OH) and surrounding jurisdictions consider the costs and benefits of shared systems.

Military Information Technology: "The Global Information Grid (GIG) Architecture is the Department of Defense's enterprise architecture that will break down the communications, interoperability and security barriers to information dominance."

First responder report due in spring: "By early spring, the federal government hopes to release a sweeping document that catalogs the priorities of first responders based on various national reports and surveys that have been published previously.

'We solicited information from them to identify reports that we had not found and insight into what is most useful in a final report,' said Richard Jacques, a senior program manager with the National Institute of Justice, adding that facilitating communications interoperability was 'at the forefront of the minds' of most survey participants."

SAFECOM Absorbs PSWN: "The Public Safety Wireless Network, a joint program between the Treasury Department and the Justice Department and a valuable resource on interoperable communications for state, local and tribal communities, has officially been folded into Project SafeCom."

I-CLEAR is on the way: "The Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the Illinois State Police (ISP) have been working over the past year to develop a partnership that will significantly impact the quality of public safety. This partnership seeks to leverage the existing financial, technological, and human resources of the CPD and the ISP to develop a system for the collection, maintenance, and dissemination of criminal justice data in Illinois."

InfoWorld: Interference questions dog broadband over power lines: "The Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL), a national ham radio association, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are among the organizations that have raised concerns with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over possible short-wave radio interference caused by broadband over power lines, often called BPL."

Focusing on what works: Stefano Mazzocchi blogs interesting comments on protocol, data, and metadata interoperability with web services. It leads to further thinking on radio communications interoperability.

Service-oriented architectures in the computer world presage what will occur in public safety communications - with voice, data, and hybrid networks. The importance of context in making data into information cannot be overstated, particularly when the compressed timeframes of emergencies turn the floods of normally consumable information back into incomprehensible streams of data.

Very much similarly, voice communications over radio break down when human receivers get overwhelmed by context switching - not to mention simple auditory overload. Our efforts to improve public safety communications interoperability will soon bring us to a saturation point where information degrades back into data and, in a radio way of thinking, just contributes to raising the "noise floor" competing with what we really need to hear.

Metadata is key in establishing context, in providing raw materials for creating consumable information. It's also needed for intelligent routing of communications. We can dream of a day when sufficient metadata passes with two-way voice streams to allow networked-based routing, rebroadcast, and multicast options during police, fire, and EMS operations so that we don't just have more, we have better.

SEARCH - 2004 Interoperable Communications Technology Training Program: Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office, this technical assistance conference is designed to educate 2003 Interoperable Communications Technology COPS and FEMA grant recipients about planning, acquiring, implementing and integrating technology for interoperability projects. It is only open to grantee teams.

Yakima County WiFi for Public Safety: SeattleWireless TV has a lengthy segment in its December 2003 show on how Yakima County (WA) is using WiFi (802.11b) for law enforcement data networking. It's after the segment on a New Zealand wireless treasure hunt. Use the Media Player or RealPlayer links to watch.

NCIC/NLETS through a Spillman system to the state, local applications, and Internet access are in use. VPN and 128-bit WEP helps provide security. Frequency management and a rising WiFi "noise floor" are challenges. Coordination with other government and private users of the spectrum has been key. Replacement of CDPD and Frame Relay backbone has resulted in ongoing savings.

Study Points Out Radio Interoperability Problems: (7/22/2002) "Arlington County's response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon was successful in spite of big communications problems, says a new independent study commissioned by the county."

Police call for remote button to stop cars: "After speed cameras, road humps and mobile phone bans, there could be more bad news for Britain's motorists. Police are urging Ministers to give them the power to stop vehicles by remote control."

DHS Grant Announcement (11/13/2003): "The Department of Homeland Security is pleased to announce an additional $725 million dollars from the FY '04 Budget for the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), for grants to urban areas within the United States to help enhance their overall security and preparedness level to prevent, respond and recover from acts of terrorism."

APCO URGES CAUTION ON SMART RADIO EFFORTS: "APCO International responded today to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) public notice initiating a proceeding on cognitive 'smart' radio systems (ET Docket 03-108) released yesterday."

SAFECOM e-gov description: This official description of SAFECOM is posted on the President's E-Government Initiatives web site.

IEEE Incident Management Working Group (P1512): The IEEE 1512 working group has a good body of work defining standard message sets that will have far-reaching effects on public safety interoperability.

DSRC Home: "5.9 GHz DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communications) is a short to medium range communications service that supports both Public Safety and Private operations in roadside to vehicle and vehicle to vehicle communication environments."

Cover Pages: OASIS Emergency Management TC Approves Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) Draft (10-30-2003): "The Common Alerting Protocol is 'a simple but general format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings over all kinds of networks. "