NTIA Asks FCC to Update Wireless Priority Service Rules
NTIA petitioned the FCC to launch an NPRM to update the rules for the wireless priority service, designed to give priority to calls by public officials over other callers during times of network overload. “Although WPS has evolved considerably since…
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its creation … in 2000, the rules governing the service have not changed since,” NTIA said in docket 96-86, on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Emergency Communications. Under WPS, officials get a card with a number they put into their phones. Questions have long been raised about effectiveness (see 1109060064). Many of the changes sought are “administrative in nature -- for example, to reflect shifts in the identity and/or responsibilities of the Federal agencies that oversee NS/EP [national security/emergency preparedness] communications, to address the need of more NS/EP-related entities and personnel for access to priority communications, and to recognize that priority today applies not only to network access but also to a communication’s path from end-to-end,” NTIA said. Other changes are more substantive, among them “allowing a limited set of NS/EP communications to preempt non-911 communications, and affording NS/EP users multiple ways to invoke priority treatment,” NTIA said. It also asked the FCC “take steps, as it did in 2000,” to remove or mitigate legal uncertainties that may inhibit carriers’ willingness to fully participate.