emergency telecommunications: the national communications system in the united states

Emergency Telecommunications: The National Communications System in the United States

LLEWELLYN M. TOULMIN

Telecommunications are the nerves that hold modern (and some developing) societies together. Government, industry, financial markets and private citizens are becoming more and more reliant on telecommunications in all aspects of business and daily living. This reliance is reflected in the estimated $300 to 350 billion per year worldwide now being spent on telecommunications - more than is spent on computing, pharmaceuticals or air travel (The Economist, 17 October, 1987: "Rewiring the World").

Telecommunication links become even more vital when society is threatened or injured by disasters, emergencies or crises. Successful coordination of the massive amount of material, volunteers, vehicles, planes, messages and agencies that typically converge on disaster areas (Dynes and Quarantelli, 1977 and 1980; Drabek et al., 1981 and Drabek, 1986; and Toulmin et al., 1989) require communications that are available, planned, reliable and mutually intel- ligible. Similarly, rapid decisionmaking in crises that threaten national security requires communications that are reliable, redundant and secure.

Ironically, however, telecommunications are often the functional area most llkely to be overlooked in national, regional, provincial, local and private non-profit

emergency plans, perhaps because tele- phones are taken so much for granted. The May, 1988 communications disaster in Hinsdale, Illinois, in which a small fire in a phone switching station cut off 35,000 customers for weeks (National Communica- tions System (NCS) 1988a), showed that this is a service that emergency managers should plan for and investigate, just as they plan for the medical, feeding, housing and other aspects of disasters.

The crucial importance of emergency telecommunications was first realized in the United States in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. President John F. Kennedy and his senior advisors were surprised and concerned to find that they were unable to communicate easily and rapidly with each other, foreign leaders, U.S. embassies abroad, and other actors during this critical time. Communications that relied on the "public switched networks," or PSN, the public phone system, were particularly problematic, since the circuits were jammed with callers anxious about the ongoing crisis and the possibility of war. Within a year, in August 1963, Kennedy signed a Presi- dential Memorandum establishing the "National Communications System". Its purpose was to "provide the necessary communications for the Federal Govern- ment under all conditions ranging from a

DISASTERS VOLUME 15 NUMBER 2

178 Llewellyn M. Toufmin

normal situation to national emergencies and crises, including nuclear attack” (NCS, 198813).

For many years .the NCS functioned quietly, primarily as a planning forum for various member Federal agencies. Federal agencies with emergency communications requirements simply approached the giant Bell telephone monopoly, the services were provided, and the costs were absorbed in the rate base and charged back to the millions of Bell customers. However, with the breakup and deregulation of the Bell system in January 1984, this system was no longer viable, and the NCS was thrust into a much more important and visible role (Horgan, 1985).

In the rest of this paper I describe the purpose, structure, programs and recent activities of the NCS. I conclude by des- cribing possible future directions for it and by drawing lessons from the U.S. experience for other countries.

PURPOSE AND STRUCTURE OF THE NCS

After the breakup of the Bell system, the role of the NCS was clarified in Presidential

Executive Order 12472 in April, 1984. The NCS was mandated to:

Ensure a national telecommunications infra- structure is developed which . . . incorporates the necessary combination of hardness, redundancy, mobility, connectivity, inter- operability, restorability and security to obtain the survivability of national security and emergency preparedness (NSEP) telecommunications in all circumstances.

Subsequent documents made it clear that the NCS was to take an ”all hazards” approach to emergency management, and that the definition of NSEP was to include “any event or crisis (local, national or international) which could cause injury or harm to the population . . . or property . . . of the United States” (NCS, 1988~). Figure 1 presents a continuum of hazards, ranging from local emergencies to recovery from a nuclear attack, for which the NCS is res- ponsible for telecommunications planning.

The current NCS structure is complex and reflects the interagency and government-industry nature of the system. Figure 2 shows the NCS organizational chart. Authority flows from the President

FIGURE 1 NSEP Telecommunications Operating Conditions


The National Communications System in the United States 179

L r

b

PRESIDENT

EOP

EXECUTIVE AGENT

NCS

MANAGER 1-4 NCS 17 NATIONAL SECURITY

TELECOMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY COMMllTEE

(27 FIRMS) INDUSTRY EXECUTIVE

SUBCOMMlllEE WORKING GROUPS/

TASKFORCES I, c

COMMllTEE OF PRINCIPALS

(23 FEDERAL AGENCIES) OFFICE OF THE

MANAGER NCS

COUNCIL OF REPRESENTATIVES

SUBCOMMllTEES

FIGURE 2 Structure of the National Communications System

and his Executive Office (EOP) down through the NCS Executive Agent (the Secretary of Defense "double-hatted" as the Executive Agent), down to the Manager of the NCS (a Lieutenant General, head of the Defense Communications Agency, who is "double-hatted"), and then to his Office (OMNCS).

The OMNCS serves as secretariat and program implementor to the NCS Committee of Principals (COP), which has one representative from each of the 23 Federal agencies that have an NSEP function. COP members are usually at the Deputy Assistant Secretary level, often in the telecommunications or general management area of their departments. In general, each of these representatives has one vote in passing on proposed NCS programs and other action items. The COP usually meets quarterly, and votes on items passed to it by its subordinate group, the Council of Representatives (COR), which meets monthly. Members of the NCS COP and COR are listed in Appendix A.

Advising the OMNCS and the Presi- dent is the National Security Telecom- munications Advisory Committee (NSTAC), which consists by Executive

Order of up to 30 Chief Executive Officers of the nation's largest telecommunications companies. This body usually meets every 9 months; often the meeting is opened by the President, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, or other senior official. The NSTAC has a subordinate body, the Industry Executive Subcommit- tee (IES), that meets every three months, and various task forces and working groups below the IES. The NSTAC currently has 27 member firms; these are listed in Appendix B.

Figure 3 shows the table of organization of the OMNCS. The four OMNCS offices have the following functions and responsibilities :

- Joint Secretariat: liaison with NCS member agencies, and planning the COR, COP, NSTAC, IES, and subgroup agendas.

- Technology and Standards: ensuring that all member agency telecommunication systems are interoperable, and studying the impact of new technologies on telecommunications.

- Plans and Programs: designing and implementing the major NCS programs.


180 Llewellyn M . Toulmin

MANAGER I NCS I DEPUTY MANAGER I N; 1

PREPAREDNESS PROGRAMS STANDARDS

SECRETARIAT

NATIONAL COORDINATING

CENTER

FIGURE 3 Organization of the Office of the Manager of the NCS

Emergency Preparedness: conducting drills and exercises and managing the National Coordinating Center, a joint government-industry operations center that can invoke NSEP and thus speed restoration of service in actual emergencies.

PROGRAMS OF THE NCS

The NCS has three National Level Programs, which are paid for on a shared basis using a complex formula by all the NCS member agencies. (Under the present formula the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, and the intelligence agencies pay for the bulk of the National Level Programs.) The NCS also has several smaller programs that are paid for by the OMNCS. These programs are described briefly below.

Nationwide Emergency Telecommunications System (NETS)

NETS is a national level program that will greatly enhance the probability that emergency phone calls will be completed during a crisis or disaster. It will involve modifying the public switched networks, which supply about 95 per cent of the NSEP

telecommunications within the continental US. (Lt. Gen. W.D. Powers, Manager, NCS, quoted in a briefing on “The Presi- dent’s national security telecommunications advisory committee”, Washington, D.C. (n.d.)) (The balance are actually owned and operated by government agencies.) The PSN will be modified in two ways. First, ”call controllers” will be installed at most large switching centers where the major long-distance carriers have terminations of their circuits. These “smart black box” call controllers will recognize NSEP users, and will work hard to set up local or long distance phone calls wherever it is physically possible to do so, routing around all breaks in the phone circuits caused by the disaster. (For ordinary phone calls, the PSN only tries a limited number of routes to set up the desired call before returning a busy signal or a message that “circuits are busy now”; the call controllers will try every possible physical route.)

Second, NSEP users of the PSN will be provided with very small, portable “Access Security Devices” that will be held up to the phone to identify them by an audible code and will thus activate the local call controller at any location in the U.S. The devices will also ensure that if an NSEP user is trying to reach a number that is flooded with calls,



his call will be given priority, will ring, and he will not be given a busy signal.

Commercial Network Survivability (CNS)

This national level program enhances the survivability of terrestrial PSN telecommunications networks (cable, fiber optic and microwave). Program elements include:

-- the use of mobile and transportable communications equipment (e.g. mobile switches, mobile cellular phone systems, portable microwave links, etc.) to re- establish communications in disasters;

- interconnection of government and commercial carrier circuits to reroute NSEP traffic;

- improved network management to enhance the routing of NSEP calls and increase the probability of call completion.

Commercial SATCOM Interconnectivity (CSU

Natural or manmade disasters could destroy enough links in the long distance network that service would be interrupted and even NSEPlcall controller calls couldn’t get through. The CSI national level program will use satellites to make “long haul” connections among different kinds of satellites, and ensure that even if ground stations from one carrier’s satellites are destroyed, another company can take over, control and utilize the lost “bird” for the duration of the emergency. CNS and CSI reached their initial operating capability in 1990; NETS will reach its initial operating capability in 1992. Two other NCS programs are discussed below.

Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP) System

This system will replace the outdated Restoration Priority system now in effect.

TSP will involve having each Federal, state and local agency identify in advance which phone circuits it deems to be essential in emergencies. These circuits will be classified as ”emergency NSEP” or as one of five classes of “essential NSEP. ” Agencies will pay a fee to their local carrier for this service. In an emergency, NSEP circuits will be restored in priority order. New NSEP service and circuits can also be requested under TSP by Federal agencies, or by state and local agencies via a Federal agency sponsor. The TSP program began operating in 1990.

Shared Resources High Frequency Radio Program (SHARES)

This radio-oriented program has been implemented and involves over 400 military and Federal agency high frequency radio stations. Each station has agreed to pass emergency messages across the country on a voluntary basis during a disaster, when other forms of communication are un- reliable. A common SHARES manual, common procedures, and regular exercises have produced a high rate of success in passing trial messages.

RECENT ACTIVITIES OF THE NCS AND THE NCC

In addition to funding, designing and implementing the programs described above, the NCS works on various other issues and undertakes numerous emergency response activities.

Some of the other issues that the NCS has explored recently include:

- telecommunications industry mobiliza- tion (i.e. what the telecommunications industry itself would need in terms of manpower and resources to gear up for a major war or natural disaster);

- industry information security; - the vulnerability of the PSN to energy

shortages or problems;


182 Llewellyn M. Toulrnin

- joint funding formulae for national level programs;

- international diplomatic telecommunications;

- possible effects of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) on the PSN.

The emergency response activities of the NCS are undertaken in reaction to the relatively small disasters that are constantly occurring throughout the country, and in response to requests for extraordinary telecommunications service. Both of these activities are run out of the National Coordinating Center (NCC).

The NCC is an operations center con- sisting of OMNCS staff and representatives of the major telecommunications firms, with attendant meeting rooms and support services. The government provides and pays for all the space, support services and government staff; the firms pay the salaries of their representatives. In an emergency the NCC can go onto a 24 hour shift basis; normally all staff are present during normal business hours and are on call at other times. Services that the NCC provides include: - monitoring the condition of the PSN; - providing prompt technical analysis and

damage assessment of service disrup- tions;

- maintaining access to an accurate inventory of equipment and personnel available for restoration operations (Belford, 1986). Generally, requests for telecommunica-

tions disaster assistance are handled at the lowest possible level. Thus, for example, if a state government had a local disaster and required several new essential circuits, it would ask its local carrier representative for immediate service. If this individual could not handle the problem, the request would be escalated to the national level with that carrier. If the customer was still unsatisfied, he could petition a sponsor Federal agency (probably FEMA - the Federal Emergency

Management Agency) for assistance. FEMA would ask the National Coordinating Center to invoke national security and emergency preparedness measures; if invoked this would require the carrier to restore or provide service immediately, regardless of cost, overtime or other constraints.

Most requests for NCC disaster assistance come directly from Federal agencies; there are usually about 20-40 of these per year. Examples of recent invocations include the following. - Several voice, data and WATS lines

(wide area telephone service - a long distance service with a single periodic fee) requested by the Department of Justice in 1989 to help conduct nego- tiations with prison rioters in Federal prisons in Atlanta, Georgia and Oakdale, Louisiana.

- Fourteen circuits requested by FEMA to provide telecommunications service to Federal Disaster Field Offices and Dis- aster Assistance Centers set up in response to floods and a hurricane in a Presidentially declared disaster in Alexandria, Louisiana in 1989. This request was interesting because the carrier, South Central Bell, was already hard at work installing NSEP service for the Oakdale prison riot mentioned above when NSEP was invoked by the NCC for the Louisiana hurricane. Despite having its resources stretched, the carrier was able to provide the requested NSEP communications within two hours.

- Seventy requests covering 280 circuits to support Operation Desert Shield (the IraqlKuwait crisis of 1990-1). These requests were made by the Office of the President, U.S. Central Command and the Department of State (Defense Com- munications Agency, 1990).

Requests for NCC extraordinary situations support generally come from the White House and various security agencies,



to invoke NSEP and help coordinate the setting up of communications for the President, Vice President, other senior officials, or foreign heads of state visiting the US.

POSSIBLE FUTURE DIRECTIONS, AND LESSONS FROM THE NCS EXPERIENCE

The focus of the NCS for the next few years will be largely on implementing the major programs that have been or are being designed. It is possible, however, to anticipate three possible new directions for the NCS.

First, the establishment of an NCS presence at the Federal regional level. Currently there is no such presence and many regional, state and local officials are not aware of the existence of the NCS or its programs. Such a presence might be in each of the ten Federal regions, or it might involve four or five ” super-regional” managers.

Second, the possible establishment of a formal telecommunications disaster analysis team, designed to investigate and draw conclusions about major telecommunications outages and how they can be prevented in the future. NCS sent informal teams to analyze the 1988 Hinsdale (NCS, 1988a) and the 1983 New Orleans outages (NCS, 1983), and Hurricane Hugo and the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 (NCS, 1990), but has not set up a formal team.

Third, a continual monitoring of advances in communications technology. Technologies that promise to have a sub- stantial impact on emergency management telecommunications include the following.

- Cellular phones and mobile cells and mobile microwave systems that can be brought into a stricken area to provide ”short hop” communications that bypass the damaged local terrestrial system and link up with nearby undamaged areas.

- VSATs (very small aperture terminals): very small ”dishes” that can be mounted on a car or jeep and link up with satellites.

- The use of fiber optic cabling to replace old copper cables. This is resulting in a major increase in system capacity, which helps system survivability. On the other hand, it tends to concentrate the PSN into fewer nodes, thus increasing vulnerability. It also tends to increase the vulnerability of undersea cables, since sharks seem to like to chew on fiber optic cables much more than on the old copper variety!

- The replacement of electrical by photonic switching. This possibility is being researched and would increase PSN security and resistance to various threats, such as electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

- ISDN (integrated services digital networks) and other technologies that will encourage the integration of voice, data, fax and video into one telecommunications system.

- Purely private telecommunications systems belonging to large corporations, which could perhaps be used in emergency situations for public purposes.

There appear to be five major lessons one can draw from the US experience in emergency telecommunications that may be applicable to other countries. First, it is possible to allow competition in a country’s telecommunications system and still preserve a well-coordinated approach to essential, emergency and national security communications. Of course there are a wide variety of competitive forms, and care must be taken to choose an appropriate approach.

Second, such a change may lead to, or at least will not inhibit, technical and management innovations that increase NSEP. In the US almost all the current NSEP innovations and programs described


184 Llewellyn M. Toulmin

earlier were thought of and developed after the 1984 divestiture of AT&T (although there may have been no cause and effect relationship).

Third, as in all emergency management programs, top-level support is essential. In the US, support from the President and the National Security Council has been invalu- able in ensuring industry cooperation and program continuity.

Fourth, telecommunications are vital to economic development and to emergency response. Most developing countries will not be able to afford the elaborate management and technical systems described here. However, it may be possible to adopt certain technical innovations (such as fiber optic cabling, VSATs, and mobile micro- waves), "skip" an entire generation of US development and land squarely in the 21st century - all at relatively low cost.

Fifth, because of the keen interest of the military and the intelligence community in NSEP telecommunications, it may be possible to have these agencies pay for the bulk of new programs in this area. These programs will probably have large positive spillover effects for the all-hazard preparedness of civilian agencies, provincial, state and local governments, and ordinary citizens - certainly much larger than the spillover effects of spending the same money on offensive weapons systems.

Appendix A: List of NCS Member Agencies

Department of State Department of the Treasury Department of Defense Department of Justice Department of the Interior Department of Agriculture Department of Commerce Department of Health and Human Services Department of Transportation

Department of Energy Central Intelligence Agency Joint Staff (formerly the Organization of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff) General Services Administration U.S. Information Agency National Aeronautics and Space

Veterans Administration Federal Emergency Management Agency Federal Communications Commission Nuclear Regulatory Commission U.S. Postal Service Federal Reserve System National Security Agency National Telecommunications and Informa-

tion Administration

Administration

Appendix B: List of NSTAC Member Firms

American Telephone and Telegraph Bellcore Boeing COMSAT Computer Sciences Corporation Contel Control Data Corporation Fairchild Industries Ford Aerospace General Electric GTE Harris Hughes IBM ITT Lockheed Martin Marietta McCaw Communications McDonnell Douglas MCI Motorola Northern Telecom Pacific Telecom Rockwell International UNISIS United Telecommunications U.S. Telephone Association



Note

I would like to thank the National Communications System for access to relevant documents.

References

Belford, W.B. (1986) National coordinating center for telecommunications. Signal January,

Defense Communications Agency. (1990) Information sheet reference DCA support of Operation Desert Shield. December 5, Washington, D.C.

Drabek, T. (1986) Human system responses to disaster. Springer-Verlag, New York, 174-5.

Drabek, T., Tamminga, H., Kilijanek, T. and Adams, C. (1981) Managing multiorganimtional emergency responses. University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado.

Dynes, R. and Quarantelli, E. (1977) Ouganiza- tional communications and decisionmaking in crises. University of Delaware Disaster Research Center, Newark, Delaware.

Dynes, R. and Quarantelli, E. (1980) Helping behavior in large-scale disasters. In: Participation in social and political activities, D. Smith and J. Macaulay (eds.) Josey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, California, 339-54.

Horgan, J. (1985) Safeguarding the national

61-68.

security. I E E E Spectrum, November 1985, 84-9.

National Communications System (1983) Tele- communications emergencies: New Orleans communications outage. Washington, D. C .

National Communications System (1988a) Hinsdale, Illinois telecommunications outage. Washington, D.C.

National Communications System (1988b) National communications system: 25 years - leadership and partnership in N S E P telecommunications. Washington, D.C.

National Communications System (1988~) N S E P telecommunications overoiezu. Washington, D.C.

National Communications System (1990) Loma Prieta earthquake and hurricane Hugo telecommunications impacts. Washington, D.C.

Toulmin, L., Givans, C., and Steele, D. The impact of intergovernmental distance on disaster communications. International journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Vol. 7, No. 2, August 1989, 116-32.

Llewellyn M. Toulmin Booz, Allen & Hamilton Inc. 4330, East West Highway Bethesda Maryland 20814-4455 USA


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