The President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee ("NSTAC") Emergency Communications and Interoperability Task Force held a meeting January 11 at the District of Columbia Office of the Chief Technology Officer, with the purpose of receiving an informational briefing and demonstration of the Washington, D.C., Wireless Accelerated Responder Network (WARN). The pilot network is part of a National Capitol Region (NCR) initiative to coordinate planning, design and deployment of a regional and dedicated government public safety broadband wireless interoperable "network of networks." Such broadband data networks can provide critical public safety and homeland security applications to first responders and commanders. In addition, they are utilizing FCC-designated Public Safety wideband 700 MHz spectrum, with an FCC broadband use waiver, to facilitate the deployment.

NCR determined that the current 4.9 GHz allocation for public safety broadband provides enough bandwidth but does not give the needed propagation characteristics and so would increase deployment costs due to the extra transmitters and other equipment needed (i.e., 37,000 sites at 4.9 Ghz to cover NCR versus 120 sites utilizing 700 MHz. The experimental license involves only the District of Columbia at this time, as the spectrum is currently being vacated by broadcasters until 2009. However, the NCR has been working with affected broadcasters in this particular slice of the frequency band to expedite their transition. Commercial vendors and carriers have also been engaged, and the NCR project is leveraging their economies of scale, standardized technological advancements, and commercial network roaming, if needed, due to unavailability of existing public safety systems.

The NCR includes 19 jurisdictions around the Washington, D.C., metro area; with deployments in D.C., Arlington County, Va., and Alexandria, Va. expected this spring. There would then be a more national deployment effort as the deployments are successful. Current and future FCC actions will impact this effort. Capabilities include mobile video feeds and ad hoc surveillance, mobile Command Centers operating as a LAN, helicopter video feeds to multiple WARN jurisdictions, prisoner transport, EMS and fire fighters, bait car and bomb squad usage, among many others, yet all will be able to jurisdictionally interoperate and work together on a day-to-day and emergency basis. Governance issues related to jurisdiction are also being addressed.

The main components for mobile connectivity involve a standardized PC card and/or a Portable Access Device (PAD) with USB/Ethernet ports. Additionally, thorough evaluations of many standardized air interfaces, including WLAN technologies, were undertaken, and a recent announcement indicated that the NCR will initially utilize cdma2000® EV-DO Rev A technology for wide-area, spectrally-efficient deployment and jurisdictional roaming needs that include secure server access, protective firewalls, remote access from command to mobile device and the highest end-to-end encryption. The NCR is now engaged with related elements such as standards for data sharing, understanding patterns of usage and scalability issues related to migration from a pilot program to a wider scale. The international Project MESA effort is similar in scope and vision but wider in applicability. The District of Columbia Office of the Chief Technology Officer is a Project MESA member.

In related news, a scorecard was recently released by the Homeland Security Department that gives one of the best interoperability ratings to the Washington, D.C., area. Additionally, it can also be noted that in its February 2003 Report, "Why Can't We Talk?", the National Task Force on Interoperability (NTFI) noted the five key reasons for the current interoperability issues including Incompatible and Aging Communications Equipment, Limited and Fragmented Funding, Limited and Fragmented Planning, Lack of Coordination and Cooperation, and Limited and Fragmented Radio Spectrum. Lack of available or developing standards or technology was not listed as a reason. The NCR and any other national initiatives will strive to address these concerns.

For more information, please contact David Thompson, (703) 907-7749, dthompson@tiaonline.org.

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If you are interested in participating in the development of the below standards or in any of the TIA standards developing process please complete an online application at http://www.tiaonline.org/standards/join/apply.cfm.

NEW PROJECT NUMBERS

Project Number 3-0264, New TIA, LAES for cdma2000® - if interested contact Brent Hirschman, Sprint, at 913.794.4271, or via email at brent.hirschman@sprint.com

Project Number 3-0265, New TSB, Video Codec for 3GPP2 Packet Switched Multimedia Services - H.263 - if interested, contact Cheryl Blum, Lucent, at 630.713.1449, or via email at cjblum@alcatel-lucent.com

Project Number 3-0266, New TSB, Software Distribution for H.263 Video Codec for 3GPP2 Packet Switched Multimedia Services - if interested, contact Cheryl Blum, Lucent, at 630.713.1449, or via email at cjblum@alcatel-lucent.com

Project Number 3-0267, New TSB, Performance Characterization of H.263 Video Codec for 3GPP2 Packet Switched Multimedia Services - if interested, contact Cheryl Blum, Lucent, at 630.713.1449, or via email at cjblum@alcatel-lucent.com

NEW STANDARDS PROPOSALS BALLOTS (ANSI):

Standards Proposal No. 3-4465-RV2-AD2, proposed addendum of a TIA Joint Standard, Addendum 2 - Support for Carrier Identity (if approved, to be published as ANS/J-STD-025-B-2)

Standards Proposal No. 3-4826-RV2, proposed creation of TIA Standard TIA-912-B Telecommunications - IP Telephony Equipment Voice Gateway Transmission Requirements (if approved, to be published as TIA-912-B)

Standards Proposal No. 3-0177, proposed creation of a new TIA Standard TIA-568-C.0 Generic Customer-Owned Telecommunications Networks (if approved, to be published as ANSI/TIA-568-C.0)

Standards Proposal No. 3-3894-RV3, proposed revision of TIA Standard TIA-568-B.3 Optical Fiber Cabling Component Standard (if approved, to be published as ANSI/TIA-568-C.3)

Standards Project No. 3-0068-UGRV, proposed upgrade and revision of TIA standard TIA-902.BAAC-A Wideband Air Interface Media Access Control Radio Link Adaptation (MAC/RLA) Layer Specification (if approved, to be published as TIA-902.BAAC-A)

Standards Proposal No. 3-4425-RV3, proposed revision of TIA Standard TIA-568-B.1 Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard - Part 1: General Requirements (if approved, to be published as ANSI/TIA-568-C.1)

Standards Proposal No. 3-0167-RV1, a proposed creation of TIA Standard TIA-156-A Land Mobile Radio Antenna Systems Minimum Standards for RF Signal Boosters (if approved, to be published as TIA-156-A)

NEW PROJECT NUMBERS BALLOTS:

Project Number 3-0174-200-A, proposed creation of a new TIA Standard, cdma2000® Wireless Local Area Network Interworking, (if approved, to be published as TIA-1050-200)

Project Number 3-0166-1, proposed creation of a new TIA Standard, Signaling Conformance Test Specification for cdma2000® Data Services, (if approved, to be published as TIA-1046)

Project Number 3-4643, proposed creation of a new TIA Standard, Medium-Speed (up to 14 Mbps) Power Line Communications ( PLC) Modems using Windowed OFDM, (if approved, to be published as TIA-1113)

Project Number 3-0202, proposed creation of a new TSB, "Telecommunications, IP Telephony Infrastructures, Synchronization in IP Networks-Methods and User Perception", (if approved, to be published as TSB-160).

Project No. 3-3602-RV3-1, proposed revision of an existing TIA Standard, "Telecommunications - Telephone Terminal Equipment - Rationale and Measurement Guidelines for U.S. Network Protection" (if approved, to be published as TSB-31-C).

PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS AVAILABLE

AMERICAN NATIONAL STANDARDS:

TIA-810-B, Telecommunications Telephone Terminal Equipment Transmission Requirements for Narrowband Digital Telephones

TIA-968-A-4, Telecommunications Telephone Terminal Equipment Technical Requirements for Connection of Terminal Equipment to the Telephone Network

TIA ONLY DOCUMENTS/INTERIM STANDARDS:

TIA-41.000-E-3[E], Mobile Application Part (MAP) - Introduction

TIA-127-B, Enhanced Variable Rate Codec Speech Service Option 3 and YY for Wideband Spread Spectrum Digital Systems

TIA-820-C, Removable User Identity Module for Spread Spectrum Systems

TIA-455-127-A, Basic Spectral Characterization of Laser Diodes

TIA-102.AABF-A-1 Link Control Word Formats and Messages Addendum 1 to Revision 1 - Link Layer Authentication Service

TIA-1014-1, R-UIM Conformance Testing for Spread Spectrum Systems

TIA-1030-B, Band Class Specification for cdma2000® Spread Spectrum Systems

TIA-1054-1, High Rate Packet Data Supplemental Packet Data Services

TIA-1102, Minimum Performance Specification for Terrestrial Mobile Multimedia Multicast Forward Link Only Devices

TIA-1103, Minimum Performance Specification for Terrestrial Mobile Multimedia Multicast Forward Link Only Transmitters

TIA-1104, Test Application Protocol for Terrestrial Mobile Multimedia Multicast Forward Link Only Transmitters and Devices"

TIA-470.320-C, "Telecommunications Telephone Terminal Equipment Cordless Telephone Operation and Feature Performance Requirements

To check the status of any ballot (PN or SP), go to the TIA web page in the Standards Section to obtain current information. The link for PN ballots is:
http://www.tiaonline.org/standards/sfg/pn_report.cfm
or for SP ballots
http://www.tiaonline.org/standards/sfg/sp_report.cfm

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