Progress on P25: Furthering Interoperability and Competition for Public Safety Radio Equipment
Opening Statement By Chairman David Wu
Good afternoon. I would like to welcome our witnesses, and everybody who has joined us, to today’s hearing.
This is the second hearing the Subcommittee has held on the interoperability of public safety communications equipment, and I am glad we have the opportunity to revisit this important topic.
The ability of first responders to communicate with each other during an emergency is vital. As reports have shown, in many major disasters, including 9/11, response efforts have been hindered or imperiled because emergency officials responding from surrounding jurisdictions could not use their radios to communicate with each other.
While many factors contribute to this lack of interoperability, equipment based on proprietary technology makes the situation far worse. Without a common technical standard, there is no assurance that equipment from one manufacturer will work with equipment from another manufacturer. This means that first responders may not be able to communicate with each other when it matters most. And it means that public safety agencies may be forced into buying the various components of their public safety communications systems from a single manufacturer, limiting competition and driving up prices.
In 1989, the public safety community and other stakeholders set out to create a common technical standard for public safety radios, known as the P25 standard. Although progress has been made over the last 20 years, the P25 standard is not yet complete.
At our hearing in May, we learned about disagreements among some of the players in the P25 standard process over the status of the standard and the degree and rigor of testing that should be required. While these disagreements are on highly technical and complicated issues, they have real-world implications for our first responders and those in harm’s way. Simply put, our local public safety officials need the certainty that a standard provides and, right now, that certainty does not exist.
I am pleased that we have the opportunity today to hear from people who build, test, and operate P25 equipment. I hope to learn from our panel about how technical disagreements over document status and testing impact interoperability and competition for public safety radio systems.
Local, state, and federal public safety agencies spend billions of dollars on communications equipment. The size of this investment and the mission-critical nature of this equipment make it imperative that P25 fulfill its goals.
Witnesses
Panel I
1 - Mr. Tom Sorley
Deputy Director Radio Communication Services City of Houston Information Technology Department City of Houston Information Technology Department
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2 - Ms. Ellen O'Hara
President Zetron Zetron
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3 - Mr. Marvin Ingram
Senior Director ARINC Public Safety ARINC Public Safety
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4 - Mr. Russ Sveda
Manager Radio Technical Service Center Department of the Interior Radio Technical Service Center Department of the Interior
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