On rethinking priorities

Aug 1, 2006 12:00 PM, Glenn Bischoff

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Life is filled with difficult choices. We spend considerable time and emotional energy contemplating which college to attend, which career to choose, which person to marry and where we're going to raise our families. Rarely are these decisions made without deep and prolonged analysis using carefully selected criteria usually weighted by personal importance.

We sometimes are forced to rethink our choices after some time has passed, often because we are presented with new information that has caused us to alter our priorities. This is a healthy phenomenon that is the lifeblood of progress.

Currently, there is disagreement between the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials and the National Emergency Number Association over whether a portion of the $1 billion earmarked for interoperability should be used to fund upgrades to public-safety answering points across the country. In June, the Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation that allows such a scenario. Predictably, NENA supports the measure, while APCO opposes (MRT, August, page 8).

Choosing between NENA and APCO is like trying to decide which of your children you love more — it's not easy to do, if it can be done at all. But on this debate, I have to side with NENA. Although it is easy to grasp the importance of interoperability in a post-9/11 world — particularly after the catastrophe of last year's Hurricane Katrina — such disasters occur very infrequently. In contrast, the 911 emergency call system is used every day.

With only about half of PSAPs nationwide in compliance with the FCC's Phase 2 mandate, priority must be placed on finding the money to fund PSAP upgrades, even if it is siphoned from interoperability. Recall that millions of dollars have been left on the table by public-safety agencies over the past couple of years because they have been unable to meet Project SAFECOM's requirement for regional consensus on interoperability planning.

Of course, Congress could render the debate irrelevant by simply following through on the promise it made in the ENHANCE 911 Act. But that would require federal lawmakers to rethink their priorities — an action that never has been a priority for them, or a strength.