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Staying connected: Weaving a wireless

safety net

From RFID
Vol. 2, No. 7 - October 2004
by Meg McGinity

The technical issues that have come to the forefront have propelled interest
in upgrading communications systems and implementing more technically
driven public safety networks.

The images of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 exist in video
files and collective gray matter everywhere. Hindsight is often a favored perspective for many commentators, eager
to wax widely on the ways of the wronged. That infamous day in history proved no exception when earlier this
summer the 9-11 Commission, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
States (see www.9-11commission.gov/), sought to hear from witnesses of the attacks and attempt to amass some
kind of measured explanation, some recipe of remedy, to make the public believe it could not happen again.

The commission promised no finger pointing, just fact finding. We know only the terrorists responsible for that day
can be blamed for the devastation. But as the commission, follow-up investigations, anecdotal information, and
reporting have highlighted, there were some weak links that morning—connections that still exist and must be
strengthened.

There was an unlikely contributor to the chaos that ensued after the terrorist plot was set in motion. This agent had
no shoulders on which to balance culpability, no mouth to utter apologies. That's because it was technology: it is
generally agreed that communications failed miserably that day.

The destruction of landline phone infrastructure—in New York City, Verizon reportedly lost one of its five
switching centers that housed some 200,000 lines—squashed the ability to make calls over traditional telephones.
This vulnerability of landline equipment quickly made apparent the need for more secure, more durable centers in
which equipment was housed and to beef up security access to those buildings. Then there were those infuriating
fast busy signals heard by people desperately hitting the redial key to try to reach their loved ones in the New York
area. The telephone system was jammed. Could this, too, be corrected?

The downed and/or clogged telephone lines shined a spotlight on wireless technology. Stories of poignant calls
made over mobile phones confirmed the importance of having a wireless handset available at all times. After that
day, school children were allowed to take their cell phones to schools "just in case," and mobile phones increasingly
became the only phones for many people. The increased popularity of wireless phones gave momentum to the
movement that had already begun before Sept. 11; a renewed interest in updating the wireless phone system. Like
implementing the E911, or emergency 911, system that would let a public safety answering point know from where
a caller to a 911 number was calling from (see www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/). Wireless service providers and public
answering safety points were working with renewed interest to implement the technology to make this happen. The
FCC has mandated that the technology is implemented in two phases, with Phase I requiring wireless operators,

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once it gets a request from the Public Safety Answering Point to provide the phone number of the wireless caller as
well as the antenna from which the call was processed. Phase 2 of the E911 plan goes a step further, requiring the
wireless operator to pinpoint a caller's location within 50 to 100 meters. The deadline for fulfillment of Phase 2 is
December 31, 2005.

This article was reprinted with permission from Communications of the ACM. Want more? A print subscription to
Communications is just one of the benefits of being an ACM member - to learn more, and to get your subscription
to Communications, visit the ACM home page.

Communications and all ACM publications are available electronically in ACM's Digital Library. To subscribe to
the Digital Library and get access to more great Communications articles, click here.

Another issue involving cell phones: the too-short battery life. Manufacturers experienced consumer demand that
their mobile phones more efficiently manage power consumption. While the cell phone industry has been loading
up on the bells and whistles of functionality on a handset, the power of the battery and ability for a wireless phone
to make a call is crucial.

But while wireless phones got notice for their value, the walkie-talkies used by members of public safety
organizations on Sept. 11 received intense scrutiny for their dismal performance. Walkie-talkies used by firefighters
were blamed for not receiving signals that carried critical instructions to vacate the building that might have saved
lives that day.

According to reports, the commission attributed problems of the two-way radios to management mistakenly
thinking repeaters—or a booster for wireless signals—were damaged during the attack. Because of this, they
instructed firefighters to use another, less powerful, channel for communication. The result was that fewer
firefighters heard the instructions on their mobile devices.

But some family members of those safety personnel who perished Sept. 11 have attributed some blame to Motorola,
the maker of the walkie-talkies that were in use that day, for having manufactured and sold equipment that might
have been sub par. Motorola attributes the technical meltdown of the radios to the overloaded channels. A $5 billion
lawsuit was filed in January against Motorola alleging that the equipment Motorola sold was faulty. The suit is
pending an appeal after it was dismissed by a U.S. District Court judge in April, citing the Victim Compensation
Fund made such civil suit claims ineligible.

Also gleaned from that day, many close to the situation reported the lack of communication between the various
public safety organizations, including fire and police departments. The two separate entities didn't have a cohesive
network to communicate to each other.

What came through loud and clear: fixing faulty communications and putting in cutting-edge technology would
have to be a front-burner issue today, when terrorism threats and color-coded warnings from the government have
became part of the new culture's lexicon. It simply was deemed unacceptable for emergency responders to have
equipment that might fail.

The technical issues that have come to the forefront since then have propelled interest in upgrading communications
systems, and implementing more technically driven public safety networks. Politicians have become involved in the
action: for example, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) proposed legislation that would support a nationwide interoperability
system for first-responders to be implemented within five years. The legislation, dubbed The Connecting the
Operations of National Networks of Emergency Communications Technologies (CONNECT) for First Responders
Act of 2004, would provide a $5 billion grant and create an Office of Wireless Public Safety Interoperable
Communications under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security. It was introduced just as the 9-11
Commission was holding hearings in New York to look into these failures of communications.

"It's time to close the communications gap that left so many New York firefighters and police without hope on
September 11th," said Lowey in a statement. "Interoperable equipment will protect our first responders and, in turn,
enable them to better protect the public during emergencies. Congress must step up to the plate and provide the vital
resources and tools our first responders need."

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Across the U.S., and the world, municipalities are finding budgets for improved technology, not only to support
police and fire departments, but to aid public works and even provide streams of revenues from citizens looking to
access the Internet on the fly. But in many instances, municipalities are starting to see technology as a way to help
curtail crime on a local basis.

New Orleans, for example, conducted a pilot test this past spring using a wireless surveillance system throughout
the city that was aimed at helping increase police awareness of crime. Deploying Wi-Fi networks meshed together
throughout the city, video cameras can send images. Police, in turn, can obtain moving pictures of crimes as they
happen, and access these images from their laptop computers or other mobile devices. With upgrades to the
infrastructure, the Wi-Fi network equipment supplier, Tropos Networks, says the police can access this data even
while traveling in their squad cars, roaming between the Wi-Fi cells. Tropos Networks also supplied equipment for
a similar system in Chaska, MN. Through a wireless Internet service provider owned by the city, the network will
be accessible not only to police, but to local government and even to residents. Another Tropos-powered wireless
video surveillance system via its Wi-Fi mesh network architecture was set up for June's media-circus trial of Scott
Peterson, who was charged with murdering his wife and unborn son. The San Mateo County Sheriff's Department
was deploying the system, which comprised Sony video cameras atop rooftops communicating to Tropos' wireless
network, to patrol the immediate area of the courthouse.

In London, police were planning to deploy up to 50 cameras backed by wireless networks in the SoHo area by the
end of 2004, reported Newsweek. The video images taken from the portable wireless system, which can be taken
down and reinstalled in a different location, were said to have vivid enough clarity to hold up as evidence in legal
proceedings.

Municipalities are taking up where airports have already started. Almost weekly, another wireless service provider
announces it has helped to deploy a Wi-Fi network inside an airport terminal in an effort to derive revenue from
business travelers who must access the Internet from their wireless-enabled laptop computers between flights. These
same Wi-Fi networks that are helping to generate revenues are being used by the airport for internal business.

Technology is, more than ever, a foot soldier in the war on terror and on local crime. The age-old
battle of privacy rights versus more security will take on new passions.

This article was reprinted with permission from Communications of the ACM. Want more? A print subscription to
Communications is just one of the benefits of being an ACM member - to learn more, and to get your subscription
to Communications, visit the ACM home page.

Communications and all ACM publications are available electronically in ACM's Digital Library. To subscribe to
the Digital Library and get access to more great Communications articles, click here.

Also on the docket: using wireless networks and wireless technologies to help keep tabs on passenger and baggage
identities. Wireless communication, like RFID or radio frequency identification, is being sought for passenger
identification purposes, most recently and urgently as part of a new passport—to ensure a passenger really is who he
says he is. The U.S. Department of State is trialing RFID-chip encoded passports that house biometric capabilities
mirrored to the facial features of the passport owner, reported Network World Identity Management in late May. The
trial of innovative and informative passports will be conducted this fall, the same timing as trials being conducted
by many European countries. "Eventually, all countries issuing passports will have to follow suit, according to the
rules adopted by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)," the report states. "Some countries, such as The
Netherlands, will also include fingerprint data on the chip although that isn't a requirement."

Even pets traveling internationally will require being equipped with technology that confirms their identity. The
European Parliament and the Council of the European Union in May stipulated that animals must have either a
tattoo or electronic ID system, and within eight years, all will have to follow the latter. The animal microchips
contain a history of vaccinations and other veterinary procedures and conditions treatments, say experts. In order to
be able to glean information from these microchips, ports of entry must have wireless scanners available. I've

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wondered before, and I'll wonder again: Can microchips in humans, read by scanners, with the information being
shared over Wi-Fi networks, really be that far behind?

Technology is, more than ever, a foot soldier in the war on terror and on local crime. The age-old battle of privacy
rights (how will citizens really feel about having surveillance cameras peeking out from building ledges on Main
Street?) versus more security will take on new passions. There's no dodging the fact that networks are a part of our
lives, with Wi-Fi networks installed in coffee shops and airports and everywhere in between. And there's no doubt
that hackers and bad guys who want to exploit that dependance on technology will be able to do so—witness the
havoc and economic loss that resulted from the Microsoft-attacking Sasser virus, and more recently the devious
virus aimed at online banking.

So while technology is being implemented all around us to make us more secure, it's going to require a mindful
approach to deployment. Because the more dependant we become on the technology network around us for security,
the more devastated we'll be when that technology does something truly human: err.

This article was reprinted with permission from Communications of the ACM. Want more? A print subscription to
Communications is just one of the benefits of being an ACM member - to learn more, and to get your subscription
to Communications, visit the ACM home page.

Communications and all ACM publications are available electronically in ACM's Digital Library. To subscribe to
the Digital Library and get access to more great Communications articles, click here.
Meg McGinity (mcginity@wirelessIQ.info) is managing editor at wirelessIQ.info, a wireless news portal owned
by Allied Business Intelligence, Inc.

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