Examples of information to be sought from respondents

Examples of Information that will be sought from Respondents

The following areas of inquiry are examples of the information that will be sought concerning emergency communications networks, including user devices, network equipment, operations processes and operations systems, and the feasibility of commercial service providers to support the needs of public safety: (1) technical capabilities and characteristics of equipment (e.g., analog/digital, power, range, access protocol, broadband/wideband/narrowband, etc.), (2) technical capabilities and characteristics of commercial services to support the needs of public safety, (3) cost and deployment of commercial services for use by public safety, (4) cost of user devices and network equipment of emergency communications networks (e.g., unit cost, maintenance/upgrade cost, etc.), and the cost of operations and operations systems (including feature upgrades) for emergency communications networks and services, (5) deployment of user devices, network equipment, and operations processes and equipment of emergency communications systems (e.g., type of systems deployed or to be deployed), number of units deployed/sold, etc.), (6) standardization of user devices, network equipment, and operations interfaces of emergency communications systems (e.g., standard/proprietary, standard activities, etc.), (7) interoperability (i.e., the ability of communications among different systems, devices and groups) of user groups, user devices, network equipment, and operations processes and equipment of emergency communications systems (e.g., interoperability among first responders within a jurisdiction, among jurisdictions using the same and different network technologies), (8) spectrum usage of user devices and network equipment of emergency communications systems (e.g., frequencies of operation, shared/dedicated spectrum, etc.), (9) applications and application requirements for end users and the technical requirements for such applications including bandwidth needs, (10) operations systems features and operations processes supporting emergency network operation during an emergency, (11) service capabilities (e.g., voice, data, video, mobile to mobile communications, etc.), (12) evolutionary trend of user devices, network equipment, and operations of emergency communications systems (e.g., next generation, migration path, etc.), (13) backhaul connectivity of network equipment and facilities (e.g., commercial/private, wired/wireless, capacity, etc.), (14) description of network technology and architecture (e.g., whether the network design accommodates access to emergency responders from other jurisdictions, capability of architecture to support resiliency in disaster situations, etc.), (15) operations budget for the network, (16) responsibilities of the organizations operating the networks, including service provisioning, traffic management and network maintenance, especially during an emergency, (17) plans, if any, for restoring emergency communication services or reverting to backup networks in the event that a primary emergency communications network is damaged or destroyed, (18) ability of existing emergency communications networks to back up or complement the communication resources of other emergency communications networks, (19) ability to rapidly increase emergency communication network capacity in the event that the capacity limits of the network are exceeded in a major disaster, (20) a description of the role of “core services” such as authentication and agency locator services, whether and how they are implemented in existing and planned networks, and their costs, (21) a description of the processes and systems used or planned to connect emergency responders to a back-up network in an emergency, and (22) plans to restore emergency communications services if the network over which they are provided is damaged, destroyed, or sufficiently congested to be impaired or unusable (e.g., changes in operations staffing in emergency conditions, dynamic bandwidth allocation to users or networks, back-up communications for other emergency communications services or networks), other administrative or planning issues associated with the deployment and maintenance of such backup national emergency communications capabilities.