The Need for Priority Communications in an Emergency

of the service and reduce some of the burdens associated with administering PINs. Budget constraints prevented the initiation of the project, but it remains a consideration and a goal. Also in 2008, Bell Labs facilitated a workshop on priority communications in Australia. In 2010, an effort began in Spain, supported by the European Commission, to look at ways of addressing Priority Communications on Public Mobile Networks (PCPMN) in crisis situations. All of these examples illustrate the interest and the obvious need for this type of service. However, as will be discussed later, there is a danger, or at least a missed opportunity, if nations develop and deploy priority communications systems internally without consideration as to how they would interact with other nations' systems. Looking forward Given the changing face of communications technology and its users, simply ensuring priority access to a voice or radio channel is no longer sufficient. Today's networks transport packets, generally treating each packet the same, whether the contents of that packet supports a voice call, an email message, a text message, video, or even a game. The networks need the ability to prioritize packets, ensuring that packets supporting priority communications, in whatever form that takes, receive priority handling. The first responders of tomorrow may be Tweeting their counterparts at a disaster site or attempting to send video to remote experts for support. However they choose to use the network, a scheme must be established to identify the priority packets and ensure their timely delivery.