National security and Emergency Preparedness communications: Next generation priority services

To ensure that National Security and Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP)-associated personnel can communicate during times of crisis, priority telecommunications services have been implemented over the past two decades within the public telephone networks of the United States. Emerging capabilities enabled by recent advances in communications protocols, network infrastructure, user device functionality and communication services are dramatically altering the working environment of society as a whole, including those with NS/EP responsibilities. Features such as video and data communications, enterprise mobility, and cloud services are becoming critical elements in the NS/EP toolkit, and thus candidates for future prioritization. The U.S. Government has embarked on efforts to define priority video communications and priority data transport services in the emerging Next-Generation Networks and to examine the risks and benefits with prioritization of other services. We first describe the existing priority services, both in the wireless and the wired landline public networks. This background provides the basis for the subsequent discussion of on-going efforts to define and implement prioritization capabilities for emerging services to benefit NS/EP personnel as well as the technical and economic challenges associated with these activities.