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FCC Assists in Hurricane Katrina Restoration, Relief EffortsBy TED GLANZER
TMCnet Communications and Broadband Columnist
Acknowledging that there is still plenty of work to be done, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin on Thursday announced the FCC's intention to provide over $200 million to assist with Hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts.
Martin's proposal calls for $211 million from the Universal Service Fund to be allocated through the FCC's Low Income, Rural Health Care, E-Rate and High Cost programs to support consumers, schools, libraries, health care providers affected by Hurricane Katrina. The funds would be used for the following:
• Provide wireless handsets and 300 free minutes for evacuees and those without phone service;
• Allow health care providers to apply for support for advanced services used for telemedicine applications to treat hurricane victims;
• Permit schools and libraries to re-submit their requests for E-Rate funds this year, giving priority to those entities to receive the steepest discounts available; and
• Waive or modify rules to permit BellSouth to prioritize universal service funds to help the company rebuild facilities damaged by the hurricane.
Furthermore, the FCC will establish a panel of experts from the public safety and the communications industry to review the hurricane's impact.
"Last year, The 9/11 Commission Report described a state of communications unreadiness that seriously hindered our country's ability to respond to that attack," said Commissioner Michael J. Copps in a statement. "But it also described a chilling picture of communications unreadiness three years later – and Hurricane Katrina has shown that to be tragically true. Now people are talking again about the need for full-scale emergency planning. This time we dare not fail."
Toward that end, Martin proposed the creation of a new Public Safety/Homeland Security Bureau, which would be responsible for coordinating public safety, national security and disaster management at the FCC.
The announcement was made after an open hearing held by the FCC in Atlanta in which communications industry representatives (sans the VoIP industry) testified on the restoration efforts being made in the affected areas of Hurricane Katrina.
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Ted Glanzer is assistant editor for TMCnet. For more articles by Ted Glanzer, please visit:
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