A pilot program unveiled on Tuesday will allow national security and emergency personnel in Washington and New York to use mobile phones to speed calls through overloaded wireless and landline networks that blocked calls on Sept. 11.

Across the United States, people tried to find out the fate of their loved ones by using mobile telephones but had little success of reaching them after the commercial jetliners crashed into major landmarks killing thousands last September.

Emergency personnel and government officials with the right authority and code could get most calls through originating from traditional landlines but no national priority access system exists for growing wireless networks that made it difficult to coordinate the response to the crisis.

"We have a pilot program for wireless priority services with VoiceStream that we are going to put in New York City and Washington, D.C., probably in the May timeframe," said Brent Greene, deputy manager of the National Communications System, which coordinates some U.S. emergency communications.

News source: Reuters - U.S. to Start Wireless Priority Access Trial in May

"We have a competition under way, not yet finalized, to put in such capability nationally that would have a much broader national footprint ... by the end of December and then a year later full operational capability," he said at the annual James Quello Communication Policy and Law Symposium.

He said about 45,000 individuals had priority access to the landline telecommunications network prior to the September attacks and that had grown to 60,000 since. Greene added that it will likely jump to hundreds of thousands over time.

The Federal Communications Commission has approved a waiver for VoiceStream Wireless, a unit of German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom, to offer such a priority system and the company is now waiting to complete the contract with the government, people familiar with the situation have said.

The system, which would be available immediately on a subscription basis and would be always available using a pre-programmed chip in the handsets until commercial handsets are available.

VoiceStream expects the new handsets will be available soon and they will be manufactured by a joint venture between Ericsson/Sony.

Calls by those with priority access authority would be queued up for the next available circuit on wireless networks and by those without priority access would only be bumped off the network if a call by someone with the access is moving from cell site to a cell site where all circuits are taken up.


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