Govt. Agency Studies Fed Telephone Network

The Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) has published an audit of the federal Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS), designed to allow priority telecom services for emergency and other officials, and found that it’s operating effectively, but needs to focus on future plans to meet more advanced technology. GETS has over 227,000 subscribers that include city, county and state emergency officials, including mayors, police and fire chiefs, emergency preparedness directors and EMS administrators. Another 93,000 subscribers have similar accounts on the Wireless Priority System (WPS) for making emergency cellular calls. In its 71-page audit report, the GAO noted that the average rate of GETS/WPS call completion is usually over 95%, even for major incidents such as Hurricane Katrina. The agency also concluded that the GETS/WPS program should improve performance measurement efforts to better judge how they can improve. Download (pdf) the full report here.