NPSTC-Ten Years of Progress for the 'Collective Voice of Public Safety Telecommunications'

摘要

Congratulations to the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC), celebrating its tenth anniversary. This formerly ad hoc group of public safety telecommunications organizations, including IMSA, a founding member, decided to continue to work as a unified group following the heady experience of combining public safety's voices for the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee (PSWAC). Created by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), PSWAC's job was to evaluate the wireless communications needs of local, tribal, state, and federal public safety agencies through the year 2010, identify problems, and recommend possible solutions. "For years, the representative bodies of public safety communications operated in their own 'stovepipes,' says Chief Douglas Aiken, IMSA Radio Committee chairman and Vice Chair of NPSTC. "The issues were discussed, directions developed, and positions espoused, based on the individual services. There was no vehicle to develop a common public safety position. From the beginning, NPSTC changed all that," says Aiken.