Wireless Communications Infrastructure & Emergency Response

I was wondering to what extent planning was engaging the wireless infrastructure, and linking it to the local and state emergency services planning functions. If anyone has information or contacts, please forward it to me, as I'm looking and haven't found anything yet.

In a nutshell --

Would it be beneficial for the folks engaged in emergency response planning to dialogue with the wireless communications folks to try and ensure certain elements of the systems are more resilient, or certain sites in specific areas are more robust? Should wireless service around evacuation routes and hospitals be 'beefier' and able to take more user capacity, as well as damage from incidents, so the wireless communications service is there when it's needed most?

Could build techniques be developed to 'harden' sites so they continue operation when others fail -- and if so, which sites would be the ones to harden? Could site operations of such facilities be modified as well, to ensure the highest probability of continued operation in an event -- ie backup power?

Does the state offices of emergency services know where all the private towers are -- and could mutual aid agreements be crafted so the temporary location of radio repeater equipment could be quickly facilitated wherever needed in response to an event? Could the states and localities use the knowledge of those private resources to thier advantage for planning future expansion or upgrade to thier own systems and sites -- ie it might be better to use existing established sites for future expansion, if they already exist.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not suggesting a regulatory approach -- I think if the industry was given the opportunity to discuss the issues, there would be a lot of beneficial common ground, and many opportunities that would help everyone. Perhaps a start would be creating the dialogue and an attempting to gell out some best practices?

What do you think?

RES