Rechartered BDAC Gets to Work on Disaster Recovery

Defining disaster, aligning responders and consolidating standards are early challenges for the FCC rechartered Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee’s working group on disaster response and recovery, members said at their first meeting Thursday. BDAC’s “next mission,” which also includes increasing broadband in low-income communities and infrastructure job skills and training, is “absolutely vital,” even if those issues are “not on the front page every day,” Chairman Ajit Pai told the group.

The three working groups are to work through August, said a presentation by designated federal officer Justin Faulb. Working groups will present and discuss progress at BDAC meetings Sept. 19-20 and Dec. 2-3, he said. If ready, those groups will present recommendations at the December meeting, and the full BDAC may deliberate and vote, he said. At least one working group is expected to be ready by then, he said.

A big challenge for the disaster response panel is how to better align private and multi-jurisdictional government entities, said Chair Red Grasso, North Carolina Department of Information Technology program director. Government needs to more holistically approach interdependency between broadband and available energy supplies, he said. Education of local governments and the public is also key, he said. “We can’t stop these disasters from happening. We can just make our communities more resilient.”

Disaster resiliency is “literally a matter of life and death,” said Wireless Infrastructure Association CEO Jonathan Adelstein, working group vice chair. “One of the keys to resiliency is redundancy,” he said. “As we get these networks distributed deeper and deeper into communities, there are more [such] opportunities.” The group has focused significantly on power supply, which is critical to restoring communications, he said. “We’re trying to remove … obstacles to the deployment of backup power.”

Technology, standards and best practices are improving, but the impact of disasters is increasing, and no two events are alike, said JMA Wireless Director Kurt Jacobs, leading a subgroup on infrastructure standards. “There are so many standards and practices, it’s almost impossible for anyone to completely digest that, especially down at a local level,” so the subgroup is mulling ways to converge and consolidate, he said. Network evolution increases complexity, Jacobs said. More spectrum diversity is a good result, but there could also be new points of “hidden convergence where we think we have separate infrastructure but then we find out there’s critical nodes or single points of failure in a system that we didn’t realize,” he said. Another challenge is setting resiliency targets and metrics, he said.

The group may want to consider ways to increase broadband service, not just restore it, in underserved areas, suggested Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable Commissioner Karen Charles Peterson. The body should think about how to “incorporate technologies that will make the government stronger in the quest for resilience,” said Neptuno CEO Leticia Latino. Don’t forget to protect food sources and agricultural operations, said Indiana Director-Broadband Opportunities Scott Rudd.

BDAC members asked how disaster will be defined, including if the scope is limited to natural incidents or if cybersecurity would be part of the group’s purview. Definitions were very important in BDAC’s last iteration, noted BDAC Vice Chair David Young, a local official from Lincoln, Nebraska. The working group hasn’t focused much on cyber, leaving that work to the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council, said Jacobs. It’s “open” to adding cyber, but “that is definitely expanding the scope,” he said. Elizabeth Bowles, the BDAC chair, said she would “take that back and see whether it’s within the scope,” and hopes to have an answer by next meeting.

“Presentations to the BDAC, including to its subcommittees and working groups, and at any roundtable discussions sponsored by the BDAC, as well as presentations between BDAC members (including members of any subcommittees or working groups) and FCC staff or Commissioners incidental to and in connection with such BDAC meetings or roundtable discussions, will be treated as exempt presentations for ex parte purposes,” the FCC said. The commission won’t rely on BDAC talks for pending proceedings unless it’s first placed in the record for those dockets, it said in Thursday's Daily Digest and in docket 17-83.

Pai joked to BDAC members who returned for the committee’s second round: “Y’all never learn.” They’re “gluttons for punishment,” ribbed Wireline Bureau Chief Kris Monteith.