First Sandy Field Hearing Will Be Joint New York/New Jersey Event

FCC will collect info for recommendations and actions to improve network resiliency

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/30/2013 10:00:25 AM

The FCC has announced more details of its first field hearing on communications failures during Superstorm Sandy, with the New York hearing now a joint New York/New Jersey hearing, appropriate given how hard the storm hit the New Jersey coast.

The Feb. 5 hearing will be divided into two sessions, a morning session in Manhattan and an afternoon session in Hoboken, N.J.

The goal of the hearings, said the FCC, is to "facilitate a wider national dialogue about the resiliency of communications networks" in general, with Sandy as a focus. The FCC will use the info from this and other planned field hearings to make recommendations and take actions to strengthen wired and wireless networks.

The FCC announced that it would hold hearings a day after Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), called on the FCC to get together with stakeholders to come up with a new action plan for emergencies given Sandy-related failures, including that 25% of the cell towers in a 10-state area affected by the storm were taken out of commission in the immediate aftermath.

Issues the hearings will address include "power and fuel dependencies, emergency permitting, resource sharing protocols, 9-1-1 accessibility" and will result in recommendation to strengthen that system.

The commission will stream the hearing.