MIIT: Urgent Need to Develop Standards for Emergency Communications

At the "2010 National Emergency Communications Symposium" held this morning, Zhang Yingxian, Deputy Director of the Telecommunications Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), stated that emergency communications support requires government guidance to achieve emergency linkage; meanwhile, only by accelerating the standardization of emergency communications can inter-departmental linkage, interconnection, and resource sharing be realized, and developing emergency communications standards is an urgent issue to be addressed.

Zhang Yingxian believes that to achieve emergency linkage in emergency communications, the following three issues must first be resolved: First, regarding the emergency response processes of various departments, each department has already formed a set of effective command methods and procedures in its work practice, including command concepts, command elements, command processes, and command resources, each with its own characteristics. "How to unify, coordinate, and link these elements requires a leading department at the national level to organize research and carefully consider the underlying design issues."

Second, from a national perspective, the emergency communications operating models of various departments are numerous and lack unified standards. "How to fully leverage the role of existing departmental resources in emergency situations, and effectively integrate old and new emergency communications systems and equipment to achieve interconnection and resource sharing, makes the development of emergency communications standards an urgent issue to be addressed."

Third, emergency communications operates on a "troops maintained for a thousand days, used for a single hour" model, generating substantial social benefits but rarely economic benefits. "How to effectively address issues such as the operating model of emergency communications and resolve the problem of insufficient funding for emergency communications requires the attention, support, and linkage of the entire society, so that China's emergency communications development can reach a new level."

Finally, Zhang Yingxian stated that only with the support of the entire society can emergency communications linkage accelerate the achievement of goals such as rapid response, interconnection, resource sharing, and joint action.

---------- Source: C114 China Communications Network