The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) has released three technical reports through its Mission Critical & Emergency Services Program, outlining practical guidance for emergency services, public safety agencies, mobile operators, device makers, and network providers. The papers examine how Wi‑Fi, Passpoint and the OpenRoaming federation could strengthen emergency communications in indoor, dense public areas and other difficult settings.
One report details an end‑to‑end approach for emergency calling over Wi‑Fi, covering network discovery, secure connection, and standards‑based location handling to ensure calls reach the correct public safety answering point. The second paper explores how operators can use OpenRoaming to deliver roaming‑friendly Voice over Wi‑Fi (VoWi‑Fi) with sufficient quality of service for emergency calls. The third report focuses on national security and emergency preparedness, describing priority, resilience and quality‑of‑service measures for government and emergency agency networks and the potential role of IoT in critical operations.
Across the trio, the WBA identifies six priorities: treating Wi‑Fi as mission‑critical infrastructure, enabling emergency access regardless of mobile subscription, granting priority access for NS/EP users, integrating OpenRoaming/Passpoint for seamless secure access, improving location accuracy using existing standards, and aligning legal and regulatory frameworks with 3GPP, IEEE and national regulators.
Industry leaders view this work as a step toward making Wi‑Fi a dependable complement to cellular networks during crises. The reports are available from the WBA for agencies and companies planning how to incorporate Wi‑Fi into emergency communications planning.
Brad Randall of Broadband Communities notes that AI tools from Noah Wire Services assisted in generating this report, underscoring the collaboration between traditional journalism and automated content creation. Subscribers to Broadband Communities can access further coverage and resources related to emergency communications planning.
