Interoperability of public safety and emergency response communications platforms remains an on-going problem which has been well documented by organizations such as DHS SAFECOM. The events of 9/11 made these issues painfully clear and painted a permanent image in the minds of most Americans. From the tragic events of 9/11 came stories of fire fighters rushing up a stairwell as police were rushing down. The police had been told that the first tower had fallen and that they should evacuate immediately. When the police passed this information to the fire fighters in the stairwell, the fire fighters conveyed that they had been given no such information and continued up the stairs to perform their duties. The result was the loss of many lives which may have been saved if the various communications systems in use that day would have been able to interoperate.

Although 9/11 exposed critical interoperability gaps in the communications infrastructure, an even larger set of issues became apparent during the 2004 Asian Tsunami and then again in Hurricane Katrina. These catastrophes, which destroyed key infrastructure backbones over vast areas, required temporary communications infrastructure to be deployed and to operate for months on end. Although the communications networks themselves can operate indefinitely, the refueling efforts in keeping thousands of diesel generators running became prohibitive and many communications networks were rendered useless due to lack of power. Alternative energy methods to ensure the future mainstay of communications also need to be explored and evaluated. These include but are not limited to energy derived from solar, wind and hydrogen fuel cells.