Study the emergency telecommunications and IT systems and networks now operating across the nation

The National Broadband Plan should call on Congress and the Administration to convene a new blue-ribbon panel on emergency communications and information technology, such as that assembled by the U.S. National Science Foundation in 2003, to study the emergency telecommunications and IT systems and networks now operating across the nation. The panel should recommend to the Administration and Congress ways that those networks could be upgraded and supplemented to provide for the nation's public safety and the national defense in the 21st century.