You're watching CBS 17 Plus. CBS 17 News presents Local Matters. The ability to call 911 and send pictures of the scene, drone warfare and its impact on North Carolina's military bases and economy. Plus, staying connected in our state's rural counties. All topics I recently discussed with Congressman Richard Hudson and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr for this week's Local Matters.
Representative Hudson, I appreciate you being here and certainly, Chair Carr, thank you very much for taking the time to stop by our little studio here and have a big conversation about something that's pretty significant and really important, and that's public safety. All you have to do is listen to the scanner in this newsroom and you know that our 911 centers could really use an update, right? These were built for lines called, things called telephone lines. Kids today don't even know what those are that are connected to the wall. They really not been upgraded, right, in many years.
Especially when you look at technology today and what smartphones can do.
Chairman Carr, can you tell me a little bit about what this initiative for next generation 911 is?
Well, first of all, it's great to be back in North Carolina. It's great to spend time with you. Chairman Hudson, he heads up the subcommittee that oversees the FCC. So, I'm always glad to follow him around and join him and he's doing some great work back in Washington. 911 is so important. Most people don't think about how that technology works. They just pick up the phone, they dial 911, and maybe if they think about it, they think maybe it's magic or pixie dust. But behind the scenes, there's a tremendous amount of technology. In many cases, it's 20, 30, 40 years old technology that starts to fail. But North Carolina is actually ahead of the curve. They have one of the best 911 systems. They're upgrading NG 911. Again, a lot of that goes back to Congressman Hudson, the work he's doing in Congress to make sure that the policies are in place that we're seeing these tech transitions, we're seeing these upgrades because you may dial 911 once your entire life, but it's going to be the worst probably moment of your life, and you want to make sure it works. And so, we're putting North Carolina first in that effort. We visited a number of 911 call centers today and yesterday to make sure that things are heading in the right direction here.
Yeah, we've got some video of the tour you did yesterday. Representative Hudson, talk to me a little bit about, you know, you live in North Carolina, you're all over the state. What are the needs you're hearing from operation centers, 911 operation centers, county by county and the state, frankly?
Well, a couple things. Number one is access to broadband. You know, there's still a lot of gaps out there in North Carolina. And so, we're working hard to try to fill those gaps. We've got a program called the BEAD program that is putting, you know, tens of millions of dollars into expanding into rural areas and so that's a big priority. But on the 911 side, I want to make sure that we have the best technology possible at our 911 centers because what does new technology mean to a citizen sitting out there listening to us? It means seconds in response time versus minutes of response time. And in many cases, that could be the difference between life and death.
And I do want to get back to the rural part of this when it comes to broadband and accessibility for telephones as well or cell phones as well as the internet. I want to get into something a little more tangible so people at home really understand when we talk about this upgrade. It's fascinating when I read about it. It's the ability for a 911 caller, right, to use their cell phone when they're calling 911. They can take a picture of the scene, whether it's a house fire, a car crash, whatever it might be. And that really gives the folks at the 911 call center an opportunity to say, 'Hey, this is a, here's our assessment, fire ladder number nine' or whatever it is. That's a big game changer.
Yeah, we talk about it generally. It's NG 911 or next generation 911. There's a lot to it. First of all, one thing you can do is you can text 911. The general branding that we say is call if you can, text if you can't. But texting is now available all across North Carolina to 911. So, if you're in a situation, if there's an abduction, if you're hiding from someone, if you don't want to make a lot of noise, you are able to text 911. And we do want to make sure that people have that. Photos and videos are going to be a part of that as well. And I think that's principally going to be helpful for the actual first responders so they know what type of situation that they're going to be going into.
Let's talk about stakeholder input because that's something that your office or the commission has recently brought to light. You want more input from stakeholders. When we talk about stakeholders, I'm assuming that means the folks who operate these systems.
Yeah. No, exactly right. I mean, look, you look at all the technology upgrades that are happening right now across the entire communications ecosystem. You've got new generation of fixed wireless. We've got this new generation of low earth orbit satellites like Starlink. So, there's a lot of changes and upgrades, but that basic 911 system really hasn't undergone many upgrades again in 20 or 30 years. So we at the FCC are starting a proceeding to seek comment on what should the right policy be so that 911 works not just today but 5 years, 10 years, and that it matches the innovation that we're seeing in many other sectors because we don't want to see 911 lag behind and end up being, you know, a slow portion of the network.
Congressman, where does the funding come from and are you getting bipartisan support on this?
Well, that's always the tough part, right? How you going to pay for it? And you know, a lot of people think Washington's got plenty of money. Well, Washington has no money. The money comes from your pocket, goes to Washington. Washington takes their cut and sends you some of it back if you're lucky. And so, funding is a big issue. And so that's one of the things we're working, you know, I've worked very hard to make this a bipartisan issue. Republicans and Democrats understand the importance of this. When someone calls 911, I don't care if they're Republican or Democrat, we want to take care of them. And so, I've been working with Democrats in Congress to try to identify funding. The issue is a lot of states like North Carolina have made great progress in moving towards next generation 911, but there are still areas of the country where they're using the older technology and they don't have access to it. And so, how do we provide help for states like North Carolina on the operational side, but how do we help other places invest in the infrastructure they need to use NG 911? And in the past, we've used profits from spectrum auctions. And now we're looking for other creative ways to find the money. We think it's going to take somewhere between five and nine billion dollars. That's a big number.
During Helene in western North Carolina, now just more than two years ago, there was a horrific failure in terms of interagency communication. Not because they didn't want to or weren't trying to, they just couldn't because the phone lines were down and they didn't have satellite phones and all these sorts of things. Do you think this will help, you know, if we get into a situation like a Helene again?
Well, Helene was obviously a unique situation. A big part of it was, you know, we've had hurricanes in the past. I mean, you know, in North Carolina and our state's pretty good at responding, but we've never had a storm where because of the altitudes we were talking about. When the clouds hit the altitudes, they dumped all the water at one time and it all rushed downhill. And so, you wiped out everything.
All the infrastructure. And so, it was a unique problem set for us. But there was also some good news out of that. One of them is our statewide 911 system because of the way it's set up. We were able to still receive 911 calls. So if you lived in one of those mountain counties and you dialed 911, the phone may have rung in Onslow County down east and the 911 operator there was able to then radio back and dispatch a police or fire back in your county. And so the system actually worked. But there were breakdowns, you know, and we have a system called FirstNet, which I'm in the process of reauthorizing right now, where first responders have interoperable radio systems. Well, those got wiped out too with everything else. But AT&T, the vendor, actually rushed in mobile services to actually get that service back up and running. So, there was a day or so where everything was out, but we learned a lot of lessons about how to quickly get that system in place, either through mobile satellite or mobile systems or by using satellite connections. And so I think the future, as the chairman said, for telecommunications involves satellites as a backup and as those capabilities get better that gets better and better. But we learned a lot of lessons from Helene.
But we also were, North Carolina was better off than a lot of places would have been in that kind of situation.
Oh, there's no question about that.
Chair Carr, I do have another question for you regarding NG 911. So, as this gentleman does his work to try to get it funded, have you had conversations with the president about the importance of this and moving forward with this sort of technology, whether it's in North Carolina or across the country?
Yeah, obviously, you know, President Trump leans in very heavily when it comes to law enforcement and public safety and making sure that we're doing everything we can at the FCC to support that. In fact, right when I was tapped by President Trump to be chairman of the FCC, the first visit that I took was to western North Carolina to Chimney Rock, Bat Cave, Lake Lure, that area. And you saw just the massive devastation of water just literally taking out cell towers. So, I was able to get back there this spring, and they're putting in a brand new cell tower to not just get communications back to where it was, but to improve that situation. But we're always going to make sure that from the perspective in Washington and the White House, that the folks here in North Carolina have the support they need.
We're going to take a really quick break and when we come back I want to talk about drones and warfare and some of the concerns that both of you have. So, we'll be right back. CBS 17 News presents Local Matters.
Something the world started to become more aware of with the Ukraine-Russia war and even more so now with the war with Iran, and that is the use of drones in warfare. Is there training going on with our own military to match what we're seeing with our adversaries or particular adversaries and is that happening at one of the biggest bases in the world in your backyard, in your district, Fort Bragg?
Well, I am Fort Bragg's congressman, so this is something I care deeply about. And you're exactly right. The nature of warfare has changed. And the new warfare is robotics, drones, unmanned, aerial, ground, and water. And there are lessons being learned every day in Ukraine that we're able to learn from and we're trying to apply those to our military to prepare for the next battle. And the bottom line is we're behind where we need to be in the construction of drones, in the training and tactics and use of them, and then pushing that down into, in my case, the Army itself at Fort Bragg. A lot of work's being done. The president has stood up a new command, unmanned command, which I think is a great thing.
Yeah. Just happened this week. And so I'm still trying to get details on exactly what that looks like, but I'm very excited. You know, President Trump has taken this very seriously and has folks at the Pentagon who are working this problem set. And so it's very complicated. It's how do we develop a manufacturing capability in America so that we can manufacture the things we need for our military and then how do we set up the doctrines, both offensive and defensive, on how to use these in future warfare and then how do you train the force to use these? And so it's both how do we use drones in warfare offensively? How do we protect our troops when they're deployed from that potential? It's a huge problem set that the president has taken very seriously and that we're going after in a big way. But the good news for North Carolina is we are emerging as the Silicon Valley of drones.
