Primer on the multi-national aspects of priority international communications policy and deployment

If this “Primer on the Multi-national Aspects of Priority International Communications (PIC)² Policy and Deployment” establishes a common understanding of what PIC is and is not, so that the other papers contributed to this Summit as well as the breakthrough sessions can consistently build on that foundation, then its purpose will have been achieved. It is imperative that high priority critical communications be completed across international boundaries. Under severe emergency conditions such as a disaster or crisis, the communications networks may well be offered much more communication traffic than the bandwidths can support. In such cases some, or most, traffic must be shed, allowing other communications to proceed. Rather than relying on a random or arbitrary mechanism for discarding a subset of the communications, a system may have a means of marking critical communications such that a higher level of probability of completions exists for such communications as compared with other message attempts on the same network. Determination of critical infrastructures for maintaining life is a matter of local policy and may include power, water, finance, and civil order as some examples. This paper addresses aspects of such Priority Communications when the origination and destination points are in different nations´ networks (international). This paper does not address the selection and transmission mechanisms used within a national network as this is a matter of local policy.