Every day in cities and towns across the Nation, emergency response personnel respond to incidents of varying scope and magnitude. Their ability to communicate in real time is critical to establishing command and control at the scene of an emergency, to maintaining event situational awareness, and to operating overall within a broad range of incidents. As numerous after-action reports and national assessments1 have revealed, however, there are still communications deficiencies that affect the ability of responders to manage routine incidents and support responses to natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other incidents.