Government Emergency Telecommunications Service

GETS uses enhancements based on existing commercial technology GETS supports federal, state, local, and tribal government, industry, and non-governmental organization personnel during crisis or emergencies by providing emergency access and priority processing for local and long-distance telephone calls on the public switched telephone network.

GETS is intended to be used in an emergency or crisis situation when the public switched telephone network is congested and the probability of completing a call over normal or other alternate telecommunication means is reduced.

Natural disasters, power outages, fiber cable cuts, and software problems can cripple the telephone services of entire regions.

WPS is available only to designated leadership at all government levels, national security, emergency responders, and private sector critical infrastructure personnel, as approved by the NCS and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Rules and Requirements.

GETS uses these major types of networks: In accordance with Section 1(g)5 of Executive Order 12472, the NCS also performs research and development to further enhance the GETS and WPS services through the use of new packet-based technologies (such as IP, or Internet Protocol).