Government Emergency Telecommunications Service: Priority, WPS, and TSP

The Government Emergency Telecommunications Service, known as GETS, is a free federal priority calling program that gives authorized emergency responders and national security personnel a much better chance of completing landline phone calls when networks are overloaded by a disaster or crisis. It is run by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) inside the Department of Homeland Security. Users dial a special access number, enter a 12-digit PIN, and the call is routed with priority through the public switched telephone network. Enrollment and use cost nothing.¹

How a GETS Call Gets Priority

GETS runs on the ordinary landline network, but it flags each authorized call with a priority marker in the signaling system. Every routing point along the way sees that marker and treats the call ahead of regular traffic. The service uses the dedicated 710 area code, reserved in the North American Numbering Plan in 1983 for government emergency telecommunications and switched on September 30, 1994.²

When the network recognizes a GETS call, three things happen. Alternate carrier routing kicks in, redirecting the call to a different long-distance carrier if the first one is congested. Call queuing holds the call for up to 30 seconds while waiting for an available circuit. And the call is exempted from the network-management controls carriers use to throttle traffic during overload.³

GETS does not cut anyone off. It finds and reserves available capacity for a new call; it does not disconnect calls already in progress.⁴ The service is designed to achieve at least a 90 percent call-completion rate during congestion,⁵ and in real events it has frequently done better. During Hurricane Michael in October 2018, more than 874 GETS calls went through at a 98.51 percent completion rate.⁶

How to Place a GETS Call

The manual procedure is short. Dial 1-710-627-4387. Wait for a tone. Enter your 12-digit PIN. Wait for the second prompt. Dial the ten-digit number you want to reach.⁷ If a phone system blocks the 710 area code, the back of each GETS card lists carrier-specific toll-free alternate access numbers.³

CISA also offers the PTS Dialer app for iOS and Android. It stores the PIN, adds the access number and destination number automatically, and lets the user choose GETS only, Wireless Priority Service (WPS) only, or a combined WPS+GETS call for priority across both wireless and wireline segments. The app has an auto-dial mode that sends digits four seconds after the access number, with a manual fallback for heavy congestion.⁸

CISA encourages periodic test calls to 1-703-818-3924 so users stay familiar with the steps before they need them in an emergency.⁷ A lost or stolen card, or a PIN that may have been exposed, should be reported to the 24-hour assistance line at 1-800-818-4387.⁹

Who Can Enroll

GETS is available to personnel with national security and emergency preparedness responsibilities. That includes federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government, non-governmental organizations, and private-sector organizations in any of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors designated under Presidential Policy Directive 21, such as healthcare, energy, financial services, communications, emergency services, transportation systems, and water.¹⁰

Eligibility is not limited to senior executives. It reaches continuity-of-operations staff, department heads, emergency management personnel, subject matter experts, mission-critical front-line workers such as law enforcement officers and firefighters, and media relations staff.¹ Each subscriber is assigned one of five priority categories that determines how network resources are allocated, from executive leadership at the top down to disaster recovery personnel.¹⁰

Organizations start by contacting the CISA Priority Telecommunications Service Center at 866-627-2255 or emailing ecd@cisa.dhs.gov.¹ In the financial sector, sponsorship comes through the entity’s primary federal regulator; the Federal Reserve, for instance, reaches out to clearly eligible institutions and invites them to nominate individuals. There is no fee, and GETS cards do not expire.¹¹

How GETS Relates to WPS and TSP

GETS is one of three Priority Telecommunications Services CISA manages, and each covers a different piece of the communications picture.

GETS prioritizes voice calls on wireline networks.
Wireless Priority Service (WPS) prioritizes voice calls on cellular networks. On a WPS-enabled device, users dial *272 before the destination number.
Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP) requires carriers to prioritize the physical installation of new voice and data circuits and the restoration of existing ones after an outage. TSP works on infrastructure, not individual calls.

GETS and WPS complement each other but do not automatically chain together. A call that begins on a cell phone under WPS loses that priority when it crosses onto the landline network, so a mobile-to-landline call may need both services active to keep priority end to end. Neither service guarantees completion, and both require the underlying network to be powered and functioning.⁴ All three programs are administered through the GETS/WPS Information Distribution System (GWIDS), the online portal organizations use to enroll users and manage accounts.¹²

Performance in Real Emergencies

GETS has been used in every major domestic emergency since it went live in 1994. During the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, roughly 300 GETS calls went through while network traffic ran at three times normal volume. On September 11, 2001, call volumes surged to 250 percent of normal and significant infrastructure was destroyed, yet GETS remained available to authorized users throughout the day. Florida emergency managers used GETS during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to work around damage-related congestion.⁵

During Hurricane Michael in 2018, WPS posted a 99.54 percent completion rate across more than 438 wireless priority calls alongside the 98.51 percent GETS rate, and CISA processed 50 expedited GETS cards and 317 expedited WPS activations to support the response.⁶ CISA’s 2025 Year in Review reports that the agency connected more than two million priority calls during that reporting period and enrolled nearly 250,000 new users.¹³

Legal Basis

Authority for GETS traces to the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. §606), which empowers the President to address national security and emergency preparedness telecommunications. The current governance framework comes from Executive Order 13618, signed by President Obama on July 6, 2012, which replaced Executive Order 12472 and moved management of GETS and the other priority services to the Department of Homeland Security. The order directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a management plan covering GETS, WPS, TSP, and the Next Generation Network Priority program.¹⁴

Unlike TSP and WPS, which are governed by FCC rules in 47 CFR Part 64, GETS operates through contractual arrangements between DHS and telecommunications carriers rather than FCC-imposed requirements.¹⁵

Where GETS Is Headed

GETS was built for the traditional telephone network, and communications keep shifting to IP-based systems. CISA’s answer is the Next Generation Network Priority Services (NGN PS) program, which is meant to extend priority treatment beyond PSTN voice calls to packet-based voice, video, data, and cloud services across wireline, wireless, and satellite networks.¹⁶

The first phase moved voice priority from circuit-switched to packet-based networks. As of October 2025, CISA reported it was delivering the third tranche of voice capabilities in a 4G environment, ahead of schedule and under budget. The second phase focuses on multimedia applications and cloud services, developed in coordination with standards bodies including 3GPP, ATIS, and IETF, along with 5G operators and broadband cable providers. The program currently serves roughly 10 million users across the 16 critical infrastructure sectors, with near-term goals including interoperable priority communications for the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics.¹⁷

1
InfraGard. GETS FAQ
2
NANPA. Planning Letter PL-609
3
CISA. How It Works: The Government Emergency Telecommunications Service
4
NPSTC. Wireless Priority Service
5
GAO. GAO-09-822
6
CISA. DHS Priority Telecommunications Services Help Calls Go Through During Hurricane Season
7
Virginia Department of Health. GETS Calling Job Aid
8
CISA. Preparedness PTS Fact Sheet
9
CISA. GETS Welcome Page
10
CISA. PTS Eligibility Fact Sheet
11
FBIIC. GETS/WPS Policy
12
CISA. Priority Services
13
CISA. 2025 Year in Review
14
Obama White House Archives. Executive Order: Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions
15
Federal Register. Review of Rules and Requirements for Priority Services
16
CISA. The Next Frontier: Priority Services Capabilities for Multimedia Applications and Information Services
17
Federal News Network. CISA Looks to Bring Data Advances to Emergency Communications