AI, 5G, and FirstNet Reauthorization Lead Experts’ Forecasts for 2025

By James Careless

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) to first responder communications, advances in 5G, and the reauthorization of FirstNet are the big trends that the experts see dominating public safety comms in 2025.

Those experts are Stephen Devine, Chief Technology Officer with APCO International, and Tracy McElvaney, National Sales Director for Emergent Fire & EMS Software. In an exclusive roundtable discussion with AllThingsFirstnet.com, they revealed their forecast for the year to come. In general, “I think there’ll be greater adoption and usage of technologies and new applications resulting from technological trends that continue to evolve,” said Devine. “Public safety will identify certain capabilities and find them to be beneficial in meeting their operational goals.”

AI Will Dominate

The discussion of 2025’sTech trends began with McElvaney saying, “this is a big year for standalone 5G, and I think public safety’s devices and application ecosystems are coming into alignment to enable advanced video technology.” But after this observation, both he and Devine turned their focus exclusively to AI and how it will affect public safety communications.

A case in point: “There’s a number of advances in AI that are introducing real-time translation between someone who connects to 911 with a voice call and an emergency communication center where that call can be translated into text real-time,” Devine said. “That’s right: The caller can be speaking one language into the phone and that could go through to the dispatcher in English text messages.”

Stephen Devine also sees AI stepping up as an intermediary in 911 call answering, working to prevent human operators from being swamped with duplicative calls. “We’ve got location-based AI services now that make assumptions based on callers’ location, diverting duplicative 911 calls about the same incidents away from human operators,” he said. “The AI can answer these calls by saying, ‘I see that you’re in this vicinity. If you’re calling about this accident, go ahead and leave a message here.’ If they are calling about something else from this same area, the call would be forwarded to the telecommunicator. This is an example of AI that would free up resources for humans and allow us to do our current duties better.”

“We also see AI coming into play in communications networks by providing more advanced real-time fault detection and optimization,” said McElvaney. “And then we see things from the fire operations’ standpoint — which is where Emergent is — by helping process data to make decisions more easily. You can imagine that, with the Internet of Things technology and the flood of data these devices provide, the tech industry has exponentially exploded the cognitive loading of our first responders with all kinds of situational awareness data. To make their lives easier, AI is now helping to convert that data into intelligence that can answer questions and drive decisions more efficiently; especially on the incident scene where there’s so much going on. This ensures the responders have the information they need without having to worry about how the information is created or becomes available.”

The Road to FirstNet Reauthorization

Under the provisions of the Middle Class Tax Relief Act of 2012 that created it, the FirstNet Authority (the body that runs FirstNet) is up for reauthorization in 2027. Public Safety agencies and officials across America are calling for this reauthorization to be made indefinite, so that the FirstNet wireless broadband network continues to serve first responders without interruption for years to come.

Given how slowly the wheels turn in Congress — no matter which party is in charge — the push to reauthorize the FirstNet Authority has already started. While it is paramount that Congress reauthorize the FirstNet Authority now, there are benefits to looking to the future where there is no sunset on this governance body.

“I think it’s a process,” said McElvany. “I think we’ve got to be realists and we’ve got to look at how the federal government operates. They don’t change quickly and they don’t change drastically. As well, reauthorization isn’t black and white. In other words, it’s not something that’s necessarily given or taken away, but it could be adjusted or adapted. And so I think what you will see this year leading up to 2027 are a lot of stakeholders coming to the table to say, ‘if we could adapt what we’ve done in the last seven years to more effectively deliver a solution for public safety, this is what it ought to look like.’”

Steve Devine takes a similar philosophical approach to the FirstNet reauthorization process. “The FirstNet experiment, if we could call it that, has altered the landscape in the commercial wireless space and great strides have been made for public safety,” he said. “Quite frankly, the FirstNet experiment has provided AT&T with an advantage in supporting first responders and they have delivered on improving public safety operations by providing communications to agencies and their users on a prioritized basis,” said Devine. “AT&T has certainly made a commitment in doing so, and I’d like to make sure that that commitment and its benefits to public safety don’t get lost in the reauthorization process. But I’m also a realist and I understand that the reauthorization requirement is a process, and that it’s possible there will be changes. I’d just like to be certain that the changes that take place don’t impact the responders in the field or reduce the gains they’ve realized since 2017.”

“That’s right, Steve,” McElvaney added. “It’s paramount that we don’t change in such a way that we move back to the way it was before. We need to really identify the ways to move forward for public safety long term.”

This being the case, both Stephen Devine and Tracy McElvaney are calling on first responders and public safety to make their support of FirstNet very, very clear to their Congressional members. “Absolutely,” said Devine. “Fortunately, public safety is usually not shy: If they need something, then they’re usually vocal. And if they’ve got something and they want it to stay the way it is, I think they’re going to be very vocal as to making sure that whatever changes take place don’t cause them to lose their capabilities — the technological advancements and services they’ve attained and the prioritization that they fought so long for in that space. So they’re going to be vocal about making sure that their needs will continue to be met going forward.”

What Else in 2025

AI, 5G, and FirstNet reauthorization are not the only items that our experts expect to see play out in 2025.

For instance “with the settling of the 4.9 GHz band issue and the authorized agreement the Band Manager can enter into with  FirstNet, we’ll see that move forward,” McElvaney said. “We’re going to see the stakeholder community champions begin to step up and begin to voice what they’d like to see on 4.9 GHz. It’s going to be very telling to see which private sector parties that are interested in partnering with public safety to use spectrum to certain ends, so that sharing might be better. I think we’ll start to see those voices come to light.”

Steve Devine foresees a more fundamental potential change being discussed in 2025 — one that could change U.S. cellular communications as they now stand. “I think, within the federal government and within the nation, the whole idea of spectrum access is going to be looked at again,” he said. “Technologies today have been proven to allow spectrum sharing, so there’s going to be more sharing and there’s going to be greater bandwidth available. There are certainly some national trends of spectrum sharing that could benefit public safety in sharing its dedicated spectrum going forward. We know there’s an LMR-to-LTE transition and that’s a long-term transition, but at the same time, there’s LMR spectrum that is underutilized today in certain areas that could be shared with other operators. Are there ways for underutilized public safety spectrum to be utilized and leveraged with new technologies when it’s available and when it’s not being utilized? Well, the necessary technologies are there for that now. It’s a matter of whether public policy and spectrum use can catch up with the technologies.

All told, there is a lot likely to be happening with public safety communications in 2025. Both of our experts are pumped about the possibilities: “It’s an exciting time to be in public safety communications,” said Devine. “It is an exciting time,” McElvaney agreed. “100 percent!”