Public Safety Advocate: PTT Interoperability—Sweet Spot for FirstNet?
First, let me be very clear, this is NOT about Mission-Critical PTT (which may someday be available and used for dispatch, day-to-day patrols, and local incidents)….
Advocate Newsletter
Public Safety Advocate: FirstNet and H.R. 3994
FirstNet (Built by AT&T) is required to provide public safety broadband in rural America. Recently, AT&T accepted the challenge and committed to invest an additional…
Public Safety Advocate: FirstNet Progress and Coverage Issues
It appears from information provided by FirstNet that more than 1,000 public safety agencies have signed on to the network and are commencing to put…
Public Safety Advocate: LMR and LTE, Not Either Or!
[Editor’s Note: This week’s newsletter is being published early due to impending cataract surgery and recovery.] Sometimes what we are trying to convey is interpreted…
Public Safety Advocate: FirstNet and Interoperability
During speeches at the recent PSCR meeting in San Diego, two people made points that started me thinking about what lies ahead for FirstNet. The…
Public Safety Advocate: PSCR, PSTA, and More
This week I attended part of NIST’s Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) yearly event in San Diego. At this event, the PSCR brings many of…
Public Safety Advocate: FirstNet Everywhere, Partnerships (Again)
I just returned from the largest amateur (ham) radio convention in the United States, held each year near Dayton, Ohio or, to be precise, at…
Public Safety Advocate: Public/Private Partnerships
Before FirstNet, those in the public safety community who were working toward the goal of a nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN) understood that even…
Public Safety Advocate: Is LMR Old and Out of Date? LTE the Future?
For the past few weeks I have been talking with folks in D.C., states, and locally about FirstNet and if and when it will replace…
Public Safety Advocate: Spectrum Wars
Some of public safety’s spectrum is part of a larger war between Congress, NTIA, the FCC and, of course, all of the public safety community…
Public Safety Advocate: Too Early for LMR vs. FirstNet Rhetoric
It appears as though the more public safety agencies join FirstNet the more those following the progress as “outsiders” (not public safety personnel) are making…
Public Safety Advocate: Batteries in the Field
When we add smartphones and tablets to the mix of public safety communications devices we are adding yet another set of devices that run on…
Public Safety Advocate: Back to the Fray
For the past two weeks I have been sidelined with a nasty infection I appear to have brought home as a souvenir from IWCE in…
Public Safety Advocate: T-Band, IWCE, FirstNet
T-Band Call to Action The T-Band (470-512 MHz) is spectrum used by both the public safety community and business users in 11 metro areas of…
Public Safety Advocate: From One IWCE to the Next
It seems as though AT&T has had the FirstNet contract forever, especially since many agencies are already up and running on FirstNet. Yet at last…