Public Safety Advocate: The FirstNet Authority Roadmap
Welcome to November 2020. The election is finally behind us, Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc in the United States, and the number of wildfires, major…
Advocate Newsletter
Public Safety Advocate: Nokia/Moon, DOD/Rivada, ESChat/Samsung, 5G Router, CA DOJ
As you can tell from the rather long title, we will cover a number of subjects this week. First among them is that NASA has…
Public Safety Advocate: 3GPP Mission-Critical Working Group, MCPTT Standards, T-Band
This week we begin with comments about The FirstNet Authority blog concerning 3GPP and my comments on the 3GPP MCPTT standard and devices in the…
Public Safety Advocate: 3GPP Standards Update, MCPTT, FirstNet Deployables
This week we will look at a comprehensive report from The FirstNet Authority about the 3GPP standards body and its work in progress, discuss Mission-Critical…
Public Safety Advocate: High-Power User Equipment, Senator Fails Public-Safety Community
This week I will discuss the High-Power User Equipment (HPUE) now approved by FirstNet (Built with AT&T). Suppliers have announced their FirstNet approvals and devices…
Public Safety Advocate: Spectrum, Spectrum, and PTT Interoperability
Welcome to October! This has been a tough year for everyone, especially for the public-safety community. However, there continues to be good news on the…
Public Safety Advocate: UK Public-Safety Broadband Network Update
The United Kingdom press and some in the United States announced this week that the UK LTE broadband network for public safety that was to…
Public Safety Advocate: FirstNet and WiFi, FCC to License 4-9 GHz Spectrum to States
I have several things on my mind this week. The first concerns how WiFi fits into FirstNet communications. The second is the sudden decision by…
Public Safety Advocate: Why Is the FCC Rushing to Strip Public Safety of Vital Spectrum?
About 4.9-GHz Spectrum The 4.9-GHz band is 50 MHz of spectrum that was allocated to public safety in 2002 on the heels of the 9/11…
Public Safety Advocate: Why Are We Waiting for a PTT Interoperability Solution?
A number of committees are working toward solving both the Land Mobile Radio (LMR)/LTE Push-To-Talk (PTT) interoperability issues and LTE/LTE PTT interoperability issues. Meanwhile, the…
Public Safety Advocate: Off-Network Communications Revisited, Rural Broadband
Welcome to September, 2020. I wonder what else 2020 will throw our way. Ignited mostly by lightening, wildfires continue in California, Arizona, and other states,…
Public Safety Advocate: Communications—The Systems Approach
BFN (Before FirstNet) and before Next-Generation 9-1-1 (NG911), the public-safety communications world was fairly organized. A few companies offered complete systems consisting of base stations,…
Public Safety Advocate: Feds Not Listening, New Products
There is a lot happening this month. Unfortunately, since Congress is taking its usual August break, there won’t be any further action to repeal the…
Public Safety Advocate: Meet the Public Safety Spectrum Alliance (PSSA)
Those who have followed public-safety communications over the past dozen or so years probably know about the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST) and the Public…
Public Safety Advocate: Congressional and FCC Missteps Keep Future Uncertain
In last week’s Advocate, I said one good thing had resulted from the pandemic because changing circumstances influenced more public-safety agencies to join the FirstNet network. I…