Public Safety Advocate: Looking Back and Looking Forward
As we enter the 21st month of the 25-year contract between FirstNet the Authority and FirstNet (Built with AT&T), the last three of this year’s Public…
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Public Safety Advocate: Presentations and Awards
On Tuesday the week before Thanksgiving, I flew to Denver to speak at a FirstNet Association (FNA) event and on Wednesday I flew home. Then…
Public Safety Advocate: LMR, FirstNet, WiFi, Just to be Clear, and More
Last week’s Advocate discussed the integration, over time, of NG9-1-1, FirstNet, Land Mobile Radio (LMR), and WiFi into a homogeneous communications system for public safety. Before…
Public Safety Advocate: NG9-1-1, FirstNet, and LMR
In early November, I will be at the International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE) Critical LTE Communications Conference in Chicago. On the second day, I will…
Public Safety Advocate: Is Disaster Communications the New Norm?
It seems as though our public safety community is spending a lot of time working with other agencies on one disaster after another. This summer…
Public Safety Advocate: IACP 2018
The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference held in Orlando this year was once again a great success. I admit I left a day…
Public Safety Advocate: T-Band Revisited, New FirstNet Authority CEO
Just to refresh your memories, the T-Band is the 470–512-MHz spectrum that was allocated to UHF-TV channels 14-20 that has since been made available to…
Public Safety Advocate: Rural Broadband Update, FirstNet Authority Personnel News
Rural Broadband I write and speak about this subject quite often. The reason is simple. FirstNet is the result of a public/private partnership that continues…
Public Safety Advocate: FirstNet’s First Hurricane
Last week’s Public Safety Advocate discussed storms, wildfires, and other reasons it is so important for as many public safety agencies as possible to be a…
Public Safety Advocate: Weather to Move to FirstNet
To all my readers who delight in finding errors in my articles (for which I am grateful), “weather” in the title is correct as this…
Public Safety Advocate: FirstNet Progress—RFP IOC Goals Compared to Today’s Network
The Request for Proposal (RFP) issued by FirstNet the Authority includes a section known as Section J-8 that deals with dates by which certain items…
Public Safety Advocate: Passing the Baton
The past several weeks have seen some interesting changes in the FirstNet Board of Directors and the U.S. Senate. First and foremost, the passing of…
Public Safety Advocate: Radio Interference in the Public Safety World
There are many different types of interference that may have an impact on existing radio communications systems whether they are Land Mobile Radio (LMR), broadband,…
Public Safety Advocate: FirstNet the Authority and More
With AT&T beating every due date, dealing with its coverage issues head-on, and deploying Band 14 ahead of schedule, not to mention certifying new FirstNet-approved…
Public Safety Advocate: APCO and FirstNet
The busiest booth at the APCO conference in Las Vegas was by far the FirstNet booth. There was plenty of great activity on the show…