Public Safety Advocate: Interoperability
After publishing last week’s Advocate, I received some emails and questions about the whole interoperability issue and why it is a problem for public safety and not for commercial cellular…
After publishing last week’s Advocate, I received some emails and questions about the whole interoperability issue and why it is a problem for public safety and not for commercial cellular…
The recent milestone of all 50 states and 5 of the 6 U.S. territories having opted in to the FirstNet NPSBN is significant and signals widespread support for nationwide public…
We ended 2017 with AT&T, the RFP award winner for the FirstNet network, with true network pre-emption already in place across not only Band 14 but also across all AT&T…
Final Numbers: 100% of the States Have Opted In! Opted in by Notice from the Governor: States, 50 + D.C.; Territories 2 Opted in by No action from…
December 2017 December is an important month for FirstNet, the states, and the public safety community. Already this month, we have seen more states opt in to FirstNet before the…
It has been an interesting few weeks. As of now, FirstNet/AT&T has 36 of the 56 states and territories opted in, New Hampshire has opted out, and the deadline for…
There is still a lot of confusion out in Public Safety and elected official land about the future of Land Mobile Radio (LMR) as FirstNet is deployed, and there is…
When FirstNet was formed by Congress in 2012, the idea was to create a nationwide, fully interoperable, broadband network that gave public safety absolute priority. Congress also provided a secondary…
I hope everyone who was able to take time off for Thanksgiving enjoyed the holiday and I want to thank all the public safety personnel who worked last Thursday so…
Last week I attended and moderated a panel at the IWCE LTE Communications forum in Dallas. The event was well attended, the panel sessions were very good and informative, and…
The law that created FirstNet is very clear when it comes to states and territories opting in or out of FirstNet. There are two ways to opt in: The governor…
The T-Band as it is referred to, is radio spectrum at 470 MHz to 512 MHz and in most of the United States, it is where TV channels 14-20 are…
As of today, 27 states and territories have opted in to FirstNet and it appears as though more are preparing to make the move. Once your state opts in, what…
States have until December 28, 2017, to decide to either opt in or opt out of FirstNet. There is a third option available, which is a passive opt in, meaning…
A number of people within the various states and the public safety community are not happy with the coverage AT&T/FirstNet is offering on day one. Perhaps if they had a…