Public Safety Advocate: Is LMR Old and Out of Date?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…
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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…
Public Safety Advocate: NG9-1-1, Dispatch, and FirstNet
Let’s Start with a Happy Birthday to 9-1-1 9-1-1 celebrated its 50-year anniversary last week. Countless lives have been saved by the expediency of the…
Public Safety Advocate: Networks with a Purpose
Fixed and wireless networks are all built for a purpose. This might be for a single purpose such as Land Mobile Radio (LMR) public safety…
Public Safety Advocate: Too Much Technology Too Fast?
Advances in technology occur in relatively short time spans. The personal computer was on the scene for only a few years before it became a…
Public Safety Advocate: Rural Broadband, the Headless Horseman!
Why the Headless Horseman? The more complex issues are outlined below, but the simple answer is that there has never been more interest in extending…
Public Safety Advocate: An Evolving FirstNet System
In early January, the FirstNet Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN) reached a milestone when the last U.S. territory opted in to FirstNet. This made…
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…
Public Safety Advocate: One Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN)
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…
Public Safety Advocate: FirstNet in 2018
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…