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 year’s IWCE conference in Las…
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 year’s IWCE conference in Las…
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 9-1-1 system and those answering…
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 systems or it might be…
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 mainstream product. Portable computers went…
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 broadband into rural America than…
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 it unanimous, all 50 states,…
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…