NEW YORK — On Tuesday, AT&T announced it hit a major milestone with $130 billion invested into FirstNet, its communication platform designed for first responders.
The platform was created in 2017, and since then has amassed more than three million users nationwide.
In addition to the investment announcement, the company also announced a variety of new initiatives related to the platform. To combat dead zones inside structures, AT&T is collaborating with the Safer Buildings Coalition to create new code requirements and in-building communications capabilities.
The company also announced it was adding a third “emergency pathway” to reinforce the reliability of the FirstNet platform, like a “’backup’ to the ‘backup’” line,” according to a company press release.
The Sunrise Beach Police Department received a nearly $10-thousand grant to enhance communication for officers patrolling the city.
The grant is being awarded through the Missouri Department of Public Safety and will allow the police department to upgrade in-car radios in two of the patrol vehicles.
The radios operate on the new statewide public safety system and are used for communicating with dispatch, fire EMS and other agencies around the lake area…
MONROE, CT — A town program helps emergency responders get to participants quickly in times of need — without breaking down the door down to enter their home. The town’s contact and access program is endorsed by the Monroe TRIAD, police department and the Commission on Aging.
Residents who sign up for the program allow their data to be entered into a CAD (computer aided dispatch) system, which dispatchers use to give emergency responders the information they need to reach the resident or their loved one as quickly as possible…
More than 10,000 calls warning residents to flee failed when the Waldo Canyon fire exploded near Colorado Springs in 2012. Thousands of people were left without warnings as flames destroyed 347 homes and killed two people.
Emergency alert failures dogged Colorado 10 years before the Marshall fire began its destructive tear through Boulder County, devouring almost 1,100 houses and prompting fresh scrutiny of a system that’s been blamed for failures in catastrophic fires nationwide, a review of after-action reports shows.
State officials say emergency alert systems have come a long way since those disasters. But critics say they remain woefully deficient as landlines become obsolete and technological advancements heighten residents’ expectations that they’ll be warned if they’re in danger…
As public-safety officials today commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the FirstNet Authority being created, the deployment of the FirstNet nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN) has proceeded well enough that no one needs to face a firing squad, according to former Authority board Chair Sue Swenson.
“Save it for another time,” Swenson said during a recent interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications, noting that the initial five-year FirstNet buildout is expected to be finished this year. “I had forgotten that we can tell people that we don’t have to shoot them now.”
Of course, Swenson was joking—gunfire was never an actual threat. But it was Swenson who famously stated “we should be shot” if FirstNet was not completed as planned in 2022 while testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee almost seven years ago…
Learn about current efforts to continue to protect the 4.9 GHz Band for public safety as well as recent filings, key decisions impacting these efforts, and how you can support PSSA’s initiative to protect the 4.9 GHz band for public safety.
