AT&T on Monday said first responders that are signed on to FirstNet now have access to its low-band flavor of 5G in 10 cities.
In the 10 locations, FirstNet users can tap the carrier’s sub-6 GHz 5G spectrum, and they include: Austin; Charlotte, North Carolina; Cleveland; Dallas; El Paso, Texas; Houston; Knoxville; Phoenix; Raleigh, North Carolina; and San Antonio.
AT&T had trialed 5G for FirstNet users in Houston back in April. And AT&T already opened 5G using millimeter wave spectrum (branded 5G+) to first responders via FirstNet earlier this year in parts of 38 cities and 20 venues. AT&T expects to add two more cities to that tally and 20 more venues (for a total of 40) by the end of 2021…
FirstNet Authority officials released a request for information (RFI) seeking input about direct-mode and other technological solutions to address the issue of providing broadband communications support “off-network”—when first responders are in a location not supported by FirstNet’s terrestrial macro LTE system.
“We’re looking beyond the horizon—how does this look going forward?—and pulling that into the nationwide public-safety broadband network for that device-to-device connectivity,” FirstNet Authority Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Jeff Bratcher said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications…
GM Ventures today announced its participation in the $40 million Series B funding round for RapidDeploy, a public safety technology company working to accelerate Next Generation 911.
This investment will enable RapidDeploy to help improve the public safety community’s situational awareness with a cloud-native, data-driven solution. The announcement underscores General Motors and OnStar’s commitment to working with the public safety community to support and accelerate Next Generation 911 technology adoption and to advance efforts to keep communities safer…
The decision to integrate broadband into public safety communications was not immediate for Mason County. A lot of thought and work went into the county’s testing and planning efforts, beginning in Spring 2018.
“My office manages the physical addresses for the E-911 service so we’re constantly on back roads and away from the busier areas, so we took advantage of that to do drive testing,” Gregg notes. “We said here’s your phone, here’s your device, go do your job, and report back if it didn’t work. We made it to where we were doing that work – testing broadband offerings – while we were doing other things.”
Gregg’s team tested a variety of phones and wireless hotspots while they were in the field. He recognized that performing these initial steps would save a lot of time down the road, ensuring the broadband solution selected met the community’s needs…
At the end of last week, it was announced that both LA City Fire and LA County Health Department had joined FirstNet. LA County Fire, which is part of the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS), already uses FirstNet. It seems a new agency joins FirstNet every week and the network continues to grow.
Spectrum Demand
Spectrum that can be used for wireless communications is a finite resource. In only the last few years, there has been an ever-increasing demand for this spectrum from many including broadband network operators, companies and organizations that want to deploy private networks, and those who want additional unlicensed spectrum. As a result, spectrum allocation has become increasingly difficult. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are being called upon to make some difficult decisions. This situation is further complicated by the advent of 5G, which can be deployed in the low bands (600 MHz up to 1 GHz), mid-band (1 GHz to 6 GHz), and Millimeter Wave band (20 GHz and above) (mmWave)…
When the first 911 call was made in February 1968, few imagined that our nation’s 911 system would bloom into nearly 6,000 local, state, and regional 911 centers across the country answering 650,000 daily emergency calls.
Now, despite its success in saving countless lives over the past 50 years, 911 is facing its own emergency.
The technology infrastructure that supports America’s 911 system is in dire need of an upgrade…
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.
