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…
One hears phrases like “communication is key” and “we need an open line of communication” so often in everyday life that it has become a cliché. But, when it comes to public safety and first responders, this cliché is a stark reality.
From the moment the call comes into the 9-1-1 center, a metaphorical, and literal, switch is flipped. Without reliable communications, that call can’t be dispatched, and those officers can’t respond. Fortunately, grant funders on both the federal and state level are aware of the necessity of reliable radio communications and have provided numerous resources for public-safety agencies…
As data grows dramatically in scale and complexity, existing analysis tools struggle to keep up. Within the public safety sector, the stakes are raised as people’s lives and livelihoods are at risk. Real-time information from traffic cameras, IoT sensor networks, and even health monitors can influence life-or-death decisions during emergency response. When that data is overwhelming or confusing, it impedes the effectiveness of this response and disrupts situational awareness. Fortunately, AR offers a new opportunity for much-needed innovation in analytics and visualization that hopes to make an immediate and significant impact on first responder operations and communications…
First, some clarification. “Mission-Critical Push-To-Talk” (MCPTT) is the form of Push-To-Talk (PTT) the 3GPP standards body developed in accordance with its PTT standard. However, networks, including FirstNet (Built with AT&T), are not using the term “mission-critical.” I seem to have confused some readers last week and I have been fielding questions about Motorola’s new offering, which, according to Motorola, will be fully-compliant with the 3GPP standard except it does not support off-network communications (ProSe).
Samsung developed the first PTT to meet the 3GPP standard and it is being offered on FirstNet as “FirstNet PTT.” Motorola’s offering will be the second 3GPP-compliant PTT application available on FirstNet. While it meets the 3GPP PTT standard, it will not use the term “mission-critical” either…
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.
