By Edward Parkinson, Acting Chief Executive Officer, First Responder Network Authority
Emergencies and disasters can strike any community. From the recent devastation of Hurricane Michael to massive wildfires that swept across the West Coast, far-reaching disasters cause devastating economic, public safety and health impacts. Localized emergencies also have a major impact on a community – like flash floods or active shooter situations. In counties, cities and towns across America, emergency responders prepare for these events to help minimize the effects and aid in recovery. Now, devices and apps are helping them build resilient communities.
Over the last decade, consumer adoption of mobile technology has continued to climb, making it a prime means of communicating to the public during emergencies. Smartphones are now owned in 87 percent of U.S. homes, according to CTA’s 20th Consumer Technology Ownership and Market Potential Study.
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By Lori Stone, Region III Lead, First Responder Network Authority
The Washington County Sheriff’s office is leading the nation on transforming public safety communications and is putting FirstNet to use serving rural communities. The agency was among the first in the nation – and the very first in the State of Maryland – to subscribe to the nationwide public safety broadband network.
The Sheriff’s office serves more than 150,000 residents across 458 square miles of Western Maryland. “Washington County is shaped very similar to the state of Maryland – it’s in an L-shape with the city of Hagerstown being kind of the hub in the center,” said Washington County Sheriff Doug Mullendore. “And, to respond from one area in the county to the next, even in an emergency situation, will be well over an hour.”
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By Brent Williams, Senior EMS Advisor, First Responder Network Authority
As a former paramedic, I know that saying “reliable communications are essential” is truly an understatement. It can be all the difference in patient care. After more than 30 years in the EMS field, I joined FirstNet because I know it will revolutionize the way EMTs and paramedics serve their communities. With FirstNet, EMS practitioners can communicate effectively and efficiently, whether they are treating patients at a scene or en route to the hospital. The network’s “always-on” connection links EMS professionals and hospitals by providing public safety with asset tracking and location services, push-to-talk priority and preemption, secure data sharing, and 24/7 customer support.
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By Richard Mirgon, Public Safety Consultant
How many times do we say to friends, colleagues and people we know “How can I help”? We do that more often in public safety because helping is in our core. We are service-oriented and we care about our communities. How often do we want to help, but don’t know how to help? Let me make a small suggestion that could end up being a big idea.
FirstNet is up and running. FirstNet built by AT&T is aggressively working every day to meet the commitment they made to the FirstNet Authority and to the first responder community. One key element of that is coverage. We know it is improving everyday and will continue to improve. Coverage is King as they say and we can help improve coverage. As AT&T is building out our band 14 spectrum, they are building and modifying cell sites coast to coast. Many of these sites will need local permits and approvals. This process can be extensive and is different for each community. One element that will slow this process down is when the permitting authority doesn’t understand who or what FirstNet is.
We can help by educating and briefing our local planning departments, planning commissions and elected officials about FirstNet. I am not suggesting we bypass the process. Those processes exist for a reason, but one element that can slow down a process is not understanding the intent of the request or the impact on the community. When we educate our local officials, it allows them to make better and quicker decisions. With that said it is also my belief that asking for permits to be expedited supports the community we serve.
As we all know wireline 9-1-1 is no longer the primary mode to access public safety. It is wireless 9-1-1 that accounts for 80% of all 9-1-1 calls. Each and every cell site impact someone’s life and safety. Here is how impactful a cell site is.
There are 323,448 cell sites in the US according to statista.com
There are over 240 million 9-1-1 calls made every year, 80% via wireless according to nena.org. That is about 192 million wireless 9-1-1 calls.
Each cell site processes on an average of 593 9-1-1 emergency calls a year.
That is a significant number. Now, I realize as much as anyone that the number is an average and there are sites in major cities that see more calls, with some rural sites seeing far fewer calls. However, you can’t deny that the numbers are staggering. I can’t think of a single other technology that saves or impacts more lives.
So back to my point. As the numbers show, every cell site in the US saves lives. Sites being built for FirstNet not only save lives in our community, they protect the lives of our first responders and provide access to additional lifesaving technology and information. Our first responders have become dependent on broadband data and are becoming more dependent every day. Permitting and approving cell sites should be a national and local priority.
It is time to take action once again, but this time on a local level. Reach out to your local officials, planning departments, and permitting authorities and asked that they give priority to FirstNet sites. Writing a memo, sending an email or providing a briefing to those officials is simple and meaningful. Firstnet.gov has a number of PowerPoints and information brochures to make this task easy and painless.
Again, I am not suggesting bypassing the laws and regulations. I am asking that we support those requests for FirstNet sites. That they be given priority in the permit and request process – because it matters. It makes a difference to our community and it saves lives.
(This is a corrected version of the article. we would like to thank our readers for pointing out math errors.)
Richard Mirgon is a Public Safety consultant focused on FirstNet. He is a Past President of APCO International and has over 35 years of public safety and first responder experience. For more information about the author please go to http://www.next-paradigm.com/about/

By Tom Gagnon
With state and locality budgets facing increased pressure, the prospects of transitioning equipment purchased and maintained with grant funds to a budget line item can appear bleak. However, with the correct approach, the odds of a successful transition can be greatly increased.
Following September 11, 2001, states and localities received unprecedented federal grant funding, which resulted in major acquisitions of public safety communications equipment. While greatly enhancing public safety entities’ (PSE) effectiveness, these acquisitions were often made without establishing long-term sustainment plans.
Sustainment funding became an afterthought, as states and localities hurried to secure use-or-lose grant opportunities or assumed grant funding would remain sufficiently adequate to perform sustainment. Facing myriad competing priorities, state and locality governments often accepted risk by assuming equipment maintenance, upgrade, and replacement could be accomplished—in part or completely—with grant funds.
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Abstract

Introduction: Risk management is an area of critical importance for emergency services and public safety agencies, including emergency communication centers. However, almost no information currently exists regarding litigation against, or involving, emergency dispatch.
Objectives: The primary objective in this study was to characterize the most common types of adverse events, actions, and omissions of action that lead to lawsuits against emergency dispatchers and their agencies.
Methods: The study was a systematic literature review. Research and legal document databases were searched systematically for terms relating to emergency dispatch and litigation. The only data collected were publically available records, including legal documents from state, local, and federal case files, and documents pertaining to dispatch litigation obtained from research and news databases.
Results: 84 dispatch-related legal cases were reviewed, of which five were excluded for various reasons. Multiple (two or more) calls was the most common dispatch problem named as the issue in the suit, followed by delayed dispatch or response, customer service issues or mishandled calls, and failure to provide pre-arrival/post-dispatch instructions. A median $1 million settlement or decision was awarded to plaintiffs.
Conclusions: This study identified a number of common and preventable dispatch errors that characterize the majority of lawsuits brought against emergency communication centers. Such problems increasingly leave emergency communication centers open to serious legal liability. Our findings indicate that there exists a clear, expected, and enforceable standard of practice for emergency dispatching, and that this standard is increasingly applied by both the courts and the public in judging the actions of emergency communications centers and individual dispatchers.

Topics:Abandonment|Adverse Incidents|Allegations|Defendant|Emergency Dispatch Protocols|Lawsuits|Legal Obligations|Litigation|Negligence|Plaintiff|Pre-Arrival Instructions (PAIs)|Priority Dispatch

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Abstract

ABSTRACT
In medical emergencies involving out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs), bystanders reasonably but sometimes incorrectly expect a call to 911 will result in a dispatcher guiding the caller through the steps of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). For the public safety answering points (PSAPs) providing dispatcher-assisted telephone-CPR (tCPR), data was collected in an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of tCPR and its role in patient survival. Three PSAPs, one emergency medical service (EMS) department, and sixteen fire departments from the Des Moines, Iowa, metropolitan area were surveyed. Many were eliminated from the final evaluation due to their status as volunteer departments or lack of available data. In all, one PSAP, one EMS department, and one fire department could be analyzed. Together they reported only 84 OHCAs, 13 instances of tCPR, and one surviving patient. While the data was insufficient for evaluation of the effectiveness of tCPR, it was valuable in exposing a need for the creation of a standardized data collection database.

Topics:Des Moines|Iowa|OHCA|PSAP|TCPR|telephone-CPR

Sponsored Content
The convergence of 3G and 4G private mobile networks and LMR radio communications remains a key talking point in the public safety industry. It has been a primary conversion during industry trade shows, APCO meetings, association gatherings, and in police, fire, and EMS command centers.
Even though broadband LTE networks have been around for about a decade, it may come as a surprise to many that the analog to digital transition has been a bit of a slow move and is still in process. Digital systems didn’t overtake their analog counterparts until 2017. While LTE devices used in the mission critical sector are still only a fraction compared to LMR radios, the projection is that in the next 10-20 years LTE will become the go-to mission critical technology.
As public safety networks evolve to meet the growing demands of mission critical applications, LTE and LMR will coexist for the next decade or two. Ensuring such systems can operate as they should in life-threatening situations will be challenging, as a result.
LTE Growth in Public Safety
There are a few reasons why LTE is making its move in public safety networks:
Standards Development – Mission critical communications LTE standards are developing quickly, with elements to meet the market needs being passed. Release 13, which was completed by the 3GPP in 2016, addressed the key issue of reduced latency, as well as enhancements to machine-type communications, and single cell point-to-multipoint. In 2017, Release 14 was approved and it further enhanced mission critical push-to-talk capability as well as mission critical data and mission critical video.
Data-intensive Requirements – Many public safety tasks require broadband services, such as when first responders need to access data-intensive applications, search databases, or share video or images. For example, an engine company is dispatched to a burning building. With an LTE network, the command center can send the fire fighters a floor plan, so they don’t enter the burning building blind.
LMR Still has a Voice
Despite the growth of LTE, LMR still has a strong presence in public safety networks, and that will continue. Despite the data advantages provided by LTE, there are technology trade-offs. For one, to ensure the high data rate associated with broadband networks such as LTE, the frequency spectrum used must be increased. The result is lower power, shorter range and less resistance to interference. Because of this, narrowband LMR is preferred for rural areas where these considerations are essential.
What this all means is that LMR is not going to be replaced by LTE in the near term. Cost, not surprisingly, is another reason why LMR will remain relevant. Many LMR operators have just finished converting from analog systems to digital systems such as P25, TETRA, and DMR and don’t want to invest in a new technology so quickly. Plus, for LTE networks to provide the same coverage area as an LMR system, operators will need to install many more cell sites closely together, resulting in higher equipment and maintenance expenses.
Making Test Cost-Effective
Carrying multiple instruments into the field is not ideal. Not only does it add cost to deploying and maintaining networks, it requires field technicians to learn and be adept with separate test equipment. The Anritsu LMR Master™ S412E is a battery-powered LMR field analyzer capable of supporting the complexity of testing LTE networks and mapping bit error rate (BER) and modulation fidelity of LMR networks.
The handheld analyzer combines many of the tools needed to install, maintain, and certify LTE and LMR systems into a single instrument with a common user interface. This gives technicians and engineers responsible for public safety communications systems confidence that these networks will work as expected.

Wayne Wong is the product manager for the LMR Master product at Anritsu Company. He has held various roles from Senior Hardware Design Engineer to Field Applications Engineer during his 20 years in the Test and Measurement industry. Wayne earned his Electrical Engineering degree from San Jose State University.tions Engineer during his 20 years in the Test and Measurement industry. Wayne earned his Electrical Engineering degree from San Jose State University.

By Richard Mirgon, Public Safety Consultant
By now everyone (to include the British since the story ran on BBC) knows that Verizon will, can and does throttle public safety users. This is not the first time. I have been hearing from friends in Georgia that have been throttled by Verizon in the recent path so I suspect it is happening elsewhere. We know that this problem along with many others can happen on commercial carriers because we have seen it for over 20 years. For years we in public safety fought to change this with the commercial carriers and they simply wouldn’t change the processes for public safety. Over ten years ago a number of us knew there was only one solution and that solution was to have our own public safety network and that became reality with FirstNet.
Let me be very specific about how and why FirstNet is different.
FirstNet is Public Safety. A governing board made up of public safety officials, like you, with industry experts being advised by a large public safety advisory board known as the PSAC with very broad public safety membership.
FirstNet has contracted with AT&T to build a specific mission critical public safety network using spectrum owned by public safety via licensing to FirstNet. Your spectrum, your network.
FirstNet has public safety dedicated call centers to help when needed. Many of whom have received public safety specific training and some of that training is provided by 30 year public safety veterans who I personally know and respect.
FirstNet is building a robust “Local Control” portal which public safety asked for. This is a portal where users have real-time visibility into the network, can make changes to their own user plans and most of all set or change priority levels as needed.
FirstNet does not throttle. Senior Vice President, Chris Sambar has stated this several times and his message has been clear. It won’t happen on FirstNet, your network. The best Verizon has said is that they “have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations.” Just one more thing Verizon is doing to make it your problem. When and if you have the time to make the call, you need to find the account number, find the pin, know the password. Just what a first responder doesn’t need to do during an emergency.
These are just a few of the key elements of FirstNet and these are things Verizon won’t ever do for public safety. Read Verizon’s fine print and listen to how they make their statements. They say priority when you need it. Is it on all the time, who controls it, do you? No, they do. When you need help who do you call? Do they have a call center dedicated to public safety and if they did would they guarantee it for the next 20 years? FirstNet does. Who is training the agents at Verizon’s call centers? FirstNet call centers get FirstNet public safety specific training.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of this company or any company with whom the author may be associated.
Richard Mirgon is a Public Safety consultant focused on FirstNet. He is a Past President of APCO International and has over 35 years of public safety and first responder experience. For more information about the author please go to http://www.next-paradigm.com/about/

By Kevin Nida, First Responder Network Authority Senior Public Safety Advisor
As wildfires are roaring across the West Coast, the need for connectivity amongst first responders is more crucial than ever.
Enter FirstNet.
When the ongoing Miles Fire forced the residents and community of Prospect, OR, to evacuate, the Fire Incident Management Team called in FirstNet for support. A Satellite Cell on Light Truck (SatCOLT) is deployed at base camp where nearly 2,000 first responders gather to coordinate their response efforts as the wildfire has grown over the past month.
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By Richard Mirgon, Public Safety Consultant
I find it interesting that Verizon has said the problem occurred in the Customer Service Department. I do not believe that is correct and I believe the documentation shows that not to be correct. (We have posted the document on our site.) In reviewing the email attached to the FCC filing it clearly indicates that the Verizon Account Manager was one of the individuals who was responsible and was engaged with the fire district. I have never had an account Manager who couldn’t solve a problem like this or couldn’t find the person to solve such a problem. This was not the fault of a “Customer Service Department”. The Account Manager was engaged and in the email pawned them off on customer service.
Now this gets better. I don’t want to point fingers at an individual or individuals who are doing their job that may be in accordance with company policy. If you review the emails in more detail what you will see is the name of an additional Verizon employee who was copied on this issue. This person appears to be a Verizon Vice President, according to a LinkedIn search, who was copied on the emails discussing this problem. This person either didn’t read the email because it wasn’t important or this person intentionally did not engage to solve the problem. My points are simple. Verizon executives knew or should have known failed to take action to help their public safety customer during an event that was threatening life and or property.  Secondly Verizon has intentionally taken steps to point the blame at an inanimate object the “Customer Service Department” and in a press release by a Verizon Senior Vice President is quoted as saying “…we didn’t live up to our own promise of service and performance excellence when our process failed some first responders…”. Really, “our process failed”? No Verizon as a company failed and people, your executives, failed to take action to support your public safety customer.
As to their recent announcement not to throttle.
Back in another life I worked in the intelligence community and we called this type of language a “talk around”. People talking around the subject in an attempt to avoid disclosing the truth or something they shouldn’t be disclosing. In this effort to avoid full disclosure everyone should review Verizon’s new commitment to not throttle during disasters. There is a “gotcha” in it. This line was in the San Jose Newspaper quoting a Verizon spokesperson which said, “Public safety workers would be throttled if they exceed their contractual data cap for the third consecutive month. If exceeded for the third straight month, data speeds would be reduced to 3G speeds, according to Erwin.” I got some news for Verizon. Fire season in most years is normally about 5 months out west and in California it goes on much longer. This reminds me of games children play where the rules change and there is always an exception.
I have been told, but I have not seen this document yet, that the fine print on the “new” public safety plan has a requirement that most agencies won’t be able to operationally execute on. Some of these requirements would be having the correct password, account number and pins to release any caps. Verizon fails, again, to understand that when responding to an emergency first responders must focus on saving life and property not who has the password. As a former department head overseeing public safety tech here’s one more tidbit for Verizon. Most first responders won’t know they have been throttled and won’t have time to call someone. All they will know is that it simply isn’t working and they will go to Plan B, if they have a Plan B.
And what about this announcement that, “Verizon will lift all data caps on public safety workers for unlimited data plans in California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii”. Take note, another perfect example of Verizon not understanding public safety. For those who have never been part of a western wildland event the Incident Management Teams are made up of first responders from many states. You could easily and probably do have incident teams from Colorado, Utah, Texas or anywhere working in California. What is Verizon going to do about those users data cap and how are they going to be identified? And also let’s be clear in this special treatment of a few states, disasters are still occurring in Nevada, Montana and other states. It would appear they are not as important to Verizon.
Verizon keeps saying they want interoperability with FirstNet. Why would anyone allow a company that minimizes major events, has complex terms for data plans and sees these significant issues as “process” problems, be their provider if they can’t be upfront when there is a problem? Can they be trusted to be connected to a mission critical public safety network? Not in my view.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of this company or any company with whom the author may be associated.
Richard Mirgon is a Public Safety consultant focused on FirstNet. He is a Past President of APCO International and has over 35 years of public safety and first responder experience. For more information about the author please go to http://www.next-paradigm.com/about/

By Richard Mirgon, Public Safety Consultant
Remember the Verizon commercial during the Super Bowl ( https://allthingsfirstnet.com/the-verizon-super-bowl-ad-is-problematic-heres-why/ ) telling the world how much they support public safety? Many times in the last year we have provided examples of how Verizon has failed public safety. Well like we said in our tweet Tuesday night, “you just can’t make this up.”  Verizon keeps saying to public safety “we got your back.”  Well they don’t and just because a senior vice president says so doesn’t make that true. In case you missed it and are wondering what I am talking about ( https://allthingsfirstnet.com/verizon-throttled-fire-departments-unlimited-data-during-calif-wildfire/ ) there have been multiple stories run in the last 24 hours about how Verizon throttled the data speeds of Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection Districts during a wildland fire. As firefighters were risking their lives and property was burning, Verizon throttled their data speed when they needed it most.
This is exactly why we created FirstNet. As we have said over and over and over again “a commercial network is not designed to be a public safety grade network.” Oh yes, and let’s remember Verizon said basically that same thing in a meeting in Herndon, VA around 2010. Verizon continues to try and say FirstNet is nothing more than AT&T’s commercial network, which is wrong. They continue to try and tell public safety they have also been there for public safety, which is wrong. Verizon is only trying to maintain a customer base to protect profit and stock price. I am sure if you are one of Verizon’s top paying customers you don’t experience any of these problems.
I would really like to go on about how FirstNet is different in that it is a public safety network, built to public safety needs, with public safety oversight, public safety exclusive call centers and a contract requiring AT&T to provide all those services and more, but I already said that multiple times. Instead, let’s talk about Verizon’s response as reported by BBC news (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45270854). “Verizon said a mistake had been made. However, it highlighted that the fire department had subscribed to a contract that stated data throughput would be cut after a usage limit had been hit.” Oh, I see, it was the fire department’s fault. They didn’t read the fine print or maybe they just use too much data.
I should also point out that not only didn’t Verizon have someone available to solve the problem by releasing the cap, but according to the article the solution was that they had to pay Verizon more money to solve the problem. The picture in my head is that of an incident command team standing around the command vehicle with fire burning everywhere when someone yells out “chief, did you bring the credit card, I have Verizon on the phone and I need to buy more data.”
What’s the solution? FirstNet. It is still in year one of a multiyear build, but if you have coverage today you should be calling your FirstNet representative for service before you become a victim of a commercial data network.
And one last thing. Thank you, Verizon, for once again proving that a commercial carrier is not designed to support public safety.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of this company or any company with whom the author may be associated.
Richard Mirgon is a Public Safety consultant focused on FirstNet. He is a Past President of APCO International and has over 35 years of public safety and first responder experience. For more information about the author please go to http://www.next-paradigm.com/about/

By Harry Markley, Senior Law Enforcement Advisor
I was honored to participate in this year’s National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) Annual Conference in Hollywood, Florida.
During the conference, I was part of a panel presentation about FirstNet, with executives from AT&T and representatives from Atlanta and DeKalb County, Georgia. One of the questions I got during the panel, was; “What makes FirstNet different?” After all, there are other carriers that can provide phone and data services to law enforcement.
I told a story of what FirstNet is, emphasizing that on FirstNet, public safety will have First Priority™, competing with no one for air time. FirstNet is truly different from other commercial offerings because:
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