Month: July 2016

911 Program Issues RFI on 911 Data Systems

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July 5, 2016–The National 911 Program has solicited comments on the establishment of a “nationally uniform data system, to document PSAP 911 call data and the data related to the operation of 911 systems at all levels of government within the 911 community.” A request for information notes that such a data system “was identified as a need by the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC’s) Task Force on Optimal PSAP Architecture (TFOPA)” in a final report approved earlier this year (TRDaily, Jan. 29). “The purpose of this notice is to solicit comments and ideas on all aspects of the development, implementation and operation of a nationally uniform 911 data system from the broad 911 stakeholder community, including CAD vendors, CAD interface developers, PSAP managers, local and State 911 authorities and agencies, national professional 911 associations, other Federal agencies, academia, public interest groups, and any other interested parties; and to request responses to specific questions provided below.” Comments are due Sept. 28 in docket no. NHTSA-2016-0069.

Courtesy TRDaily

 

FCC Announces Grant of AWS-3 Licenses

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The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau today announced the grant of AWS-3 licenses to four parties that participated in the auction that ended in early 2015 (TRDaily, Jan. 29, 2015). The parties are Advantage Spectrum LP, Chester Telephone Company, Emery Telcom-Wireless, Inc., and Tristar License Group LLC.

 Courtesy TRDaily

 

FirstNet Weekly Update to the Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) – July 5, 2016

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FirstNet News  

FirstNet held an open public joint meeting of the FirstNet Governance and Personnel, Finance, Technology, and Consultation and Outreach Committees on June 29 in Chicago, Illinois, followed the next day by an open public meeting of the full FirstNet Board. Additional details can be found in the press release on the FirstNet website.

FirstNet has now completed 28 State Governance Body Consultation Meetings, with a presentation to the Utah Communications Authority (UCA) in Sandy on June 28. The meeting was attended by roughly 40 public safety representatives from various local, state, and tribal organizations, including the Governor’s General Counsel, the Director of the Utah Department of Indian Affairs, Paul Patrick (PSAC Member representing the National Association of State EMS Officials (NASEMO)), and numerous police and fire chiefs from around the state. Questions centered on general timelines for adoption, the Governor’s decision, land mobile radio (LMR) vs. long-term evolution (LTE) networks, rural vs. urban build-out processes, and FirstNet network coverage, user costs, and sustainability. Continue reading →

FirstNet Official Details Customer Service Functions

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July 1, 2016–Rich Reed, who has been selected as the First Responder Network Authority’s (FirstNet) new chief customer officer, today discussed the functions of the new operation in a blog posting. He said that “with the Nationwide Pubic Safety Broadband Network rapidly approaching reality, we are … evolving the organization so it is in the best position to work with and serve the future users of the network – public safety. 

“To prepare for a customer-centric operating environment, we are re-designing the User Advocacy office to encompass all of our external-facing programs, responsibilities, and activities.  This new component, called the Chief Customer Office (CCO), will be the focal point for our stakeholder interactions and responsibilities going forward,” said Mr. Reed, who has been FirstNet’s director-state plans.

“The CCO will include many of our current User Advocacy programs, such as outreach, consultation, state plans, coordination with the Public Safety Advisory Committee and communications. The office will also encompass future customer service programs that we plan to develop, such as product management, marketing, training, and more,” Mr. Reed added. – Paul Kirby, paul.kirby@wolterskluwer.com

Courtesy TRDaily

 

FirstNet Board Approves Resolutions as Officials Focus on Operational Phase

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June 30, 2016–The First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) board today adopted resolutions approving a new lease for FirstNet’s technical headquarters in Boulder, Colo., and an updated charter for the Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC), as officials continued to stress the importance of the organization’s transitioning from a planning phase to an operational phase after it awards a contract to a partner. The resolution for the Boulder lease approves renewing the current lease for a five-year term followed by five one-year options. Officials said the terms are very favorable, especially considering the increase in rents in the Boulder area.

The resolution concerning the PSAC charter deals with, among other things, increasing the membership to include representatives of the Justice and Homeland Security departments. The PSAC plans to launch a federal working group that will include representatives from other federal agencies as well.

In opening today’s meeting in Chicago, board Chairwoman Sue Swenson said that FirstNet is “on track, on budget, on schedule,” adding that three key areas it is focusing on this year (1) are evaluating bids it received in response to its request for proposals (RFP); (2) continuing outreach, including enhancing activities to make sure that “key decision-makers .. will make an informed decision and have the facts” when deciding whether states should opt out of having FirstNet build their radio access networks (RANs); and (3) “getting the FirstNet organization ready for the transition from planning to executiMs. Swenson stressed, “We’re going to be moving into an operational mode, and so we really need to be thinking about how the organization needs to be prepared for that. So we’re working on that now so that on Day 1 after the award, we can hit the ground running.”

Officials today also discussed the decision to create a Chief Customer Office and Network Program Office as part of organizational changes to prepare for the operational phase. FirstNet Chief Executive Officer Mike Poth announced that Stephen Fletcher will head the Network Program Office. Mr. Fletcher has been on detail from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for just more than a year. At FirstNet, he has been deputy executive director-administration. At NTIA, he was associate administrator-Office of Public Safety Communications. Before joining NTIA in 2012, he was chief information officer for the state of Utah and the U.S. Department of Education (TRDaily, Nov. 13, 2012).

As officials announced yesterday, the new chief customer officer will be Rich Reed, who is currently FirstNet’s director-state plans. Continue reading →

Andy Seybold’s Public Safety Weekly Roundup, July 1, 2016

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Preparing for the Network This week FirstNet held both its committee and board of director’s meetings in Chicago. During these meetings, FirstNet put a number of items in place to better prepare for working with the chosen partner when the contract is awarded. It is adding positions and taking actions to ensure that once the award is made, both FirstNet and the partner can hit the ground running. There is still a lot of work to be done but FirstNet is not standing still waiting on the award, which is a good thing. Two of the new positions created are Chief Customer Officer (CCO), responsible for coordination with the states and Public Safety and Network Program Officer (NPO), the office that will work with the commercial partner during all phases of the build-out.

At least one of the board members mentioned comments made in the Senate sub-committee hearing about rural coverage. The law states that coverage needs to be spread out in all areas of the populated United States and as far into rural areas as possible. The RFP spells out clearly that the winning partner is to spend time building out metro, suburban, and rural areas for each of the milestones identified, and further, that rural carriers can partner with the winning partner moving forward. FirstNet also identified many rural unpopulated areas that it refers to as “on-demand” coverage, meaning cells on wheels, drones, vehicles equipped with satellite backhaul, etc. can be sent to an area as needed during an incident.

Today, in a broad-brush sense, the multitude of Land Mobile Radio (LMR) networks for Public Safety have better over-all coverage than any of the existing commercial networks and because LMR radios are much higher power, they cover better inside buildings. In reviewing some of the state-submitted coverage requirements there are some interesting differences worth noting. Some states basically indicated that the coverage they expect is about equal to the two largest commercial networks today, some went beyond that to try to mimic their LMR coverage, and a few went for broke and indicated they did not want a single square mile of their state left uncovered. It will be interesting to see how all of these various requirements will be reconciled. This needs to be done in such a way that a state cannot cry foul because another state seems to gain more in the way of coverage, and there certainly cannot be political implications as to why one state received a better coverage commitment than another state. This will be a balancing act that will take a lot of very smart people some time to work out.

If you are not yet familiar with the NPSTC organization (pronounced ‘NIPSTICK’), it is the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council and it is primarily staffed by volunteers who take on projects for the betterment of Public Safety. FirstNet, via the Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC), has received a great deal of valuable input from this organization including material defining Public Safety-Grade with which APCO also assisted. NPSTC has also delivered documents on expected network operations requirements, mission-critical PTT, and much more. All of this is at no charge to anyone, for the good of the Public Safety community. Those who volunteer hundreds of hours include some within the Public Safety community, the vendor community, and from the consulting community. The result is a set of documents that defines what Public Safety needs and wants.

The most recent document to be produced is entitled, “Intrastate Channel Naming Recommendations” and it provides recommendations on the assignment of standardized names for regional and statewide interoperability LMR channels. With most if not all radios now equipped with the ability to name channels instead of assigning a number or color code, common naming for channels is an important concept. During major multi-agency incidents and in the heat of the engagement is not the time to fiddle around trying to find the interoperability channel assigned to a given incident or sub-group of an incident. If channels are uniformly named the same, it will be easy for all personnel to find the correct channel quickly. NPSTC’s meetings are open to all who have an interest in the type of work it is doing and I suggest you sit in on one of the meetings, or at least look at the website (NPSTC.org) to get an idea of the tremendous amount of work it produces each year for the benefit of Public Safety.

I hope each and every one of you has a safe and sane 4th of July. And I hope that those in the drought-stricken west will respect mother nature and leave the fireworks to the experts this year. Andy Seybold Upcoming Webinars: I will be presenting two webinars in July the first is for The Mobility Development Group (mobilitydg.org) which is titled: Next Generation E9-1-1, FirstNet and Public Safety and it will be held on July 12, 2016 at 9 am PDT. The second one is for IWCE/Urgent Communications and the title of it is: Transition from LMR to LTE and it will be held on July 28, 2016 at 2 pm EDT. This should be a fun webinar for me and I will be exploring both the co-existence and the transition of LMR and LTE. Continue reading →