Weather to Move to FirstNet
To all my readers who delight in finding errors in my articles (for which I am grateful), “weather” in the title is correct as this week’s Public Safety Advocate deals with storms, wildfires, volcanoes, and all forms of nature-made and man-made disruptions to our normal lives. This is also the week we all remember where we were on that tragic 9/11 day, which in some ways underscores the work public safety had begun in the search to find a way to provide better interoperability between and among agencies.
For the public, the 9/11 Commission, and the U.S. Congress, what happened in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and how many lives were lost that might have been saved began to bring home an awareness of the plight of public safety and the inability to communicate from department to department or even in some cases between fire and law in the same jurisdiction. This was followed by Katrina and other major incidents requiring multi-agency responses, all of which were hampered by the lack of inter- and intra-agency communications.
The 9/11 attacks took place in 2001, but FirstNet was not formalized by Congress and the President until February 2012. Today, seventeen years later, it is real. FirstNet is up and operational providing vital additional communications services to the public safety community in the way of data and video to and from the scene of an incident. It is also capable of non-mission-critical Push-To-Talk (PTT), which is and should be considered as an important piece of the interoperability puzzle. FirstNet has been designed as the nationwide broadband system for public safety. Most interesting to me is that a team of people and their vehicles can be dispatched across multiple states and remain in touch with their local dispatch center for the entire trip. When they arrive, they can become part of the incident communications efforts and still report to their own dispatch center thousands of miles away. This is certainly not the case with Land Mobile Radio (LMR) systems in general although there are nationwide channels available for LMR use. Read the Entire Post Here
Here are the articles I have selected with the help of Discovery Patterns artificial intelligence
Polaris Wireless Demonstrates Floor-Level Vertical Location Accuracy
Odessa American Sep 13 14:10
… law enforcement and government agencies, and location-based application companies with a U.S. focus on public safety (FCC-mandated E911), …
FCC, Broadcasters & Associations Prep for Florence
Radio magazine Sep 13 14:10
WASHINGTON Ahead of Hurricane Florence’s projected landfall in the Carolinas, the Federal Communications Commission’s Public Safety and …
Ajit Pai Again (Falsely) Claims States Are Powerless To Protect Broadband Consumers
Techdirt Corporate Intelligence Sep 12 15:03
For much of the last year ISPs like Comcast have been successfully lobbying to eliminate most meaningful oversight of their broadband monopolies. On the federal level, that has involved convincing Ajit Pai to neuter the FCC’s authority over ISPs, then shoveling any remaining authority to an FTC that’s ill-equipped to actually do the job . On the state level, that has involved lobbying Pai (who again was happy to oblige) to include language in the…
How the Internet of Things is helping governments prepare for Hurricane Florence
WRAL Tech Wire Sep 12 14:11
Charlotte has led the way in deploying FirstNet, a new public safety broadband network that assures first responder communications and critical …
Thieves target broadband-backup batteries, put public safety at risk
KIRO Seattle Sep 12 13:55
Police suggest the crime is new to this area, but across the country thieves have been targeting cell towers for their heavy Alpha-cell batteries.
Spirent Approved as Authorized Test Lab for New CTIA IoT Cybersecurity Certification
Odessa American Sep 12 13:50
The program is based on IoT security recommendations from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the …
FCC Inaccurately Collects Data on Broadband Access in Tribal Lands
InsideSources Sep 11 22:05
Because FCC uses these data to measure broadband access, it also …
AT&T: FirstNet Momentum: More Than 2500 Public Safety Agencies Subscribed
DiversityInc Sep 11 17:45
Originally Published by AT&T. More than 2,500 public safety agencies across the country have joined FirstNet. This is nearly double the number of …
Honoring the First Responders Who Led the Way
EMSWorld Sep 11 17:10
FirstNet, America’s nationwide public safety broadband network, is one of those efforts that derived from the events on 9/11. For the past six years, …
FCC to Host Webinar on Disaster Preparedness
MissionCritical Sep 11 10:03
The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Public Safety and Homeland Security bureaus will host a webinar Sept. 27 on disaster preparedness for local and state officials. read more
Statement by US Conference of Mayors CEO & Executive Director Tom Cochran on FCC’s Order …
Benzinga Sep 10 20:35
… as well as an increased risk of right-of-way and other public safety hazards. “We believe the courts will conclude that FCC’s proposals are based on …
FCC Seeks Comment on Proposed Z-Axis Metric, CTIA Report
RadioResource Media Group Sep 10 17:30
The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is seeking comment on the vertical accuracy (Z-axis) test bed report submitted by CTIA and a …
Vodafone to double its NB IoT European footprint by 2019
Total Telecom Sep 13 14:25
Vodafone’s European network will be the biggest Narrowband Internet of Things network in the world when the network expansion project completes.
5G: T-Mobile, Ericsson ink $3.5 billion deal, Verizon, Vodafone advance
Sep 12 14:29
In further related news, Vodafone is to double the number of European cell sites in its 5G Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) network by the end …
APCO Receives $30,000 Scholarship Grant from Motorola Solutions
MissionCritical Sep 11 10:03
The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International received a $30,000 grant from Motorola Solutions Foundation. The grant is administered through APCO’s Commercial Advisory Council (CAC) Scholarship Program, which makes scholarship funds available to public-safety communications professionals who participate in APCO Institute training and attend an APCO International event. read more
Federated Wireless at Forefront of Wireless Industry Charge Towards CBRS Commercialization
Business Wire Sep 10 16:13
#CBRS</a>–Building on strategic partnerships with Charter Communications, American Tower and ARRIS, Federated Wireless continues to lead the wireless industry to CBRS commercialization. The Company today announced two important milestones in its charge to commercializing shared spectrum: the submission of its proposal for Initial Commercial Deployments on the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum band to the FCC, and the introduction of a new training program f