The NPSTC Broadband Working Group (BBWG) is seeking public safety and industry volunteers to work on a new Task Group to help determine the requirements and definition for the phrase “Public Safety Grade” (PSG).  This definition is of critical importance to public safety agencies and to the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) which has been charged with building a nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN).

The phrase “public safety grade” has been used in several Statement of Requirements (SoR) documents relating to broadband systems and services. The intent of the PSG terminology is to convey the need for design choices that support a greater overall network reliability and resiliency to network disruptions compared to commercial networks. The goal is for the NPSBN to be equivalent to public safety land mobile radio (LMR) systems that support law, fire, and emergency medical service (EMS) operations and are commonly referred to as “mission critical systems.”

Reliability is achieved in public safety LMR systems through equipment redundancy and minimizing single points of failures.

Resiliency is achieved through careful network design, taking into consideration a variety of local environmental factors and how events such as earthquakes, wild land fires, hurricanes, floods, lightning, ice, tornadoes, and even vermin can disrupt or damage the NPSBN network.

Volunteers interested in joining this Task Group should email Volunteer@npstc.org no later than July 26.  Please include the phrase “Public Safety Grade” in your email response subject line. We also need your name, agency/organization, and contact phone number.