FirstNet Making Progress, Attentive to Needs of Public Safety, Board Members Say
FirstNet is developing a road map to enhance its network, “which will be driven by the needs of the public safety community,” officials said Wednesday during the board’s quarterly meeting, streamed from Jackson, Mississippi. Chairman Edward Horowitz and other FirstNet officials said the network’s primary goal is to be as useful as it can be for public safety agencies that subscribe.
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“It was only two years ago we awarded the contract to deploy FirstNet to AT&T,” Horowitz said. “We’re setting the next phase.” Feedback from public safety is “shaping” the network, he said: “It’s very important to understand. We’re not telling people what to do.”
Everything the authority is doing will take time, Horowitz said. “We’re running a marathon here, we’re not running a sprint,” he said. “The thing just started. … Everybody says, ‘OK, are we done yet?’”
“Public safety will continue to be in the driver’s seat as we enter this next phase,” said Chief Technology Officer Jeff Bratcher.
In its early days, the system faced questions about whether first responders were being ignored. Story County, Iowa, Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald, an ex-board member, made headlines when he questioned whether first responders were being frozen out of the decisions the board was making (see 1306050055).
Board member Robert Osterthaler, former CEO of SES Government Solutions, said he has been involved in the rollouts of other big networks. “I can’t think of any other example … that’s been done on time or ahead of schedule and on the cost profile and is actually performing as it’s supposed to,” he said.
FirstNet is active on standards development, Bratcher reported to the board. “FirstNet coordinates all of our activities across multiple [3rd Generation Partnership Project] working groups,” he said: Contributions from FirstNet will be included in upcoming standards. There is a growing understanding “this is a large marketplace,” he said.
The work on standards is critical, Horowitz said. “You kind of have to be in the room when the decisions are made, otherwise you’re not going to get what you want,” he said. “Because it’s a world forum, it’s not just FirstNet showing up, you do have to get … willing allies.”
The network is using its Boulder, Colorado, lab to test how the network will work in real-world situation, Bratcher told the board. “We can now load a cellsite with thousands of simultaneous data sessions and ensure that the FirstNet subscriber’s priority and pre-emption features are working as designed.”
A tech team was at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where there was lots of interest in FirstNet, Bratcher said. FirstNet is working in cooperation with AT&T with app developers and device-makers worldwide, he said. “We heard from public safety that achieving a rich and diverse application and device portfolio is vital to the success of their network.” Apps are being tested and added to the FirstNet catalog, Bratcher said. Seventy-nine devices have been certified for use on the network, up from about 10 a year ago, he said.
Vice Chairman Richard Stanek asked how FirstNet is doing in signing up federal law enforcement agencies. Dave Buchanan, FirstNet executive director-public safety advocacy, said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms is among the largest federal users and largest FirstNet customers.
FirstNet announced Wednesday a memorandum of understanding with the University of Mississippi Medical Center. They'll work together “on innovation for emergency medical care and response as well as mobile broadband for rural first responders.”