the oversight for that? Who is bearing
down on FirstNet to say it has to
reach these counties?” I highlighted the
competition that AT&T/FirstNet has
with Verizon, and Rhodes agreed that
this will help drive this.
As a sidenote, John Monto drew
attention to the fact that several
large cities now require, as part of
the construction permitting process,
that public safety communications
have to be proved to work inside
new buildings. Horden added that
while this works very well when the
jurisdiction setting the code is tightly
aligned with the jurisdiction that owns
the radio system, in the case of the
most popular model for distributed
added that once a jurisdiction makes
the switch to mobile broadband for
voice, in the same way that some are
closely watching the work to roll out
the Emergency Services Network in
the UK, “everyone will look to see
the relative success or failure of that
jurisdiction to see where they go for
the future”.
He also asked: “Which fi re chief,
police chief, or local authority
governor, is going to be brave enough
to make that decision, knowing that
it has consequences at some stage for
their re-election? Th at’s when it’s
going to start getting interesting.”
I said that it may be the case that if
that initial transition turns out to be
a success, public safety agencies might
be able to switch quickly, given that
it doesn’t require them to roll out a
new network.
Richard Davis said an interesting
example of a hard cut-over from
LMR (iDEN in this case) to mobile
broadband “from the commercial side
that bleeds over into public safety”
is Southern Linc’s CriticalLinc LTE
network, which covers very rural areas,
“and they support a lot of the public
safety in those rural communities”
– mainly small agencies that cannot
aff ord their own systems.
The coverage question
Keith Rhodes highlighted the need for
any mission-critical system to work
inside buildings and in fringe areas.
“If you grab a radio it needs to work
immediately, it cannot work halfway
or offi cers won’t do their job. We saw
this happen in South Florida back in
the 80s when the state started building
out a radio system and they failed
to specify a portable coverage area.
Offi cers, state troopers refused to stop
vehicles because their radios would not
work. Th at’s the reality of public safety
and fi rst-responder communications in
the US today.”
He also said that until what FirstNet
promises “is proven and documented,
it’s not going to happen. I just don’t
see the rural buildout, and where’s
I just don’t see the rural
buildout, and where’s
the oversight for that? Who
is bearing down on FirstNet
to say it has to reach
these counties?
April 2019 @CritCommsToday 23
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