MC LTE in USA
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www.criticalcomms.com March 2020
opaqueness of the contract between
FirstNet and AT&T does not help
agencies gain confidence. We do
not know what the KPIs are or how
AT&T is stacking up.”
A Government Accountability
Office (GAO) report published in
January 2020 tends to agree. While
GAO found that AT&T was on track
or ahead of its milestones, it suggested
that FirstNet needed to tighten up its
oversight and be more transparent. It
also noted that public safety officials
“were dissatisfied with the level or
quality of information received from
FirstNet” as regards AT&T’s progress
or FirstNet’s oversight. GAO also
thought FirstNet could do more to
try and gauge end-user satisfaction.
FirstNet is not contractually
obliged to share such information,
but GAO pointed out that key
practices call for communicating
appropriate information to relevant
stakeholders and reporting on
monitoring results. Sharing more
information about the oversight
FirstNet conducts could improve
public safety stakeholder sentiment
for and support of the programme,
it stated.
In response to this, the FirstNet
spokesperson says: “The FirstNet
Authority has accepted the GAO’s
recommendations to further enhance
the FirstNet Authority’s contract
oversight and stakeholder outreach
processes and is currently working to
implement them as part of our public
safety engagement programme.”
Next steps
Looking ahead at how things might
develop, Kennedy says: “I predict
most public safety agencies in the US
will start to transition to MCPTT
in 2020 and most others will add it
no later than 2021. I see MCData
and MCVideo naturally following on
next. It will be the de facto standard
for public safety to communicate
across LTE.
“There will be significant focus
on situational awareness tools and
integration as well as user experience
in 2020. You will also see MCPTT
and more integration with other PTT
systems in 2020.”
However, other agencies are still
purchasing P25 systems, and as
Poltermann points out, they are
expensive. “This amount of
investment means there’s an
expectation of using the devices
as long as possible. There will be a
transition period of course, but for the
US it could be a decade or two.”
Nonetheless, as the AT&T
spokesperson says: “FirstNet represents
an unprecedented public-private
investment in infrastructure that
makes America a leader and public
safety a national priority.”
This is undoubtedly true, but if
the political and commercial realities
of the US market mean public safety
agencies continue to use different
carriers for MCPTT then a solution to
the current interoperability stand-off
between FirstNet/AT&T and other
providers will need to be resolved.
In 2020, the first
3GPP-compliant
mission-critical
push-to-talk
services are due
to be launched,
which should
provide public
safety agencies
with access to
improved MC
services
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