What we think will happen in 2012

Editors make their predictions for 2012.

Congress will reallocate the D Block and provide funding for the nationwide network — but not as much as public safety hopes.
Federal lawmakers will continue to ignore wireless 911 fund piracy.
Federal lawmakers will continue to ignore 911 funding issues.
Public safety answering points from coast to coast will find it increasingly difficult to maintain basic operations.
Americans will continue to abuse the 911 system.
The U.S.-Mexico rebanding treaty finally will be realized — because a new administration arrives in 2013, which could push negotiations back to square one if it isn’t wrapped up next year.
Tens of millions of grant dollars from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) will be returned because recipients couldn’t get their projects off the ground.
More municipalities will embrace citizen engagement.
Leaders will begin to emerge in the LTE space.
Tablets will make a bigger entrance into the enterprise as complementary devices and as devices that replace the laptop
Device security will come to the forefront with more highly publicized breaches.

Read the main article, “Failure is not an option,” to learn about myriad obstacles that threaten to not only slow the migration to next-generation technology but derail it completely.

Wireless Networks