Top 5 stories: Week of Aug. 31- Sept. 4

1. “FirstNet shares more business-case information during Industry Day” – Recently-named FirstNet CEO Mike Poth described the FirstNet initiative as “a great opportunity” for potential bidders in the wireless-provider realm looking to gain access to valuable spectrum assets in less time and with less upfront costs than traditional methods, i.e. bidding in FCC auctions, during FirstNet’s second Industry Day. The bidding process, Poth said, will be different from the typical request for proposal (RFP) bid. “This is a procurement unlike many that any of us have participated in. I know that some of the war rooms throughout the country are struggling, and the capture managers are saying, ‘Just give the requirements. I’ll shred that RFP every which way but loose, and I’ll come back with a solution that meets all of those requirements.’ We are looking for your innovation, your creativity and different solutions and approach to solve those [public-safety objectives] objectives and to solve this problem.”
2. “Rockwell Collins announces plans to offer nationwide disaster communications via HF radio” – Rockwell Collins announced plans for a nationwide high-frequency (HF) radio network, ARINC UrgentLink, which is designed to provide communications between public-safety and critical infrastructure bodies when typical communication infrastructure is inoperable due to natural or man-made disaster.  Rockwell Collins currently has a pilot HF Radio network running at a large sheriff’s department, and the system will be available to other public-safety agencies on a subscription basis within a year, said Dave Chapman, Rockwell Collins product manager.

3.     “FirstNet sets bar high for cybersecurity while pursuing ambitious deadline” – IWCE’s Urgent Communications Editor Donny Jackson explains the balance FirstNet’s LTE-public-safety network must have between ensuring rock-solid cybersecurity and still remaining quickly and easily accessible for those utilizing the system for emergency-response efforts. The task will be challenging, with the FirstNet RFP deadline set for the end of the year and the regular occurrence of high-profile data breaches across the country. FirstNet will release a special notice later this month seeking input on the cybersecurity approach and conduct a proceeding to solicit input about the requirements that should be proposed.

4.     “FirstNet seeks to ‘rock the cyber world’ with security input via special-notice proceeding” – Glenn Zimmerman, FirstNet’s senior security architect, shared during the Industry Day event that the organization will issue a special notice later this month seeking responses that will lead to FirstNet developing a solution that will innovate and “rock the cyber world.”  “This will be where we will lay out the framework of what our expectation is—from an objective standpoint—for cybersecurity within FirstNet,” Zimmerman said during the Industry Day event last month. “Now, this will be as detailed as we possibly can, and we will lay out something that has never been done: We will have you develop the requirements to address the objectives, which will generate the requirements.”

5.      “Federal-state-local talks today could enable better, smoother public-safety communications transitions in the future” – As the cost, structure and operational requirements of both next-gen 911 and FirstNet become clearer, now is the time for federal, state and local bodies to gather and discuss the roles each level of government will play in the public-safety landscape, IWCE’s Urgent Communications Editor Donny Jackson writes in his Urgent Matters blog. Providing answers to the question: “What role should the federal government play in public-safety communications?” now will alleviate confusion in the future, Jackson writes.