ADCOM911 realizes benefits of Band 14 LTE during local concert

ADCOM911 conducted a ceremony in June to announce the launch of its LTE network, but construction of the fixed system is not complete in the area around Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, so Adams County opted to use the deployable unit from General Dynamics C4 Systems to provide Band 14 LTE coverage in the concert area, Brunswig said.

Having relevant applications to use and the requisite bandwidth to support them is a powerful combination for first responders, according to Chris Wergin, Intrado’s director of business programs for the company’s government solutions division.

“Having a private LTE network that can push a lot of bandwidth is great, but with no applications or a facility to operate from, … you don’t have a lot,” Wergin said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “If you have a great network but no way to get on the [communications] highway, it doesn’t provide you a lot. And the same could be said about having a platform like Thor, with a bunch of applications; if we can’t access radio networks, phone networks or the Internet, we’re kind of dead in the water, as well. There are still some things we can do locally we can do, but that broader communications is tremendously valuable.

“When you put those two things together—a network and applications, as well as end-user devices—it becomes an example where the whole is worth a lot more than the sum of the parts individually. We saw that [during the Phish concert].”

Intrado will prepare an after-action report that can offer operational efficiencies for future events, as well the potential use of applications like video and facial-recognition technologies, Wergin said. Indeed, the company that operates Dick’s Sporting Goods Park has a video-surveillance system that could be helpful to public-safety officials, and other potential collaborations could be mutually beneficial, he said.

“In the future, what that might look like is a tighter bond between the public and private sectors, as well as integrating all of the tools, so that Blue Force Tracking is not just left to the first-responder community but also include private security,” Wergin said. “Then you start to get a broader picture.

“From an incident-command perspective, what you always want is to broaden your situational awareness. You want your common operating picture to become as broad and as comprehensive as you can, because the more information you have, the better decisions that you make.”

Pulford said he is confident that the private Band 14 system will support the desired video feeds referenced by Wergin and expressed optimism that future operations at such events will run even better as the Band 14 device market matures.

“Once more devices get out there, we’re excited to have the opportunity to run these kinds of events purely on the Band 14 side,” he said.