FirstNet, AT&T announce nationwide availability of subscriber-paid/BYOD offering
Depending on the circumstances, some agencies will provide stipends to subscriber-paid users to help offset the cost of purchasing a device that will be used in a public-safety setting, Agnew said. While some agencies will cover most of the subscription and/or device expense, others provide little or no financial support to their subscriber-paid users, he said.
“Specific to subscriber-paid, an agency does not need to buy anything,” Agnew said. “They don’t even need to subscribe. They just need to sign the agreement to allow subscriber-paid [personnel] in their agency, and then users can subscribe under that agency.”
Such financial flexibility is very attractive to public-safety agencies, who have been signing “in droves” for the subscriber-paid option, Agnew said.
“While we won’t comment on the number of subscriptions, I can just tell you that it’s going to be very successful,” he said. “We’ve seen the demand. And, with this announcement, we’ve seen the demand grow greatly.”
Many public-safety observers have cited FirstNet’s ability to have an effective BYOD offering as crucial to expanding public safety’s use of broadband connectivity and applications. Without a subscriber-paid option, most public-safety agencies that do not currently fund broadband usage would not be able to adopt FirstNet until enough savings were realized through the retirement of its LMR system—and even those savings might not be enough to pay for broadband, in the cases of some agencies.
One key concern associated with the subscriber-paid/BYOD model has been cybersecurity. Because subscriber-paid devices also act as personal devices, they are significantly more likely to be used to access websites and e-mails that could infect the device with malware.
Agnew said that AT&T and FirstNet have taken steps to address the cybersecurity issue.
“We have a physically separated, dedicated core that’s architected with modern security controls, including firewalls, intrusion detection and various access controls,” Agnew said. “So we protect the core uniquely for FirstNet, just as a foundation.
“We also have a dedicated security operations center that monitors the network 24×7 that monitors any intrusion detection … We feel like the network is sufficiently protected.”