FirstNet engineers take firefighter training

A version of this article appeared in the April 2013 print issue with the headline: Learning under fire.

When the members of the FirstNet board were announced last August, several public-safety representatives privately expressed concern about the board's makeup. Four members had public-safety backgrounds, but the vast majority came from the commercial or government sectors, causing an inevitable question to be raised: Can people that lack a public-safety background understand the unique needs of first responders well enough to build an effective nationwide broadband network for them, as envisioned by Congress?

It's a question that may not be answered conclusively for years, but early indications are that the non-public-safety personnel associated with FirstNet are trying to learn as much about first responders' communications needs as possible before finalizing network and device designs.

"It has to be a 'you bet your life on it' network — a network that a person walks into a burning building depending on; a network that a person walks into a building with guns drawn and people drawing guns back at them that they can depend on," said Craig Farrill, FirstNet board member and acting general manager. "And, it needs to be something that can be relied on in the worst of disasters."

Farrill and other FirstNet personnel witnessed the need for post-disaster communications firsthand when they visited New York City in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy — an experience that several board members have said was eye-opening for them, as they saw public-safety-grade networks continue to operate in an environment where many commercial networks failed.

Recently, FirstNet again embraced a hands-on approach in another manner to help its engineering team better understand the communications needs of firefighters. At the suggestion of FirstNet board member Jeff Johnson — CEO of the Western Fire Chiefs Association — members of the engineering team participated in a 30-hour firefighter immersion program organized by Chief Mike Duyck of Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue in Beaverton (Portland) Oregon.

"One of the things we're doing is making sure that our engineering team is having on-the-ground, frontline experience at the police, fire and EMS level to make sure that they have a tactile feel of how to apply their vast engineering experience to the public-safety environment," Johnson said.

Johnson said the Oregon fire-immersion program was an important step forward.

"It was really helpful to our engineering team," he said. "They will tell you, 'That's the most important thing that we've done, is to crawl though a burning building with those thick gloves on.' It really changed the way they see the challenge ahead of them."

PODCAST: FirstNet's Johnson on engineers' public-safety learning curve

Of course, just enduring the firefighter-training program was a significant challenge for the engineers, but it was a very worthwhile experience, according to Peters Suh, a consultant to the FirstNet board.

"Most of us are techies, so stereotypically, we're not known for having the physical prowess, and we're not likely to be featured on any sort of calendar that anyone would actually look at," Suh said.

"We were well briefed about what we were going into. However, even when you're briefed, I don't think you have an understanding, until you go through it, as to how useful this is going to be for you to understand the situation, what the technical needs are for these firefighters and the other first responders."