Public-safety communications vendors prepare for Urban Shield exercise

In the bus-takeover scenario, the enhanced system on wheels—different from a cell on wheels, because it does not require backhaul connectivity to support application functions—is expected to establish a “bubble” of LTE coverage that includes the bus, which allows first responders to view video taken from the bus cameras.

“What we’re doing is sharing a video live time with the SWAT teams as they approach the bus,” Verbrugge said. “As they get briefed on what’s going on, they can see the cameras to see if there are any hostages or any suspects—what they’re getting themselves into, before they actually storm the bus or get on the bus to deal with what they have to deal with.

“It’s fantastic technology for police officers, firefighters or first responders to be able to get views from cameras—inside of buildings, inside of buses, from transit agencies—where you have radio interoperability and be able to get all of that live time and be able to know what type of situation the first responders are going into.”

In the scenario, the bus will be operating on Band 14, but the operation also would work if the bus used a commercial-carrier network, Wengrovitz said.

“If the buses continued to run on [commercial] public 4G, Mutualink is able to bridge all of those different networks,” he said. “For instance, the bus could be running on public 4G, the fusion center could be on the wired connection, and another agency could be on private 4G, and Mutualink’s collaboration technology would bridge over all of those types of networks.”

Using deployable system like this will be key to FirstNet, especially during its early days, when fixed-infrastructure coverage is expected to be spotty, Wengrovitz said.

“What’s different about that is that the FirstNet is in motion; that is, a bubble of FirstNet coverage is being provided by a tactical vehicle,” Wengrovitz said. “There’s an emergency-command vehicle that’s driven up near the scene, and they turn on their cell-phone system, and it covers the surrounding area where connectivity is required in a bubble of 700 MHz Band 14 public-safety LTE.

“So, instead of having to have permanent, fixed- installation [infrastructure] here in Richmond, Calif., there’s a bubble of coverage by the vehicle driven up with the emergency participation. The bus cameras are being pushed back over Band 14. The cell phones that the first responders are using to talk to each other and to talk to remote agencies is over Band 14, and Band 14 is deployed by the vehicle that drove up.”

In addition to seeing his company’s products at work in the bus-takeover scenario, Sonim’s Escalle said he is interested to learn about other technologies that will be deployed during the Urban Shield exercise in various scenarios.

“I think it’s a great exercise to put out the technology that could be deployed that could be deployed in parts of the country for FirstNet, especially in deployable solutions out there,” Escalle said. “We, as a device provider that supports Band 14, are very much in support of what Mutualink and Oceus are doing, and we’re excited about participating.

“It’s kind of neat to see all of the other different technologies—everything from wearable cameras to handheld devices to biometric and fingerprint readers. I think everybody kind of comes out of the woodwork to test their goods in a real-world environment, so it’s a neat exercise.”