Verizon calls for greater interoperability with FirstNet, says public-sector business still growing
In terms of other developments that are important to public safety, Nilan said that Verizon has “multiple customers already utilizing always-on priority and preemption” for first-responder users. In addition, Verizon will begin offering some mission-critical-push-to-talk (MCPTT) services by the end of this year, he said.
“Our first features will be rolled out at the end of this year—in the December timeframe—and then it will expand from there,” Nilan said.
Verizon does not believe that MCPTT will replace land-mobile-radio (LMR) voice communications in the short term, Nilan said.
“Mission-critical push to talk will enable more LMR-like features, but we don’t see that as the end of LMR,” Nilan said. “There will still be a need for land-mobile-radio networks to be relied on by public safety. We anticipate that it will be many years before that completely goes away. I think that those networks that have been invested in over the last several decades need to be interoperable with the cellular networks that are in place, so that those folks who are just carrying radios can communicate with those folks who are just carrying cell phones.
“Right now, our push-to-talk services will interoperate with LMR radios, and we’ll see even tighter integration between our public-safety core—as well as our mission-critical features—with LMR networks over the next year.”