Caribbean countries prepare to build public-safety LTE networks on spectrum aligned with FirstNet in U.S.

While FirstNet’s RFP release may be the focus of the public-safety communications arena, many countries in the Caribbean also are preparing for the development of first-responder LTE networks, according to an official for Neptune Mobile, which hopes to deploy the systems throughout the region.

Neptune Mobile is working with several of the 30 Caribbean counties to build the first-responder systems—many countries could make decisions within the next couple of month—on the same Band 14 spectrum that FirstNet is licensed to use in the U.S., according to Danny Stroud, co-founder and COO for Neptune Mobile.

“It’s cleared and allocated Caribbean wide,” Stroud said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “It’s standardized for all of the countries regionwide. There’s no controversy about what this spectrum is supposed to be used for.

“We’re using the exact same stuff as FirstNet is using. We may pick a different vendor, but we’re in the band using the same equipment. We’re trying to stay tuned into that, so we can float on the economies of scale for Sonim devices, eNodeBs and all of that stuff. We’re definitely 3GPP-focused. We won’t do anything that’s not standards-based.”

Indeed, Sonim—one of the leading manufacturers of Band 14 LTE smartphones designed for public-safety use—is supporting the Caribbean effort and applauds the decision to align the region’s first-responder spectrum with those used by the United States, according to Robert Escalle, Sonim’s vice president of public safety and defense.

“It makes it easier to support them, from a device perspective,” Escalle said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

Canada also has announced that it plans to leverage Band 14 spectrum for its public-safety broadband network.

Although the technology and spectrum mirror the FirstNet effort in the U.S., there are some notable differences in the approach being employed in the Caribbean, Stroud said. For instance, Neptune Mobile does not plan to utilize the Band 14 spectrum in the region to offer commercial services on a secondary basis, which is a key component of the FirstNet business model.