House subcommittee applauds FirstNet’s progress toward nationwide public-safety network
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House subcommittee applauds FirstNet’s progress toward nationwide public-safety network
Members of a House subcommittee and the state of Ohio CIO yesterday expressed support for FirstNet’s timely execution of its deployment roadmap, offering recommendations about what the much-anticipated nationwide public-safety broadband network should include when it becomes a reality.
Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), chairman of the House Communications and Technology subcommittee, said FirstNet took some questionable actions initially that were the subject of an Inspector General investigation, but he is encouraged by the progress made during the past year and a half.
“I hope the missteps are behind us, and I believe they are,” Walden said during yesterday’s subcommittee hearing, which was webcast.
In prepared testimony and while answering questions, Kennedy said that FirstNet’s current focus is on consultation and acquisition noted several key elements of FirstNet’s deployment plans, much of which are included in its draft RFP documents:
- Responses to the draft RFP are due to FirstNet on July 27;
- Early-builder public-safety LTE projects in Harris County and Adams County are operational. Other early-builder projects in New Jersey, New Mexico and Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) are supposed to be completed in September;
- Initial state consultations have been completed with 34 of the 56 states and territories, and that figure should increase to 49 by the end of September. An initial consultation meeting with all 56 states and territories should be conducted by the end of the year;
- FirstNet officials hope to issue a final RFP by the end of the year; if not, it will be released in early 2016;
- Most of 2016 will be spent receiving RFP responses and evaluating them;
- FirstNet expects to provide governors with state plans in late 2016 or early 2017, at which time the governors will decide whether they want to pursue the opt-out alternative;
- FirstNet plans to begin making RFP deployment awards in 2017, with operations probably beginning in 2018; and
- Rural buildout milestones are included in each of the five deployment phases, in 20% increments. At the end of the five-year plan, coverage should be provided to rural areas.
Overall, Kennedy said that FirstNet has been executing on its roadmap released last spring in its scheduled timetable.
“We are actually doing what we told you we would do,” Kennedy said. “We released a plan, and we’re sticking to it, and we’re meeting the goals we set out to achieve."
Walden applauded the leadership of Kennedy and his team, as well as the progress that FirstNet has made.
“Thank you for your commitment to do what you told us you would do—that’s novel,” Walden said jokingly. “We were just suggesting that we should bring you back more often … We’ve got a few other agencies we can assign you to, too.”
Kennedy has been serving as FirstNet’s acting executive director for more than 14 months. No announcement has been made when a full-time executive director will be named.
Eshoo is so O_U_T with
Eshoo is so O_U_T with reality and needs to be voted O_U_T.
Rep. Eschoo plainly has no
Rep. Eschoo plainly has no clue what is actually needed in Public Safety communications. The first issue that comes to mind is that those responders out in the field will always rely first and foremost on voice communications. LTE will NOT be ready for public safety grade voice for at least 5-8 years yet. The 3GPP group is just now talking about consumer grade voice for carriers over LTE, and we all know how bad our cell phones sound. This will be just as bad, if not worse.
Next, while I agree that paying $5000 for a basic public safety grade handheld or mobile is out of line, $1000 to $2500 is not. That technology, LMR, using P25, or DMR, or the most reliable form-Analog, will not be going away for at least 10-20 years yet. Telling public safety agencies that they should not be investing in these systems will put lives in danger as they limp along with old systems, while sitting on their hands waiting for this somewhat pie in the sky system.
Also, the government’s record for these kinds of projects is not very good. 800 MHz rebanding was supposed to take no more than 3-4 years. It’s been well over 10 years now, and there are still many areas that are not done, including the Mexican border area that is just getting going. P25 has been in process for nearly 25 years, and still has a few areas that have not been fully completed or implemented. The digital TV migration got delayed several times. VHF/UHF Part 90 narrowbanding did not go very smoothly at all, and the main reason it kept close to any schedule was because the FCC put virtually all the responsibility for completion on licensees-as in-‘here’s the deadline, and you’re sticking to it, whether you’re ready or not’ (for the most part).
I’ll repeat this for emphasis: Telling public safety agencies not to put any more money into LMR radio systems is very dangerous, and *will* result in accidents, and probably tragedy, at some point.
The trend in wireless
The trend in wireless technology is clearly towards broadband and away from narrowband. The investment in engineering, and the allocation of new spectrum is almost all in the broadband space. LMR systems that are local in nature will gradually be replaced by broadband wireless systems.
Broadband LTE is a global phenomenon. It is much bigger than FirstNet. The U.K. and South Korea have both committed to replacing their public safety LMR systems with LTE systems by 2020. Mission Critical Voice standards will likely be complete by 2017, and even if they are not completely nailed down, South Korea and the U.K. will proceed with their LTE deployments.
FirstNet can easily fail due to poor management, politics, or resistance from LMR interests, but broadband wireless technology will not fail.
Broadband and narrowband are two very different technologies. Narrowband can cover vast distances from a single site, broadband can not. Conversely, broadband can support applications such as HD video wheras narrowband can not. Within a defined coverage area where sites can be constructed at regular intervals of 50 miles or less and connected to a core by fiber or microwave, broadband is the clear choice since it can outperform narrowband in all three application categories (voice, video and data). Narrowband systems operate in a single domain (either the frequency domain or the time domain). LTE operates in three domains simultaneously (frequency, time and space) making it far more specrally efficient than narrowband. Spectrum is a limited asset that must be conserved since the demand for spectrum has never been greater and continues to increase. All governments are under pressure to adapt more spectrally efficient technologies. LTE has a re-use factor of one; the same channel can be re-used at every site. This is one reason it so popular with commercial networks and government reglators alike. The more you aggregate spectrum (the wider you make the channel) the more efficient you can become since you can allocate sub channels at will when and where they are needed.
why not add ROIP (radio over
why not add ROIP (radio over IP) to your existing system? Less than $50 a user and quit waiting for FirstNet