AT&T CEO shares potential 4.9 GHz vision as FirstNet tops 6.4 million connections

AT&T this week announced that FirstNet supports more than 6.4 million connections for more than 29,000 public-safety agencies, while CEO John Stankey applauded the recent FCC vote granting the FirstNet Authority control over usage of 4.9 GHz spectrum via a sharing agreement with a nationwide band manager.

Stankey made the comments during AT&T quarterly conference call with analysts, during which he highlighted the efforts of AT&T personnel—notably, members of the carrier’s FirstNet team—to help the communications efforts in the wake of recent natural disasters.

“Our FirstNet organization provides a meaningfully differentiated product to public safety during events like these,” Stankey said during the Wednesday conference call, which was webcast. “Our organization dedicated to supporting our growing public-safety base on FirstNet responded to 200 requests during the Hurricane Helene recovery. This was one of our largest emergency-response efforts ever.

“These efforts are nothing short of remarkable. It’s exactly why more than 29,000 public-safety agencies and organizations—including the New York City Police Department, the Fire Department of New York City, and the North Carolina Department of Public Safety—choose FirstNet, the only dedicated communications platform for public safety.”

Stankey reiterated AT&T’s support for the FCC’s 4.9 GHz report and order, which calls for a still-to-be-selected band manager a nationwide license to the 50 MHz swath of frequencies. The new rules authorize the band manager to reach a spectrum-sharing agreement with the FirstNet Authority, which signed a 25-year contract with AT&T to build and maintain the nationwide public-safety broadband network on 700 MHz Band 14 spectrum licensed to the FirstNet Authority.

“We applaud the FCC’s recent decision to make available 50 MHz of spectrum to the FirstNet Authority to facilitate nationwide deployment of 5G services for first responders. We look forward to working together on plans that take these capabilities to the next level.”

Stankey said deploying the infrastructure necessary to support broadband communications leveraging the 4.9 GHz spectrum will not happen quickly.

“If the FirstNet Authority decides they want to deploy that in a way that is similar to how they deployed spectrum previously, it will certainly take time to have infrastructure put in place, to figure out where they wish to do that, and how they want it deployed,” Stankey said.

“I don’t think this is anything where you’ve got the same dynamic that you might have in the secondary market right now, where you can acquire something, flip a switch and ultimately get capacity into your network and an opportunity to grow on things.”

Although the initial five-year construction supporting 700 MHz Band 14 connectivity was not completed until March 2023, public-safety agencies were allowed to purchase wireless 4G services under the FirstNet brand for several years before the Band 14 deployment was done. In geographic locations where Band 14 equipment was not operational, these FirstNet customers were able to access the AT&T commercial network with priority and preemption.

Stankey indicated that he believes that a similar arrangement could be executed with 4.9 GHz spectrum, if the FirstNet Authority eventually chooses to work with AT&T to develop connectivity in the band.

“As we work with the FirstNet Authority, there are win-wins in a lot of these things, just like there was a win-win in how we introduced their initial holdings of spectrum and allowed them to get some of the product and service capability that is truly differentiated using our embedded portfolio of spectrum and services that was in place while we ultimately deployed the dedicated bands to them,” Stankey said.

“I see the same opportunity presenting itself as we work through 4.9 GHz, where we can continue to give them advanced 5G services as we’re harmonizing that spectrum, putting it out in the network, and allowing the next generation of unique and differentiated public-safety services for FirstNet to be developed. We can both benefit from that, if they [FirstNet Authority leadership] choose to do that.”