FirstNet Authority CEO reflects on first 100 days, shares vision for future

SAN DIEGO—Public safety is leveraging ever-increasing amounts of data when making emergency-response decisions, but such information is useful only if it can be shared via a dependable network—something the FirstNet Authority plans to provide, according to CEO Joe Wassel.

Kicking off 5×5: The Public Safety Innovation Summit, Wassel reiterated the key finding of the FirstNet Authority updated Roadmap that was released earlier this week.

“Dependable network—it’s just that simple,” Wassel said. “The network’s got to be up and running all the time, everywhere you go and in every condition you might be up against. We want a dependable network. A lot goes into those two simple words.

“The bottom line is that things should just work.”

Appointed in March to head the FirstNet Authority staff, Wassel recently completed his first 100 days as the organization’s CEO, expressing hope that he has been around long enough to shed the status of being “the new guy.” During his first three months with the FirstNet Authority, he has traveled extensively to get public-safety input, spoken with public-safety communications leaders in other countries, and conducted a team-building exercise with FirstNet Authority staff.

Wassel noted the progress of the FirstNet nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN), which has seen its coverage footprint expand dramatically and already provides about 4.7 million connections to more than 25,000 public-safety agencies. The initial NPSBN five-year buildout by contractor AT&T is generally complete—FirstNet Authority officials are still in the process of validating the work—but that does not mean that the network’s evolution will stop, according to Wassel.

“That’s what we’re about: the network up and running for you, constantly improving, constantly evolving, constantly improving resiliency against all hazards—including the most-talked-about, least-understood cybersecurity hazard,” Wassel said.

“We’re going to innovate. The minute we stand still, we’re a target. The minute we don’t move forward and think about what’s over the horizon, then we have failed public safety.”

With the foundation of a dependable network, the longtime vision of connected responders can become a reality, according to Wassel.

“What does that mean?” he said. “It means a lot of stuff. It means responders being connected to drones, drones being connected to helicopters, helicopters being connected to boats—information flowing all the way around, but we are making it consumable, in that we are making data-driven decisions in dangerous situations.

“The higher calling is not just communications and not just information technology; we’re trying to achieve joint operational situational awareness. The person going in [to an emergency scene] should know that someone’s got their back. The person sending people in ought to know where their people are. We should know what the weather conditions are. We should know what the structural conditions are. We should not divorce ourselves from an ounce of information that can help protect lives, property and everybody involved—the folks we’re sworn to protect.”

In addition to responding to traditional emergencies, public safety agencies today also need communications and applications that will allow them to respond as effectively as possible to a set of emerging threats, Wassel said, citing conversations he has had during the past three months.

“Fire folks are worried about batteries—battery gas, battery explosions, all things batteries,” Wassel said. “So, as we’re trying to get more eco-friendly and the batteries come in, it’s caused an emerging threat for fires—a challenge for them. They’re also concerned about the convergence of wildfires and urban landscapes.”

“The police are worried about mass-casualty events and trying to understand the situation they’re actually going into … EMS is worried about fentanyl, and they’re worried about restarting hearts and putting people back together in dangerous environments—it’s unthinkable, what they’re dealing with.”

There also are challenges facing public-safety personnel not in the field, such as 911 entities making the transition from legacy to IP-based next-generation 911 (NG911) technology that can better receive and process modern inputs, including data and video. But those advances also come with new operational considerations, Wassel said.

“The fact that video from the horrendous edge of the emergency is now being passed through the network, with their folks in the middle of it,” Wassel said. “What does that mean for them? And [there are] staffing problems nationwide.”

Meanwhile, cybersecurity challenges mean that there is the potential that public safety could have to deal with scenarios unlike those in the past, according to Wassel.

“As a former emergency-management [leader], I suspect that we’re worried about a complex, catastrophic event underpinned by cyber event that could bring down the network or bring down other critical infrastructures that could make it even worse,” he said.

FirstNet cannot prevent these difficult emergency scenarios form happening, but having robust, resilient broadband communications can aid the response efforts, Wassel said.

“What can the network do to help?” Wassel said. “To simplify it for you, we’re a little black SIM card—tiny, smaller than a Chiclet. What can that that black SIM card that brings you the entire network, wherever you are, do to help with current threats, emerging threat and what’s next after that.

“There’s still important work to be done.”