FirstNet Authority CEO sets ‘ubiquitous coverage’ goal, highlights other focus areas for NPSBN

FirstNet Executive Director and CEO Joe Wassel this week said that establishing ‘ubiquitous coverage’ for the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN) is the organization’s new goal—and one that is “possible,” in part because of technological advances and recent financial commitments.

Wassel made the proclamation during his keynote address to open 5×5: The Public Safety Innovation Summit 2024 being conducted this week in Chicago—an event being run jointly by the Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) and the FirstNet Authority.

“I’m going to be bold,” Wassel said. “The dream of ubiquitous coverage is possible. The vision of part of the early days of this network is possible; it is not impossible. It’s hard to do, and no one wants to talk about it, but we’re going to be bold at 5×5.”

Wassel noted that such coverage would not be provided solely as a traditional system of terrestrial cell sites. Instead, FirstNet Authority officials envision connectivity also being extended in other “fantastic ways,” including deployable communications assets, high-powered user equipment (HPUE) on 700 MHz Band 14 spectrum, the 5G Sidelink direct-mode standard technology, and nascent satellite-direct-to-phone functionality, according to Wassel.

“A reliable, dependable network—that’s our job every single day,” he said. “The reason we’re here [at the 5×5 Summit] is how do we then innovate at the next level, to make sure that the first responders are connected, informed and protected while they … do the amazing things that they do—day in, day out, 24/7.”

There has been an increase in questions about the reliability of the FirstNet system, particularly after an outage suffered by NPSBN contractor AT&T resulted in many FirstNet subscribers throughout the nation losing service for more than two hours on Feb. 22.

Wassel acknowledged the February outage, but he did not provide any new details about either the cause of the outage or the steps the FirstNet Authority plans to take to ensure that such an outage does not happen again in the future. However, he expressed confidence that the NPSBN will be better in the future, in part because of lessons learned from this and other incidents.

“We know that no path to success is a straight line,” Wassel said. “We have outages. We had an outage this year, and we’re going to be stronger after.”

One reason that the FirstNet Authority will be able to enhance the NPSBN is its access to the funds necessary to pay for improvements. Earlier this year, the FirstNet Authority board approved changes in the contract with AT&T that will allow more than $8 billion to be spent on the evolution and expansion of FirstNet.

“Great ideas, great vision and great capability doesn’t get you too far without money,” Wassel said. “We’ve got the money. It’s not a problem anymore. We have the funds. We know how to spend those funds through the processes.

“What we need to know now is how to do it. What does the network need to look like? We have some ideas. We’re listening to you [public-safety personnel] … What’s the network going to look like in 2029? Help us get there.”

As part of the deal announced in February, AT&T will build 1,000 new towers, according to Wassel.

“On top of that, we had $2.2 billion for coverage, coverage and coverage,” Wassel said, noting that the focus of this portion of the NPSBN network expansion will be to better serve tribal, territorial and rural communities.

Wassel expressed excitement about the potential benefits that public safety could realize by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), but he also acknowledged the possible negative risks and impacts from the technology, if it is not developed and utilized properly.

“It’s an amazing capability,” Wassel said. “We are on the front end of it, but it’s incredibly important that this group [of public-safety users and solutions providers] be a leader in what’s next for AI—and not just in the U.S., because our international partners are thinking about these sorts of things, as well.”

Of course, one of the most significant concerns for any organization or enterprise is the growing threat of cyberattacks on operations. Wassel said the FirstNet Authority is working to enhance the NPSBN’s security, including through the addition of new personnel with expertise in this area.

“Since July of last year, we’ve had intelligence officers on the FirstNet Authority staff helping us look into to the intelligence community and harness … all of this information and focus it on our network, so we can get in front of threats,” Wassel said.