FirstNet officials share details on in-building offering that is free to public safety

FirstNet officials recently released more information about an in-building-coverage initiative that lets primary-agency customers install AT&T Cell Booster Pro devices—at no cost to the agency—in facilities that house public-safety personnel, such as fire stations and police headquarters.

Matt Walsh, assistant vice president of products for AT&T’s FirstNet team, said the initial reaction to the in-building offering has been “super positive” and believes it will help drive adoption of the FirstNet nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN).

“For these agencies, if you can’t use a FirstNet device in the building, it’s hard to be a subscriber to the FirstNet service,” Walsh said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “As a result, we’ve seen more adoption of FirstNet, because we’re able to put these devices in place. I would say that’s a good indicator of how the market’s reacting.

“We have great results, because we’re able to serve more agencies now, and we’re seeing more agencies take advantage of FirstNet.”

At the heart of the offering is AT&T’s Cell Booster Pro (pictured above), which acts as an indoor cell site that provides about 15,000 square feet of coverage. A maximum of three Cell Booster Pro devices can be deployed in a single location, so the solution can provide in-building coverage to a facility with up to 45,000 square feet of space.

Installation of the Cell Booster Pro is relatively simple, so agencies can install the infrastructure themselves, or it can be installed by a professional-services group—again, at no additional cost to the public-safety entity, Walsh said.

In May, the FirstNet Authority board voted to fund an in-building initiative with network-reinvestment funds that are part of the organization’s 25-year deal with AT&T, which is contracted to build and maintain the NPSBN. However, many details of the in-building program were not released publicly until recently.

Exactly how much the FirstNet Authority is investing into this in-building program is still unknown, but public-safety agencies should be able to take comfort in the fact that there are plenty of Cell Booster Pro devices available, and that the additional coverage will not impact any agency’s budget, according to Walsh.

“They’ve funded enough for us to be able to get this out in thousands of units,” he said. “At the end of the day, what public safety should care about is that it’s available to them and that they can get it at no cost.”

FirstNet Authority Acting CEO Lisa Casias has said that the FirstNet Authority could increase its investment in the in-building program, if it is deemed to be successful during this first year.

“It’s a small-cell device that can be used within different in-building solutions, because that’s where we were hearing that people were having problem,” Casias said last month during the APCO 2022 event in Anaheim, Calif. “[Public-safety] people were out on the street, and FirstNet was working. But then they come into their buildings, and they have challenges.

“So, we put a program together that we’ll be looking at over the next year—and expanding, if it’s successful—that people can put in and get those devices from AT&T … We’ll be looking and determining how much funding we’ll be spending in the future, depending on how successful that is and the need that’s out there.”

Walsh said the user experience when making the transition from the outdoor macro network to the coverage provided by the in-building solution is smooth.

“It’s completely seamless,” Walsh said. “Unless you were part of the ordering or installation [of the in-building system], it’s unknown to you what you’re using. It’s a seamless experience for the first responders.

“I think that’s how public safety has to operate. They don’t necessarily want to know the details; they just need it to work. This is an example of that, for sure.”

Walsh noted that the Cell Booster Pro is capable of supporting communications for devices operating on both 700 MHz Band 14—the spectrum licensed to the FirstNet Authority—and Band 2, which is key spectrum for AT&T’s commercial network. The public-safety agency can decide whether access to the in-building solution is open to anyone or limited strictly to public-safety users, he said.

To qualify for the free program, an agency must subscribe to FirstNet and be considered a “primary” user—a category consisting of fire, EMS, law-enforcement, 911 or emergency-management entities, Walsh said. In addition, the agency must identify where the in-building coverage is needed and verify that the covered area is a location where public-safety users typically reside during working hours, he said.

Most public discussions about the FirstNet in-building program have focused on police headquarters and fire stations as places to deploy the free Cell Booster Pro solution, but Walsh noted that it also could be used for private locations that have a “primary” public-safety presence.

“A good example of that would be a university where they have on-site police, and they need to be able to provide coverage at their location there,” Walsh said. “They could use these devices, as long as it’s for the purpose of serving the primary agencies.

“You could see that with a school that has a police department on site, or a school-police entity that’s a primary entity could use it for that type of location.”

However, the free FirstNet program is not designed to provide broad in-building coverage to private buildings that are required to support public-safety communications to comply with a code or ordinance.

“It’s not part of this offering, where they get it at no cost,” Walsh said. “This offering at no cost is being made with the primary agency in mind. They need to be resident in the building … it needs to be very much associate with where those individuals work.

“I don’t expect that this is going to be something that’s going to be used to provide coverage for an entire university, but the intent is for it to cover where the primary agency conducts its operations.”

Although the in-building program is free to “primary” public-safety agencies, there is a limit on the number of Cell Booster Pro solutions that a given agency can install at no cost, Walsh said.

“We’ll supply up to 50 devices under this offering, so it keeps that available to both the large and the small agencies,” Walsh said. “So, we’re not shipping 3,000 devices to the city of New York.”

Agencies wanting to install more than 50 Cell Booster Pro solutions can purchase additional devices—an option that also is available to owners of private facilities seeking to bolster in-building coverage, Walsh said.

Of course, there are many locations that will require a more traditional in-building solutions—for instance, a DAS-based system—depending on the size or configuration of the facility, Walsh said. However, the free Cell Booster Pro option through FirstNet could provide public-safety agencies with a way to test the in-building needs at a given location prior to committing to a potentially expensive in-building system, he said.

“If I were an agency and having in-building [coverage issues], it would probably be a good first effort to use this [Cell Booster Pro] device to see if I can resolve it before an investment might have to be made around in-building coverage—more of a typical in-building solution, rather than using the Cell Booster Pro,” Walsh said.