AT&T confirms that Samsung developed FirstNet PTT, the initial MCPTT offering in the U.S.

Samsung developed FirstNet PTT, the first U.S. offering designed to meet the 3G standard for a mission-critical-push-to-talk (MCPTT) service, an executive for FirstNet contractor AT&T has confirmed—more than a year after the product was unveiled and weeks after a second MCPTT option from Motorola Solutions was announced.

Although FirstNet PTT was announced in March 2020, the identity of the vendor that developed the initial MCPTT offering for the FirstNet was not publicly acknowledged for more than a year. That changed this month, when Jason Porter—AT&T’s president for the public sector and FirstNet—wrote a blog that included an acknowledgement that Samsung developed FirstNet PTT.

Samsung’s role in FirstNet PTT had not been announced officially before, but the information certainly was not a surprise. There had been widespread speculation that Samsung would deliver the initial FirstNet MCPTT as early as the spring of 2019, and there were unconfirmed media reports that Samsung developed FirstNet PTT after it was announced last year.

But officials for AT&T and Samsung repeatedly declined to confirm or deny Samsung’s role in FirstNet PTT for more than a year, other than to say that the Samsung Galaxy XCover Field Pro device was optimized to meet the stringent performance requirements associated with MCPTT standard established by 3GPP.

Officials for Samsung and AT&T have not provided any explanation to IWCE’s Urgent Communications why the identity of the FirstNet PTT vendor was not shared publicly for more than 16 months after the service was commercially available.

Porter’s blog was posted about three weeks after AT&T named Motorola Solutions as the provider of a second MCPTT service that will be available to FirstNet users.