Commentary

Commentary

Vehicle routers serving as tip of the 5G spear for public safety

Super Bowl television advertisements remain a staple of the American zeitgeist. Not surprisingly, Super Bowl LIV brought viewers a tempting glimpse of what 5G promises in the way of improved first-responder operations. Verizon Wireless advertisements showcased the company’s commitment to first responders, and they also put a spotlight on its technology expertise. The gauzy peek […]

Partner content

How California public agencies can reform pension benefits

In 2011, after the Great Recession left California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) only 61 percent funded, the Little Hoover Commission gave a dire warning: “California’s pension plans are dangerously underfunded, the result of overly generous benefit promises, wishful thinking and an unwillingness to plan prudently. Unless aggressive reforms are implemented now, the problem will […]

News

2020 is the year when vertical location becomes a reality for public safety

Last spring, we outlined how 3D location can increase situational awareness and improve operational efficiency for public safety responders. At the time, this was a somewhat hypothetical scenario as 3D location technology had been proven but not yet implemented. Since then 3D location capability has been available to application developers through an over-the-top capability. ‘Over […]

Commentary

T-Mobile proposal of free 5G for public safety is a great idea, but there are a lot of caveats

T-Mobile’s announcement of a potential Connecting Heroes program that would give public safety access to free broadband talk, text and smartphone data over its 5G network for 10 years has raised a lot of eyebrows in the first-responder community. There is little doubt that “free” is an attractive feature in any offer to budget-conscious public-safety […]

Commentary

911 dispatch centers can take multiple steps to combat cyberattacks

There are more than 6,000 dispatch points throughout the United States, and this vital emergency service is now under constant threat, because hackers are infiltrating dispatch centers and rerouting calls away from dispatchers. Malware and spear-phishing attacks impact emergency service dispatch centers without warning. There’s no siren going off to alert a dispatcher about a […]

Commentary

Proposed three-digit suicide-prevention ‘Lifeline’ would benefit public-safety communications

About a decade ago, I received a call that no one wants to get—a beloved family member had committed suicide. He was schizophrenic, had tried a couple of times before—cry-for-help attempts, apparently—and he wasn’t good about taking his meds, so the call wasn’t unexpected. Nevertheless, it was stunning and sobering, with all of the “what […]

Commentary

The importance of commercial broadcast radio to public safety

The public-safety community has a variety of ways in which it communicates with the traveling public during emergencies. Examples include the highway roadside and overhead warning signs touting accidents, work zones, Amber alerts, Reverse 911 calls, as well as the Wireless Emergency Alert (“WEA”) system to send e-mails and text messages to your mobile device. […]

Commentary

FirstNet Authority standards director recaps June 3GPP Plenary Meetings in Newport Beach, Calif.

The June quarterly Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) meetings in Newport Beach, Calif., addressed standards in several areas relevant to the evolution of the public-safety broadband communications and the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN). The major topic across the 3GPP plenary meetings was planning for 3GPP Release 17 (R17). This release will be built […]

Commentary

Exciting times: When it comes to innovation, there is a lot going on in the public-safety sector

A previous article examined the obstacles faced by those public-safety entities known as “early adopters” as they strive to bring forward technological and operational innovations intended to improve emergency-response outcomes, keep emergency responders safer and protect mission-critical assets. This article explores some of the innovations that were discussed during the Early Adopter Summit hosted last […]

Commentary

Help wanted: 911 sector needs more early adopters

A small band of early adopters is working to lead the public safety sector into the future—but more are needed to accelerate the pace of innovation Nearly six decades ago, Everett M. Rogers, an assistant professor of rural sociology at Ohio State University, published a book in which he espoused his theory regarding how innovation […]

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