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from the Please-hang-up;-there-is-an-emergency-and-we-need-the-spectrum dept.
Submitted via IRC for Fnord666_
From wildfires in California to hurricanes on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, communications are the bedrock of emergency response and management. However, those communications can be challenging when quickly evolving situations cross multiple jurisdictions — a truth painfully learned on 9/11, when more than a dozen agencies found it difficult to relay critical information to the right people at the right time.
Today, AT&T announced that all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia have officially signed on to FirstNet, a government program operated by AT&T to provide universal emergency response communications across the country. States had until yesterday to officially opt-in or opt-out of the FirstNet system. California, Florida, Mississippi and New York were among the states that waited until the last minute to confirm their participation.
This is a major win for AT&T, which officially won the FirstNet contract this past March. The contract stipulated that AT&T would manage the network for 25 years, and the company committed to spending $40 billion to manage and operate the network. In exchange, the company would receive 20 MHz of critical wireless spectrum from the FCC, as well as payments from the government totaling $6.5 billion for the initial network rollout.
The true win for AT&T though is in the actual spectrum itself, which is in the 700 Mhz band commonly used for LTE signals. While the FirstNet spectrum is prioritized for first responders, it also can be used for consumer wireless applications when an emergency is not taking place, which should improve cellular reception and bandwidth for AT&T customers, particularly in urban areas.
[...] At issue is whether the rapid improvement of consumer wireless technology — which is available today — far outweighs the performance of a hypothetical public safety network that remains a glimmer in the mind's eye.
Most interoperability problems have been solved by modern technology, and so the question becomes what the buildout is really for anyway. Why did the government give exclusive access to a critical part of the spectrum that could have benefited millions of consumers, while also provided expedited access for first responders?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @02:10AM (1 child)
It would be really neat to know all the strange things that had to happen to get all 50 states sign up.
Or maybe it's just better not to know.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday January 05 2018, @06:29PM
Have-not states with poor systems in place sign up first.
Then their neighbors.
Pretty soon every state has to decide to spend the money to build a redundant system and go it alone, or get on the band wagon.
It would be really neat to know your alternative proposal that could coordinate blood supply or fire trucks or MREs over a 10 state area after the big one hits and all long distance comms are down.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.