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posted by martyb on Friday January 05 2018, @01:15AM   Printer-friendly
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?

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/29/all-50-states-vote-yes-on-atts-40-billion-emergency-response-network-firstnet/


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @01:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @01:25AM (#618148)

    We deserve what we get.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @01:48AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @01:48AM (#618155)

    All 50 States Vote 'Yes' on AT&T's $40 Billion Emergency Response Network FirstNet

    Another "violently imposed monopoly"-to-be?

    (large grin)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @11:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @11:45AM (#618291)

      At least Comcast didn't get the contract.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @02:10AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @02:10AM (#618163)

    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

      by frojack (1554) on Friday January 05 2018, @06:29PM (#618430) Journal

      the strange things that had to happen to get all 50 states sign up.

      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.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Uncle_Al on Friday January 05 2018, @02:41AM (1 child)

    by Uncle_Al (1108) on Friday January 05 2018, @02:41AM (#618176)

    Coming from all the hams AT&T just gave the finger to for doing it for free?
    Encryption up the wazoo on the new comms, no doubt.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday January 05 2018, @06:10PM

      by frojack (1554) on Friday January 05 2018, @06:10PM (#618419) Journal

      HAMs?
      Oh, give me a break!

      Three guys holding a field-day under an awning in a park are NOT who you want to summon ambulances from the next county or the next state because yours are all full of casualties from the bridge collapse because of the earthquake.

      We are talking about comms for FIRST RESPONDERS here, not getting a "We're Ok" message to Aunt Nancy 5 states away.

      Maybe read up on FurstNet [firstnet.gov] JUST a little bit before you make a fool out of yourself. Even Ham Radio operators don't believe they are effective in an emergency. [www.emrg.ca]

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by anubi on Friday January 05 2018, @03:29AM (2 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Friday January 05 2018, @03:29AM (#618188) Journal

    I remember when this service was provided, for free, by radio amateur operators.

    Nearly every neighborhood had a "HAM". Usually unmistakably identified by their transmitting tower.

    Up until a few years ago, a close friend of mine, another HAM, had the means of transmitting about 1KW of old-school TV through his rig on channels 3 and 4 ( he had a camera, videogame modulator, linear amplifier, antenna, and generator ) which he was prepared to donate use of to the city just in case of earthquake or other disaster that took any main systems down.

    The new switchover to digital TV rendered his rig obsolete. It still works, and those of us who still know of him will be looking for him on the old-school analog channels if we ever get in hot water.

    He is a volunteer associated with the city and the local police. We all knew that just in case all hell broke loose, he has about a 25 mile range that would cover the city, and no-one nearby is using channel 3 at the time, or at least what we can see. The plan was that if we had major disaster, the city would send over a correspondent, and he would put them up on the air. Yeh, it would have broke Federal law, but during a disaster, one has to use whatever resources one has.

    My dad told me all about how independent amateur operators provided backup just in case all hell broke loose during the 60's Cuban missile crisis. We had one three houses down the street.

    But, little by little, people's ability to self-sustain is being legally undermined by those who stand to profit from having everyone else dependent on them. I know when the AT&T won that lawsuit about monopolization of internet providership, part of the deal was affordable dry-loop DSL. I could never get any of the dry-loop DSL that apparently they agreed to. I guess I could have got it if I was willing to pay lawyers. But this is one of the perils of making agreements with a big company... they can say anything they want to get what they want ... but its up to the little guy to fight to get what he was promised..

    If you are a little guy whining to your Congressman that the music you paid for won't play, all your concerns are washed under the table when the MAFIAA shows up, hand outstretched, wanting your Congressmen to codify even more potent anti-circumvention law.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday January 05 2018, @06:22PM

      by frojack (1554) on Friday January 05 2018, @06:22PM (#618424) Journal

      remember when this service was provided, for free, by radio amateur operators.

      No you don't.

      Stop kidding yourself. Hams have never provided mission critical command and control traffic to first responders. Never has happened. Not even on a small scale emergencies. Even their annual field-days are cluster fucks. Their value is citizen messages long after the fact, and only when all telephone infrastructure is down.

      It was bad enough that not all first responders could communicate in NYC during 911. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue by relying on a motley collection of ham operators?!??

      Fiction.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:21AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:21AM (#618937)

      Like the generations 1-20 before them, that came over and colonized America to get away from whichever asshole country they were originally from: Now is the time to get out and make a new country, eking out a living with even less resources than the last wave of colonists did.

      The opportunities are out there, but they require a lot of people working together to make them happen.

      Maybe the older generations are right and these younger ones are too much a bag of pussies to do what is necessary.

      Or maybe you old bags either coddled or were too much of assholes to make the new generations rebel right...

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