FirstNet Roll Out Time in Rural Areas?

AT&T want's first responders to join their FirstNet network that will someday serve rural responders. In contacting AT&T's FirstNet I found even though AT&T coverage maps show service in the area I cover, FirstNet technical support tell me there is no service, and doesn't sound like there will be for some time. They did offer a $5000 unit with $1600 install cost to provide service now... 

I fear first responders in rural Arizona with it's large rural population many living miles from major highways and roads won't see FirstNet service for years. I know we have areas on Rt66 around Truxton with no coverage. Areas like Chloride have no service and there are two cell towers 4-5 miles away. The antennas point up and down highway 93 not toward Chloride. Driving to Phoenix the other day I found AT&T has no coverage in a large area between Wickenburg and Wikieup. 

Until we see how quickly the build-out of the radio access network (RAN) is completed in rural Arizona FirstNet will be used in major population areas with current AT&T service. 

First responders looking at FirstNet need to see how quickly the RAN mobile hotspots will be put into service. These hotspots can be embedded in command vehicles used by fire chiefs, sheriff and police supervisors to serve as a backhaul providing access to the FirstNet core network over satellite or other types of wireless infrastructure. 

Also who pays for the Radio Access Network (RAN) Mobile Hotspots? AT&T is going to receive $6.5 Billion over the next 5 years. Is AT&T going to provide Mobile Hotspots for first responder agencies in rural Arizona? Most any rural agency will have areas with no current AT&T coverage once you get a few miles from any major highway or road.

Recently Verizon Wireless has said it's starting it's own First Responder Network. In most states Verizon has always had better coverage in sparely populated states than other providers.

Sources....
WirelessWeek.com As part of the 25-year agreement, AT&T will get 20 MHz of prime, clear 700 MHz spectrum and “success-based” reimbursements totaling $6.5 billion over the next five years to support construction of an IP-based, high-speed mobile network that gives priority access to first responders. 

The Radio Access Network (RAN) From FirstNet.gov 

1. The RAN portion of the network consists of the radio base station infrastructure that connects to user devices. RAN includes cell towers as well as mobile hotspots embedded in vehicles that backhaul to the core network over satellite or other types of wireless infrastructure.

   Comprehensive RAN planning is required to optimize coverage, capacity and performance for a nationwide network. Initial modeling has shown that tens of thousands of radio base stations are needed to cover at least 99 percent of the population and the national highway system. Population coverage alone won’t suffice for public safety. State by state, FirstNet needs to understand public safety coverage needs.

FirstNet the nations First Responder Network is up and running

FirstNet the nations First Responder Network is up and running. Most people including first responders are unaware that FirstNet is here.

Will a Smartphone Replace Your Mobile Radio

Ask 100 emergency responders who've been to a major event what their worst challenge was and every single one of them will surely tell you: communications.

Their lives are getting easier, thanks to a dedicated band of the 700 MHz radio spectrum located just above that of digital TV broadcast channels. Band 14, as it’s called, was reserved for public safety providers by the Spectrum Act of 2012, using the LTE (Long-Term Evolution) technology featured in most 4G-enabled smartphones.

LTE has some valuable properties for emergency needs. It penetrates buildings and walls easily, and it covers large geographic areas with less infrastructure than higher frequencies. It’s also lightning-fast and highly reliable.

Eighteen vendors from around the United States gathered in Brighton, CO, on May 3 under the auspices of FirstNet Colorado to showcase evolving technologies for about 120 participating potential users.

Participants carried functional samples of personnel tracking devices and ruggedized cell phones with them throughout the day, while they kicked the tires of technology that has been in development throughout the United States for the past three years. The tracking devices recorded their attendance and movements, while the cell phones enabled them to communicate with one another, ushering them from room to room in response to a tight schedule.

FirstNet Colorado is coordinating the state’s efforts to prepare for a nationwide high-speed data and cellular voice network for public safety providers using LTE. Here’s how that might work, using technology that has been developed so far:

Imagine you’ve been called to a ski resort where skiers have reported a friend buried in an avalanche. The local ski patrol has called for a drone, and the drone patrols the avalanche area in search of the skier’s cell phone. (A cell phone emits a constant radio-frequency signal until its battery goes dead.) The drone’s operator uses a tablet to map a search area based on aerial photos, using a predetermined search strategy. The drone quickly conducts the search, and provides the rescue team with a GPS location before landing on a nearby ridge to maximize its battery life. From the ridge, it continues to accept and respond to commands while it transmits photos of the searchers’ progress.

Now imagine you’re with a SWAT team on the scene of a live shooting at a multi-story urban warehouse where two police officers have gone silent during a drug bust. Using 3D mapping software, the SWAT team locates both officers in different rooms on the second and third floors. The software enables a responder using a laptop to communicate with small sensors attached to the individual officers’ uniforms. An incident commander can view a 3D line drawing of the warehouse, including the locations of its internal features and showing the locations of the officers. Additional software communicates with more sensors, this time attached to flexible plastic panels (resembling x-ray film) inserted in the officers’ body armor. The film sensors detect and map the officers’ penetrating torso wounds.

Finally, suppose you’re at the scene of a wildland fire in a remote area where there is no phone coverage. A state patrol officer opens the lid of a ruggedized suitcase and sets up a complete communications center. Within 10 minutes, you can communicate voice and data at will with any resources you might need, on scene or not, ranging from the closest trauma center to FEMA. Your field units can communicate with one another using assigned frequencies on their normal LMR (land mobile radio) handy-talkies, or via tough, highly ruggedized LTE-equipped smartphones. In fact, they can also use PTT (push-to-talk) software on their phones to communicate in whichever mode they choose.

Agencies operating on Band 14 will be using LTE devices with five times the transmission power of a commercial cell phone. The system’s design is intended to provide 97% geographic coverage, and offers to address challenges like:

• Incidents in densely populated ones featuring large crowds using hundreds of personal cell phones simultaneously;
• Interagency communication needs, including data such as real-time photos and some video; and
• Mission-critical need-to-know things like emerging weather patterns, flood threats, hydrant locations, hospital availability, routes of ingress and egress, vehicle locations, personnel tracking and overall scope of the incident.

Can LTE cellular technology supersede the need for current radio systems? Experts disagree.

Craig Scherer, a fire systems technical specialist at the Denver Fire Department’s Communications Center, thinks the system would be too vulnerable to interference from public cell phone use. He said latency, the delay between transmitting a signal and receiving a usable answer, would also impair critical communications.

“LTE is fast,” says Ed Mills, FirstNet’s Colorado outreach and education manager, who moderated the conference. “It’s line-of-sight, and it happens at the speed of light. A transmission from the West Coast to the East Coast (of the United States) would happen in a fraction of a second. There’s no need for a signal to bounce off of a satellite.”

Mills said one variable of implementation time is that it depends on how promptly 'FirstNet's network partner' could comply with the system’s growth.

Recent history clearly illustrates the importance and effectiveness of this technology. Sonim, Mutualink, Parallel Wireless, Verizon and numerous other vendors partnered to help local public safety agencies provide Band 14 coverage for the Rose Parade on January 1, 2016, in Pasadena and at Super Bowl 50 on February 7, 2016, in San Francisco. Both of those events involved huge crowds of people (all using personal cell phones constantly), in atmospheres of heightened international security and massive media attention.

Vendors at the event included:

• John Bohike demonstrated DataSoft’s AID or Automatic Injury Detection system. This plastic panel is inserted in the carrier of a ballistic vest. The small black sender in the lower left corner of the panel is a cellular transmitter. Within seconds of the panel being pierced by a projectile, it can report up to four wounds per panel to a land mobile radio (via Bluetooth), a cellular phone or a military radio. Visit www.datasoft.com.
• ESChat provides a secure PTT utility and various other incident management software for ruggedized phones like Sonim XP7 Android. (It’s also Mac and iOS-compatible.) ESChat was used on Band 14 to coordinate the 2016 Rose Bowl, and was used interoperably with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s P25 land radio system. Visit www.eschat.com.
• Sierra Wireless InMotion Solutions exhibited a number of hardware and software offerings, including a mobile communications gateway the size of a book. Mountable in the trunk of a squad car or under the seat of an ambulance, it creates a Wi-Fi “bubble” around a vehicle that connects it to the best available network—LTE Band 14 for public safety, with fallback to commercial LTE networks. Visit www.sierrawireless.com/gatewaysolutions.
• TRX Systems provides NEON Personnel Tracker, an indoor 3D personnel locating system that uses pager-sized sensors, Windows-based command software and an Android app to dynamically map the movement of personnel once they enter a structure. Visit www.TRXsystems.com.
• Unmanned Aircraft Systems exhibited a 24-inch, $75,000 Canadian unmanned quadcopter as one of a number of potential on-scene aircraft. Its (video and still) cameras, struts, motors, rotors, battery and electronics are all field-replaceable as individual modules. It can stay airborne for 45 minutes, has a functional line-of-sight range of 1 kilometer, and can be digitally controlled from a tablet. This device has been used at a range of up to seven miles. Visit www.unmannedexperts.com.

Thom Dick has been a passionate advocate of sick people and the safety of their field caregivers since 1970. He has written hundreds of articles and three books on those subjects, including the People Care books. You can reach Thom via Facebook, or at boxcar414@comcast.net.

Military Grade Cell Phones - You Can't Call if Your Phone is Broken

I have never promoted any products on my blog, but this phone blew me away. I carry my phone in my back pocket and I always worry if I'm working on something alone and should fall I could break my phone and have no way to call for help.

I was researching phones for a new first responder broadband network and ran across the Sonim line of rugged phones. All their phones looked great and I wanted to check one out with out paying $339.00 at AT&T for the XP5. I found a Sonim XP5 on eBay for $10.00 with $5.00 shipping, so I took a chance and bought it. It didn't come with a charging cable so I had to buy the Sonim special charging cable for $24. It's needed because it's waterproof and you can submerse it in water for 30 minutes... I put in a H2o sim card from eBay and it took 10 minutes to setup the phone and get it working online at H2o Wireless.

Sonim XP5
This is the phone I bought for $39.00 with shipping. It looked like new and even still had the protective film you see on new phones on the camera.

The Sonim XP5 is NOT a smartphone it does talk and text send pictures and things fine. It does have some limited Internet access but it's not easy to use, but good to have for emergencies. This phone is great.....

Pros
Very Rugged, Sunlight Viewable, 20 hours talk time and 25 day standby time, you can use it with gloves, and it had a dedicated PTT button . If you can't hear your phone this one is really loud, no I mean REALLY LOUD 104 db loud.

According to American Hearing 100 db is as loud as a chainsaw, pneumatic drill, or snowmobile. They warn 2 hours per day is the maximum exposure without protection. So I mean really loud, good thing it has a volume control. For first responders or others in loud environments this phone is made to be heard. 

Cons
No touchscreen, limited Internet email access, no Google Apps but has some limited apps, uses a non-standard charging cable.

I loved this phone but my wife want's it because it's simple to use and she can't break it. She hates computers.....

Sonim XP7 
I decided to get the Sonim XP7 Smartphone so I could use Google. The XP7 is an Ultra-Rugged smartphone with a 4" screen you can see in bright sunlight. It has a dedicated PTT button, a very loud speaker 103 db, and a battery to get the mission done. It's also water proof and you can use the touch screen with your wet work gloves.

It has up to 40 hours of talk time and a standby time up to 1000 hours, that's 41 days of standby time.

The Sonim XP7 is $850 new, I paid $180 for an unlocked XP7 that works on any GSM system like AT&T or H2o Wireless.






Sonim XP6
If you like the physical keypad but want the capabilities of a smartphone there's the Sonim XP6. It's a smartphone with a 2.63" touch screen. It has the same rugged features like being waterproof, daylight viewable, long battery life and a PTT button.

If your looking for a rugged cell phone or smart phone these are good choices. Used prices online run from $40 to $180 for any of the Sonim phones. Sonim has a number of rugged phones on the Sonim Devices Page

In any type of emergency from a simple fall to a major traffic accident the ability to advise first responders of the type of emergency location, and what resources are needed all depend on reliable communications. Let's be prepared for ?????