FirstNet CEO Makes Case at APCO for New Network; Las Vegas Shooting Remembered
LAS VEGAS -- “FirstNet is your network," FirstNet CEO Mike Poth assured APCO attendees Tuesday. FirstNet will have “features and services that stand up to the demands of the job,” he said. “Priority pre-emption, reliability, security.” FirstNet has a huge presence at the conference, with AT&T/FirstNet the event's lead sponsor, even offering free shoe shines. Poth encouraged attendees to take a lap around the show floor to see all the new devices coming online for public safety.
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FirstNet had a big booth at APCO, as did rival Verizon, which also is seeking to sign up public safety licensees. Verizon historically has owned much of the public safety market. Verizon's booth showed off the technology it offers as an alternative to AT&T and FirstNet. Nokia co-sponsored the booth.
APCO attendees told us the location is fitting. Las Vegas had one of the deadliest mass killings in U.S. history when a gunman opened fire in October on a crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip, killing 58.
But attendees, mainly directors and staff at public safety answering points, also said FirstNet's and AT&T's biggest job now is to get public safety agencies to sign on. Numerous attendees told us they're more focused on next-generation 911 and getting their PSAPs ready for the future. A call taker from New Mexico said her PSAP still struggles to get an accurate location on wireless 911 callers and hopes NG911 will help.
Every first responder “knows the struggles we go through trying to find someone who doesn’t know where they’re at,” said Eddie Reyes, director-public safety communications in Prince William County, Virginia, who spoke on a panel at APCO. “Yet if they order an Uber, the Uber would be right there to pick them up. That’s the sad reality of where our industry is.”
“Public safety is truly the world’s greatest profession,” said FirstNet's Poth, a former police captain who once ran a 911 call center. “For many years, public safety has asked for its own network and we at FirstNet are honored to serve you,” he said. FirstNet has made a lot of progress just in the past 18 months, he said: “FirstNet is here and starting to make a difference.”
Poth said when he was a police officer he couldn’t have imagined public safety having access to the kinds of devices that will be available on the new network. “You now have the ability to send drones into houses on barricaded suspects,” he said. “It’s unbelievable what technology is bringing America. … We’re innovating for public safety and bringing new technologies to life.” Also new are the shootings like the one here last fall, Poth said. Everyday brave men and women of public safety have been risking their lives, everyday, every shift.”
Jeff Buchanan, deputy chief of Nevada's Clark County Fire Department, was on the scene during the October Las Vegas shooting. “What I personally rolled up [to] I would describe to you as apocalyptic,” he said. “It was a wasteland. It was desolate except for a few deceased.” At the same time, the local PSAP was getting false calls of other shooters, which it had to deal with, he said.
FirstNet's biggest advantage is the priority pre-emption it will offer for first responders, Buchanan said. The night of the shooting, “I was trying to not cloud the radio, which sometimes in public safety people tend to do,” he said. “We need limited information, we need it in a timely fashion.” Buchanan said he relied on his smartphone for most of his communications as public safety workers started removing bodies. “I couldn’t get information through,” he said. “I was coming up on busy signals. There was no way to connect with the incident commander.” FirstNet would have been a huge help, he said.
Bigger numbers of people come to Las Vegas every year, Buchanan said. “We’re busy and we’re going to get busier,” he said. “We can’t afford … to have any kind of information delayed.”
Las Vegas believes in the use of technology for fighting crime, said Dori Koren, lieutenant in the city’s Metropolitan Police Department. One law officer using a computer “can be as effective as three cops on the street, in many ways,” Koren said. “We are able now to really prevent violence, address violence and just address crime as a whole using a variety of technologies.”
Dave Buchanan, director-public safety advocacy at FirstNet, said many of the questions he gets are on the status of the network and how quickly it opened. “A lot of people are learning about FirstNet for the time,” he said. “People saw it coming down the pike and knew it was maybe eventually going to happen. I think we caught a lot of people by surprise.” Buchanan noted emergency communicators and PSAP managers weren’t initially considered the network's “primary” users, but FirstNet changed the rules based on public feedback. PSAP officials who subscribe to FirstNet have the same priority as police, firefighters or paramedics, he said.