FirstNet Meets With Tribal Leaders, Committed to Expanding Outreach
FirstNet is committed to expanding the number of first responders in Indian country who are using the network, CEO Edward Parkinson said at a FirstNet board meeting Wednesday, streamed from Albuquerque. FirstNet staff and board members visited the Laguna Pueblo Reservation in New Mexico Tuesday as part of outreach to the tribes, officials said, meeting with leaders from the Pueblo and the Navaho Nation.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The officials were “really the first guests that the Laguna Pueblo have had since the start of the pandemic,” Parkinson said. “What really was clear … was just the pressing need for additional coverage,” he said: “Our partner [AT&T] is not sitting still on the success that we’ve seen up to this point. It’s about offering the next tool. It’s about offering the next innovation.”
FirstNet Vice Chair Richard Carrizzo said some of what he saw at the pueblo was surprising. Responders there sometimes travel two hours to respond to an emergency and can communicate using only satellite phones, he said. “It was amazing how even the state highway patrol only had two satellite phones” to use “and if they were deployed on other incidents they had no communications,” he said.
The tribal working group of FirstNet’s Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) has already met twice this year, said PSAC Chair Chris Lombard. The group is “refining” its outreach approach for the year, he said. The Tuesday visit demonstrated that “increased support for communications in Indian country is both much needed and will be incredibly beneficial,” he said.
Legislation authorizing FirstNet was passed 10 years ago this month and first responder communications has come a long way since, said FirstNet Chair Stephen Benjamin, former mayor of Columbia, South Carolina. “In 2012, public safety was not being served like they are today,” he said. “Priority and preemption were not available on any network and first responders had to rely on commercially available products and service for their voice and data needs,” he said.
FirstNet selected AT&T to build the network in 2017. Based on its latest financial report, AT&T now serves more than 3 million FirstNet customers.
FirstNet “has changed the game and created a whole new thriving marketplace for public safety technology,” Benjamin said. Noting he was director of the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Service more than 20 years ago, he said the “incredible communications needs that we had back then are, thankfully, a distant memory.” Work remains and the challenges “are ever evolving,” he said.
Carrizzo, a fire chief in Kansas City, Missouri, said the authority remains committed to listening to first responders. “It is always going to be a first responder network built by first responders” and “we continue to hear from public safety on how this network continues to improve their operations,” he said.
PSAC recently met with firefighters in the Western U.S. on problems with wildfires, Lombard said. Issues raised included disaster notification and tracking, and the many requests by non-AT&T customers to have access to FirstNet, he said. PSAC just did focus groups with nearly 130 customers, Lombard said. One finding was the agencies and individual responders are buying devices like iPhones and Samsung smartphones “based on their familiarity,” rather than more-rugged devices designed for first responders, he said. The commercial devices are cheaper and responders are concerned about timely updates in technology, he said.
The meeting was the first for the FirstNet board this year and lasted less than an hour. The board next meets in May.