FirstNet Board Approves $358M Budget; Concerns Raised on License
The FirstNet Authority Board approved a $358 million budget Wednesday for FY 2023, which includes $190 million for investments in building a better network. The in-person meeting was closed to the public but streamed from Los Angeles. FirstNet acting CEO Lisa Casias warned of one looming concern -- the need for the FCC to renew FirstNet’s spectrum license.
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Ten years after the authority was launched, there are 3.7 million connections on FirstNet and more than 95% of public safety Band 14 spectrum has been deployed nationwide by AT&T, Casias said. But since FirstNet’s 2012 enabling legislation doesn’t provide automatic renewal of the FirstNet license the FCC must act, she said. The FCC didn’t comment.
“During FY 2021, the FirstNet Authority began working with the FCC related to the renewal of its Band 14 spectrum license,” FirstNet said in its last annual report: “Renewal of this license is fundamental and essential to the continued operation” of the network.
Nearly 22,000 agencies are using the network, but “we recognize that we are not done,” Casias said: “FirstNet must continue to evolve and grow based on needs of public safety.” Over the past year, the main focus has been improving in-building coverage, Casias said. “This is a top need for public safety, and we're pleased to be addressing that need,” she said: “We also saw the introduction of a mission-critical push-to-talk solution that is bringing greater situational awareness to FirstNet users.”
Casias said FirstNet staff were mostly remote into April, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but are now having more in-person meetings, including with first responders in the field.
“Public safety will continue to be at the center of everything we do in the coming year, and this includes a robust stakeholder engagement strategy,” said FirstNet Chairman Stephen Benjamin, former mayor of Columbia, South Carolina. Investments will be made “based on what public safety tells us is most important,” he said.
On Tuesday, board members met with local public safety officials and toured SoFi Stadium, the site of the 2022 Super Bowl.
Public safety agencies are having a tough time adding people, said Randy Goddard, commander in the Los Angeles Police Department, who briefed the board Wednesday. Better use of technology allows officers to “spend more time” in the field “engaging the communities with community-oriented policing,” he said. New officers in his department are now issued a FirstNet-enabled smartphone when they start (see 2207080031), along with a badge and gun, he said. FirstNet has already installed 1,700 mobile-digital computers in L.A. police vehicles, he said.
“They’re going to carry these devices throughout the rest of their careers,” Goddard said. Paperwork takes up 40% or more of an officer’s day, but can only be completed in the field, and not at the station, with adequate connectivity, he said. A smartphone “as powerful as it is, is only as good as the connection it has with the network,” he said. At an event like the Super Bowl, officers use their smartphones to communicate more than traditional police radars, he said. Commanders can also track officers through their smartphones, he said.
Officers are getting connection speeds of 400 Mbps since AT&T upgraded FirstNet facilities at SoFi, Goddard said. AT&T also brought in portable towers during the Super Bowl because of the size of the crowd, he said.
The Super Bowl is one of the largest sports events of the year, Benjamin said. “There's no surprise that public safety and security [are] a top focus and pre-planning takes place more than a year in advance,” he said: “We learned how agencies integrated FirstNet into emergency operations for the game, and how the network helped and lessons learned from the event.”
Casias said the search for a new CEO is underway, replacing Ed Parkinson who left earlier this year (see 2205040047). FirstNet is working with a recruitment firm and will soon post a listing on its website and on USAJOBS, she said.