D-Block network won't be available for first responders for a while

It took years for lawmakers to approve a wireless broadband network for police officers and firefighters. And it’ll be a few more years, at least, before that system is available to first responders nationwide.

With new resources from Congress in hand, regulators and public safety agencies are just now beginning to translate their vision for an upgraded communications system into reality. How they meet a series of tough benchmarks over the next six months will be critical to the success or failure of the long-sought network. In the process, regulators seem poised to grapple with the likelihood that a nationwide public safety broadband system could prove more costly than Congress imagined, and just as difficult and expensive to build and operate as critics have suggested.