Emergency Communications

AT&T reports that FirstNet -- the high-speed, nationwide wireless broadband network it’s building for use by first responders -- is performing well. More than 1.2 million first responders and other emergency response workers have connectivity. Additionally, more than 11,000 public-safety agencies and organizations nationwide have subscribed to the network, which gives responders preemption across voice and data with multiple priority levels that they can apportion as needed, too.

Next Century Cities sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to collaborate with mayors and other local officials on broadband deployment. As residents are forced to work, access virtual classrooms, obtain medical care, and more from their homes, local officials have been working tirelessly to ensure that every resident stays connected during the national coronavirus (COVID-19) shut-in. Next Century Cities asks the FCC to consider the following points. 

As Congress considers whether there is a need to take additional next steps in responding to the health and economic crisis facing our nation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, reports indicate that some are actively considering another round of economic support. While I will reserve judgment on other communications matters for the time being, one questionable proposal floated for possible inclusion in past rounds was to inject Federal funding into deploying advanced 9-1-I systems in states and territories, better known as Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1). Any effort to do this without appropriat

The Federal Communications Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (PSHSB) reminds authorized alert originators, including state and local governments, that the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system is available as a tool to provide life-saving information to the public during the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. In recent years, the Federal Communications Commission, together with the Federal Emergency

Twenty-eight senators wrote a letter to the Federal Communications Commission demanding that it consider how repealing net neutrality could negatively impact public safety, universal access, and broadband competition. In October 2019, the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the Trump FCC’s repeal of the Open Internet Order as lawful but also ruled that the FCC failed to adequately consider public safety, the Lifeline program for low-income consumers, and competitive broadband providers’ access to poles needed to deploy their networks.

President Donald Trump held a call with top communications company CEOs to check in with those working to maintain and extend essential connections in a pandemic-driven world of sheltering- and quarantining-in-place. According to the White House, the President thanked them and their employees for their work to keep the country connected for work, education, shopping and bridging the physical distances with virtual socializing. The President talked about the strength of a free-market based network system that remained strong. The President called the system the envy of the world and thanked

Everything from meetings at the office to happy hours with friends are all now occurring in digital space. All of this internet use is putting more pressure on our broadband infrastructure. Just in the past few weeks, data demands have risen in nearly all categories.

The Federal Communications Commission seeks comment on a proposed a framework to provide state and federal agencies with access to outage information to improve their situational awareness while preserving the confidentiality of this data, including proposals to: Provide direct, read-only access to NORS and DIRS filings to qualified agencies of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Tribal nations, territories, and federal government; allow these agencies to share NORS and DIRS information with other public safety officials that reasonably require NORS and DIRS information to prepare for

The Federal Communications Commission held its mandatory monthly meeting via a brief, video-less, teleconference call March 31, with commissioners dialing in from home and the public able to access it over a never-more-important broadband connection. The commissioners had already voted to approve all the meeting agenda items, and their time — the meeting lasted less than 20 minutes — was spent mostly talking about the pandemic and how they and the industry were dealing with it. 

As the social distancing efforts push everything from school to socializing into video chat, networks have seen huge surges in traffic — and new anxieties over how digital networks will stand up under the strain. So far, both carriers and the Federal Communications Commission insist that the country’s networks are capable of bearing the strain, particularly given the voluntary throttling instituted by many of the most bandwidth-heavy services.