The 40-member Public Safety Advisory Committee received its first formal update on the status of FirstNet pilot projects around the country in the ongoing effort to lay the groundwork for a national LTE network for public safety broadband.
The PSAC was formed to provide the First Responders Network Authority a direct line of communication with experts in all areas of public safety at various levels of government for advice and guidance on first responders’ needs as FirstNet builds the network. A series of stakeholder meetings are being held this week in San Diego.
There are five “early builder” projects in the works, four of which have federal funding: Adams County, Colo.; LA-RICS; the state of New Mexico; and the state of New Jersey. The fifth network is in Harris County, Texas. Each FirstNet pilot project has specific value in terms of the technical or management challenges for which it will provide lessons learned to be leveraged as FirstNet builds out the nationwide network. Adams County, for instance, is to serve as a device test bed as well as a real-world test system due to its physical proximity to FirstNet’s technical headquarters and the public safety reseachers at the National Institute for Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo.
Darryl Ackley, chairman of the Early Builders Working Group, provided updates on each of the projects:
- Adams County has 46 devices on-air with plans to roll out up to 2,000. The network has 16 sites and also serves as a remote network connection for the New Mexico network: Backhaul is in place and routing is being worked out currently, Ackley said. An additional three sites are being planned to cover Denver International Airport, with a fourth to fill in coverage near DIA.
- Harris County, Texas, has 15 sites active with plans for two more phases to extend the network to 91 sites. The state has begun to offer free online training to introduce people to the network and learn more about how it can be used. There are ongoing efforts to get local funding to build out the second phase of the network and site work for five more sites along the Interstate 45 corridor to improve coverage.
- The Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System project involves both an LTE and a P25 Land Mobile Radio aspect, and has 84 live sites in a network expected to eventually serve 19,000 first responders in 72 member agencies. LA-RICS has run into issues with local objections to site locations that resulted in its federal funding being briefly suspended while local leaders got on board.
- In New Jersey, JerseyNet will consist almost entirely of deployable network elements, including cell-on-wheels and satellite system-on-wheels equipment. There is a three-site proof of concept live network in New Jersey now, with more extensive operations targeted for September. Ackley said that the network  has had “some challenges in microwave design for backhaul” but that JerseyNet has “been able to be nimble with modifications to that system.”
- New Mexico is in the process of final design documents for a dozen Radio Access Network sites and microwave backhaul, with installation scheduled for late June. Because the project involves a remote core as well as coordination among federal, state, local and tribal agencies, the New Mexico project has included signification documentation for partnerships and cooperation through memorandums of understanding, Ackley noted.
In addition to the updates on FirstNet pilot projects, the PSAC also heard from a number of its committees that are supporting FirstNet’s efforts.
Richard Broncheau of the PSAC’s Tribal Working Group updated the PSAC on efforts to engage the more than 500 Native American tribes that will also need to be covered by FirstNet. Most states want more guidance from FirstNet on how to get tribal participation and buy-in, he said, and a tribal outreach package is being developed as a resource for both the states and the tribes themselves.
Dave Marutiak of the PSAC told the committee about the exploration his group has been doing in public safety wireless devices and the roles that different types of devices are likely to play in a national public safety broadband network. One of the challenges, he said, is that although an initial request for information on devices was put out in 2013, the device ecosystem and user expectations change quickly and FirstNet needs to have current information as it develops the request for proposal expected to be released by the end of this year. In particular, Marutiak covered the use of mobile communications units that are “part device and part network extension” and an increase of the network support at a scene as an incident grows and more vehicles with MCUs arrive. MCUs can also be used on airplanes and boats where the terrestrial network doesn’t reach, he added.
There also is ongoing PSAC work on a technical framework for quality of service and priority and preemption for first responders. PSAC member Barry Fraser said that an initial framework has been developed by defining public safety use scenarios and testing them in network simulations to get an idea of how an LTE network would likely perform. More such work needs to be done, Fraser said, to develop a QoS framework that would function well under most public safety circumstances and provide local control while minimizing the need for manual adjustments – although those may still be needed at times.
One of the particular concerns for FirstNet is how to maintain network coverage even in disaster situations. PSAC member Capt. Christopher Lombard of the Interagency Board addressed the prioritization of network hardening and said that modeling work is being done on how well coverage can be maintained with outages of up to 75% of the network, by reducing capacity and speed but prioritizing coverage.
“As long as we have secondary use capacity that can be preempted, we can maintain coverage better than a commercial network or a traditional network,” Lombard said. “Even if the network has very low data rates, at least coverage is king.”
Public safety broadband discussions continue this week with the Public Safety Broadband Stakeholder meeting in San Diego, including research updates from the Public Safety Communications Research group and a FirstNet board meeting in addition to the PSAC meeting.
