FIRSTNET Colorado Member

[rfburns]

Mayor Wellington Webb selected by NTIA as a FIRSTNET board member.

 

[greenthumb]

Interesting. Where's the list?

 

[rfburns]

Interesting. Where's the list?

Fact Sheet: First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) | Department of Commerce

 

[Kevin_N]

I personally don't get this "need" for a nationwide network. Maybe the Feds could use that, but why would any local agency need or want a nationwide network? It's all about their local jurisdiction and what works for them.

Seems like a huge taxpayer expense for something that doesn't make sense.

 

[kc0kp]

I personally don't get this "need" for a nationwide network. Maybe the Feds could use that, but why would any local agency need or want a nationwide network? It's all about their local jurisdiction and what works for them.

Seems like a huge taxpayer expense for something that doesn't make sense.

I can tell you why I want this network:
1. Replace Verizon air cards
2. Have control over the system and its governance.
3. Lack of bandwidth anywhere else for public safety (I want to be able to deliver video. Full motion NTSC is 6 megabits per second. ATSC around 12. The biggest data pipe out of the command truck is tied between 125kb/s on the satellite and 125 kb/s on Dstar. All other solutions are cost prohibitive.)
4. Replace Verizon air cards.
5. If I am sent to South Dakota for a forest fire (like last year and the year before) I want my data link to work there as well as it does here so a national standard is needed. If we send Urban Search and Rescue to New York for the WTC or to New Orleans for a hurricane, it needs to work.
6 Replace Verizon air cards.

The day of staying in your local jurisdiction is long over. Mutual aid used to mean going to the next jurisdiction and helping them out. It now means going to the next state or totally out of the region.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

I can tell you why I want this network:
1. Replace Verizon air cards
2. Have control over the system and its governance.
3. Lack of bandwidth anywhere else for public safety (I want to be able to deliver video. Full motion NTSC is 6 megabits per second. ATSC around 12. The biggest data pipe out of the command truck is tied between 125kb/s on the satellite and 125 kb/s on Dstar. All other solutions are cost prohibitive.)
4. Replace Verizon air cards.
5. If I am sent to South Dakota for a forest fire (like last year and the year before) I want my data link to work there as well as it does here so a national standard is needed. If we send Urban Search and Rescue to New York for the WTC or to New Orleans for a hurricane, it needs to work.
6 Replace Verizon air cards.

The day of staying in your local jurisdiction is long over. Mutual aid used to mean going to the next jurisdiction and helping them out. It now means going to the next state or totally out of the region.

I love that 'replace Verizon Aircards' shows up on your list 3 times!!!

 

[Kevin_N]

Sounds good, but what you describe is still not what most departments will use it for day to day. Most large departments will need to make sure things are working in their city, where they spend 99.9% of their time and who knows if a nationwide system will meet their needs. I bet a lot of them will still operate their own or stay on commercial networks if they work better in their city. Depends on how good this nationwide network is in that city.

Still sounds like a lofty and very expensive goal and I still wonder if it's needed. The wireless carriers can afford it because they have millions of paying customers and they still don't have reception in the middle of nowhere. I can't even imagine what the costs will be to try to have coverage in remote areas where there might be a fire some day. Or will they just plan on bringing in temporary towers?

I wonder what exactly nationwide means. It's a pretty darn large country.

I like how the "Middle Class Tax Relief Act" contains a mandate to build a multi-billion dollar network. Irony.

 

[greenthumb]

6 Replace Verizon air cards.

The only real gain that I see is public safety having the dedicated bandwidth and not needing to compete with 'Jill at the high school streaming YouTube on her iPhone'. I don't think that the recurring monthly costs will disappear because someone has to pay the costs associated with the network. No network is free (except for DTRS). And i'm not sure how well they will build out the rural piece of this network for the same reasons that the carriers don't do it. Then there's the governance of the whole thing, and is public safety really ready to manage a nationwide network - something that multi-billion dollar companies like Verizon and AT&T do? This should be interesting!

 

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

Would it not make better sense to have PS communication profesionals rather than some mayor on the governing committee?

 

[BCSORadioTechs]

DTRS is certainly not a free network. Agencies on the system are paying a fee now. There is a major funding issue right now for upkeep and upgrades and the days of free radios on the system is not going to last long.


No VZW air-cards? Uh oh..... when that LTE network fails to connect, the public safety cards will probably roll over to VZW CDMA.

 

[kc0kp]

The only real gain that I see is public safety having the dedicated bandwidth and not needing to compete with 'Jill at the high school streaming YouTube on her iPhone'. I don't think that the recurring monthly costs will disappear because someone has to pay the costs associated with the network.

Exactly. That is why commercial systems humming along at 85% capacity are profitable and public safety gets nervous at 75%. Why cell phone systems collapse during emergencies. There is not much experience with 4G in disasters. I had no trouble during Waldo connecting but not sure how much loading Verizon has now on 4G.

 

[greenthumb]

DTRS is certainly not a free network. Agencies on the system are paying a fee now. There is a major funding issue right now for upkeep and upgrades and the days of free radios on the system is not going to last long.

Okay...a small $100 (or so) fee per agency, per year, for CCNC administrative overhead costs does exist. Considering the incredibly small amount the fee is, and the fact that they won't turn off any radios if an agency doesn't pay, I will still maintain that it's essentially free

But yes, the days of free radios on the system won't last long....if CCNC even makes it through all of this.

 

[greenthumb]

No VZW air-cards? Uh oh..... when that LTE network fails to connect, the public safety cards will probably roll over to VZW CDMA.

If the device support bands other than BC 14, perhaps (and that's an issue right now early on). But then what would be the point of having the public safety network if you're paying for FirstNet and Verizon? Verizon won't give PS free access to their networks, and i'm not sure that agencies are willing to increase their broadband data budgets for FirstNet.

 

[Denverpilot]

DTRS is certainly not a free network. Agencies on the system are paying a fee now. There is a major funding issue right now for upkeep and upgrades and the days of free radios on the system is not going to last long.

Those radios were never free to begin with. Someone paid the hyper-inflated prices for them.

Guess who's empty wallet it came out of, with interest being paid on it still?

The price tag was hidden in plain sight, not non-existent.

 

[greenthumb]

We were talking about how the recurring costs of the infrastructure are reconciled...or not reconciled.

 

[Thayne]

I saw Wellington & his better half at King Soopers last week, I think he cannot use one of those stock state-issue office chairs anymore