FirstNet info

[mastr]

I'm not on FirstNet and probably never will be- and giving serious thought to dropping my AT&T service. Seems like AT&T thinks that my money is somehow not worth as much as money from FirstNet subs. I'm not pleased with the idea that my own (plain vanilla civilian) calls are always less important that those made by others who for all I know are deciding where to have lunch. Verizon seems to have as good or better coverage around here anyway.

 

[mmckenna]

I'm not on FirstNet and probably never will be- and giving serious thought to dropping my AT&T service. Seems like AT&T thinks that my money is somehow not worth as much as money from FirstNet subs. I'm not pleased with the idea that my own (plain vanilla civilian) calls are always less important that those made by others who for all I know are deciding where to have lunch.

Verizon has a very similar service offering to FirstNet where public safety user calls are prioritized.

And even before all this, the DHS Wireless Priority Service existed, and that is on all networks.
Add in GETS, and it works on wireline calls too.

Changing providers won't get you away from call prioritization.

 

[talviar]

Verizon mops the floor of AT&T's dismal coverage. No service is worth the price if it doesn't work where you are.

Maybe where u are at. Where I am Firstnet coverage on AT&T blows the doors off of Verizon.

 

[mastr]

Verizon has a very similar service...Changing providers won't get you away from call prioritization.

True, but AT&T is the provider that is throwing it in my face.

 

[BigDogg795]

Verizon has a very similar service offering to FirstNet where public safety user calls are prioritized.

And even before all this, the DHS Wireless Priority Service existed, and that is on all networks.
Add in GETS, and it works on wireline calls too.

Changing providers won't get you away from call prioritization.

Except a major difference is you have to be an "agency" to get prioritization with Verizon where FN at least lets individual responsible accounts to receive prioritization.

 

[mmckenna]

Except a major difference is you have to be an "agency" to get prioritization with Verizon where FN at least lets individual responsible accounts to receive prioritization.

Doesn't really matter, WPS works on all providers, as does GETS.

 

[flametamer]

Verizon has a very similar service offering to FirstNet where public safety user calls are prioritized.

Yeah, I've been looking at their "Frontline" service. I am currently with CSpire but have started looking at other options. Verizon has better rural coverage locally than AT&T.
Dt

 

[MTS2000des]

Maybe where u are at. Where I am Firstnet coverage on AT&T blows the doors off of Verizon.

Atlanta. Right near AT&Turd's former corporate HQ. Zero service on Peachtree St at Georgia State University campus. On the street. Give me a break. Even Sprint had robust in building coverage here. FirstNet is a fleecing of taxpayers. A windfall contract for 20 years with exclusive access to what was supposed to be "public safety only" 700MHz spectrum. What a sham. As always, paid for by you and I.

 

[flametamer]

Atlanta. Right near AT&Turd's former corporate HQ. Zero service on Peachtree St at Georgia State University campus. On the street. Give me a break. Even Sprint had robust in building coverage here. FirstNet is a fleecing of taxpayers. A windfall contract for 20 years with exclusive access to what was supposed to be "public safety only" 700MHz spectrum. What a sham. As always, paid for by you and I.

I agree 100%. It should have never gone to 1 entity. All carriers should be able to provide that chunk of spectrum on their networks & coverage.

Dt

 

[rescue161]

We were given FirstNet devices to test with our network and they had horrible coverage. Mostly rural here, but Verizon works almost everywhere. We were disappointed to find that the dual SIM was locked to AT&T only. Made no sense to us, so we gave them back their equipment and subscriber units.

 

[wa8pyr]

I'm not on FirstNet and probably never will be- and giving serious thought to dropping my AT&T service. Seems like AT&T thinks that my money is somehow not worth as much as money from FirstNet subs. I'm not pleased with the idea that my own (plain vanilla civilian) calls are always less important that those made by others who for all I know are deciding where to have lunch. Verizon seems to have as good or better coverage around here anyway.

Prioritization only kicks in when the network is extremely busy, particularly during a major situation.

And I'm going to turn your comment about calls "made by others who for all I know are deciding where to have lunch" around 180 degrees. Prioritization preserves capacity for those who really need it during a situation when it's needed most, at the expense of those who simply want to use the network to live-stream video of the devastation on their TikTok, Instragram or Facebook channel so the masses can drool over it.

Verizon has a very similar service offering to FirstNet where public safety user calls are prioritized.

And even before all this, the DHS Wireless Priority Service existed, and that is on all networks.
Add in GETS, and it works on wireline calls too.

Changing providers won't get you away from call prioritization.

GETS and WPS are still out there. I've got both for work.

I've been a FirstNet user for a few years now, as have most of our local public safety agencies (especially for mobile data use). Generally I'm pleased with it; we've got some conspicuous dead spots in the county, but AT&T has been adding coverage to fill those in, so it's been getting steadily better. There are a few spots in very rural southeastern Ohio where it sometimes gets spotty, but I've usually had no trouble at all anywhere in Ohio and the surrounding states.

The one I hear lots of complaints about is T-Mobile.

 

[mmckenna]

GETS and WPS are still out there. I've got both for work.

Yeah, me too. Works just fine the few times I've used it. I'm also one of the two POC's at work, and getting people to use WPS and/or GETS is like asking them to cut off a limb. But the second they can't get a call through, it's my fault.

but AT&T has been adding coverage to fill those in, so it's been getting steadily better.

AT&T/FN came through and did a presentation for us. I let them know in no short terms where their coverage sucked in our county. It's taken a while, but they are slowly addressing it. The good thing about local public safety using it is that they let AT&T know when there's an issue.

The one I hear lots of complaints about is T-Mobile.

Yeah, they are mostly 'urban' coverage around here, but improving. We have a large outdoor DAS system at work, and we have Crown Castle managing it for us. T-Mobile has been slow to expand, but they did pick up Sprint/Nextel and are utilizing their old gear. The rest of the carriers are pretty equal in most places, with a few exception where Verizon built out a bit faster. But all the carriers do seem to be doing some expansion and the coverage continues to improve. Smaller sites/DAS systems seems to be the preferred method around here. Very few large sites going in.

 

[zerg901]

Lynk official: ‘We’ve solved the uplink challenge’ for LEO satellite-to-phone connectivity – Urgent Comms

FirstNet will soon work everywhere - right?

 

[n5ims]

Lynk official: ‘We’ve solved the uplink challenge’ for LEO satellite-to-phone connectivity – Urgent Comms

FirstNet will soon work everywhere - right?

Sure thing. Well, everywhere BUT where you happen to be when you need it.

 

[mastr]

...I'm going to turn your comment about calls "made by others who for all I know are deciding where to have lunch" around 180 degrees. Prioritization preserves capacity for those who really need it during a situation when it's needed most, at the expense of those who simply want to use the network to live-stream video...

That is killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer. Making the system pass SMS and voice calls only during "a situation when it's needed most" would be more reasonable. We "agree to disagree" here I suppose.

 

[wa8pyr]

That is killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer. Making the system pass SMS and voice calls only during "a situation when it's needed most" would be more reasonable. We "agree to disagree" here I suppose.

Believe what you want, but you're missing the point of prioritization. A priority user doesn't get any different treatment than other users unless the network is busy, in which case they go to the head of the line, just like on a trunked LMR system. Everyone can still still make calls, text, stream cat and dog videos or whatever, but priority users get first crack at the available bandwidth when the network gets busy. In the event of a major emergency, FirstNet/AT&T (and other carriers) can also manually slow down "regular" users without shutting them off entirely in order to preserve capacity for first responders.

If you don't like it, maybe you should just give up your cell phone entirely, because this kind of thing happens on every network, not just FN/AT&T.

 

[mastr]

I give up- I should have known that the First Net Kool-Aid would be flowing freely here.

 

[MTS2000des]

I asked the question to a FN rep during a state presentation and didn't get an answer other than "you have a black SIM, you have priority".
Scenario: large event in area with low density coverage. Think, 30 miles outside a city and a large farm/park where a music festival is held yearly and expected (non-COVID) turnout anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 people. all with cellphones. All streaming and uploading and tweeting every fart they let out.

FN uses shared spectrum. Band 14 is "opened up" to Joe Consumer. So how does the serving site/sector determine my device has priority over the thousands of RF generating consumer devices all spewing forth on those few available site/sectors? Explain this to me. I'm an LMR radio guy who knows enough to know that if 50,000 phones are all on affiliating/sending data to that serving site, it's going to bottleneck. Sure, once you get to the FN core, you're prioritized, but you can't do that if the onramp and offramps to that highway are full of cars.

Oh, and that event I mentioned? Worked it two years in a row and that is exactly what went down. Except Verizon for some reason didn't have any issues.

 

[wa8pyr]

Oh, and that event I mentioned? Worked it two years in a row and that is exactly what went down. Except Verizon for some reason didn't have any issues.

Interesting, just the opposite here. We have an annual event in town which often has 50k people jammed into one relatively small area at any given time, and we haven't had any issues with FN; normal AT&T and Verizon choked, though.

However, we were told (and the Federal legislation mandated) that the Band 14 segment of 700 MHz was reserved exclusively for public safety; FN has been adding Band 14 capacity locally, so that being reserved for public safety may have something to do with it.

 

[RussH]

I have significant concerns regarding FN, overall. First off, I don't necessarily "like" the thought of solely relying on it for public-safety communications and thankfully it seems most conversations have steered away from those suggestions. Priority on FN sounds great and all, but it's still utterly dependent on the cellular infrastructure remaining intact. As I live in a very disaster prone area where the local power company likes to shut off the power for a week at a time and wildfires like to take out a lot of sites, it just makes me uncomfortable. Finally, living in such a rural-county, existing coverage outside of any metropolitan area is next to non-existent.
Perhaps I'll find a use for it in the future, but I assume that will be a LONG ways off.