"FirstNet Authority board members yesterday voted unanimously to approve plans to enhance the wireless coverage provided by FirstNet with an investment of about $2 billion during the next decade to bolster the system’s terrestrial footprint, with a focus on tribal, terrestrial and rural locations.

“With the board’s actions today, the Authority will continue during our work to deliver the network that public safety has asked for and needs,” FirstNet Authority board Chair Richard Carrizzo said during the board meeting, which was webcast. “We continue addressing their top priority, which is more coverage, coverage, coverage.

“We will continue to focus and plan our coverage enhancements in the areas that need it most, with a strong focus on our territorial, tribal and rural plans.”"

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"AdventHealth Central Florida has migrated its mission-critical voice communications to FirstNet Rapid Response at more than a dozen hospital campuses in a three-county area as the organization prepares to retire its legacy land-mobile-radio (LMR) system by the end of the year.

"The issue we were having was that the traditional land-mobile-radio [system] was not strong enough to reach from our dispatch center in Orlando to some of our outlying campuses.

"AdventHealth Central Florida first migrated its security teams and its EMS personnel, which had been troubled by the lack of communications capabilities when operating in certain locations in the primary territory."

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"Georgia State Patrol turns to Southern Linc LTE system for mission-critical voice comms​​

Georgia State Patrol is using a mission-critical-push-to-talk (MCPTT) service from Southern Linc for its primary voice communications, supplanting the state-owned VHF system during the past 18 months, according to an official with the agency.

Captain Brian Screws, chief information officer for the Georgia State Patrol, said the statewide public-safety agency has been using the Southern Linc MCPTT—an Ericsson client operating on L3Harris XL-series devices—for its primary voice communications after using the service as a backup to the state’s LMR network, he said."

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"The re-elected President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, highlighted the importance of the EUCCS in the political guidelines (2024-2029) presented in her pre-election speech.

Building on the results of the BroadMap and BroadWay projects, BroadEU.Net is now working towards the operationalizing of a pan-European mobile broadband system to enhance communication and coordination among emergency services during crises and disasters. This effort supports the establishment of the EU Critical Communication System (EUCCS)."

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"Following the June 7, 2021, Council Conclusions on the Protection of Public Spaces, the EUCCS initiative was conceived. According to these findings, a strong communication system across the EU is necessary to guarantee the security and compatibility of communications related to public safety.
EUCCS will be established by 2030, according to the Commission's White Paper, "How to Master Europe's Digital Infrastructure Needs?" Securing Digital Infrastructures and Networks is the main focus of the EU Digital Decade Policy Programme, which includes this initiative."

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"Orange, which is an official partner and supplier of the Paris Olympics Games 2024, will use a Push-To-Talk (PTT) service over its 4G voice network for the upcoming games being held in France this summer, [...].

The PTT service will be prioritized over other voice traffic on the 4G network to ensure reliability and will be used by event volunteers, the Olympic committee, security services, athletes and their teams and those ensuring health and safety."

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"Operator Orange is to enable thousands of Paris Olympics 2024 staff to talk to one another via a Push-To-Talk (PTT) service, effectively turning mobile phones into enhanced walkie-talkies with messaging and video capabilities.

[...] the service will be used by “event volunteers, the Olympic committee, security services, athlete teams, health and safety; many people that are behind the scenes”.

[...] this is the first Olympics event where a PTT service has run over an operator’s existing mobile network. Previous PTT services have relied on TETRA networks (a global narrow band standard for mission critical communications defined by ETSI), for example."

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"The Australian National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) today provided a notice for an upcoming Request for Information (RFI). The RFI will be for Australia's Public Safety Mobile Broadband (PSMB) capability/network solution. "

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"Public-safety broadband communications in France will be utilized—on a limited basis—later this month when the country hosts the Summer Olympics, with nationwide coverage scheduled to be operational by the end of the year and migration from an LMR system expected in 2027, according to a French official."

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"In Finland, they are approaching a significant turning point in the timeline of critical official communication: the current Virve narrowband TETRA network will change to Virve 2 broadband services by the end of 2028."

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"T-Mobile US noted that its new PTT offering will be commercially available in April. In a release, the U.S. telco said that the T-Mobile MCPTT service is integrated with the Motorola Solutions’ Critical Connect service to make it easier for agencies and businesses to get redundancy and end-to-end encryption with secure messaging, emergency alerts, ambient listening and role-based management."

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"The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) has procured a 5G core network from Ericsson to develop Rakel G2, Sweden’s critical communications network for public safety and emergency services including national defense purposes."

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"FirstNet Authority board members today voted unanimously to fund the completion of the FirstNet system’s ability to deliver full 5G services to public-safety subscribers, although the exact amount of the investment and an implementation schedule were not shared immediately."

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"FirstNet provides more than 5.5 million connections to approximately 27,500 public-safety agencies subscribing to the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN) as of the end of 2023, according to figures released yesterday by AT&T, the FirstNet Authority contractor tasked with building and maintaining the system."

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"The 3GPP Plenary meetings took place Dec. 11-15, 2023, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Participants made continued progress on Release 18 (R18) features of interest to public safety. The Plenary meetings also included planning for Release 19 (R19) features, and the start of preliminary discussions for Release 20 (R20)."

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"FCC commissioners this month are scheduled to consider new rules regarding the Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) and the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS), as well as a proposal seeking comments whether FirstNet should have reporting obligations and whether deployable coverage should be reported."

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"AT&T completed its initial five-year buildout of the FirstNet nationwide public-safety broadband system (NPSBN)  “on time, on budget,” based on validation by FirstNet Authority personnel conducted throughout much of this year, according to FirstNet Authority Board President."

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"With the foundation of a dependable network, the longtime vision of connected responders can become a reality, ...

That means responders being connected to drones, drones being connected to helicopters, helicopters being connected to boats—information flowing all the way around, but we are making it consumable, in that we are making data-driven decisions in dangerous situations."

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Intrakat has undertaken the implementation of a mobile phone signal coverage project on behalf of the country's major telecommunication providers, at the 14 regional airports managed by Fraport Greece.

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One of the main drivers of MC-PTT market growth can be attributed to the 3GPP standardization efforts. Governments gain several important benefits by making standards the basis for PTToC deployments. In particular, standards-based approaches facilitate roaming and interoperability and benefit from economy-of-scale advantages.

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Intrakat undertook the implementation of the pilot project for the internal radio coverage of the stations and tunnels in the section of Athens Metro Line 2, from Agios Dimitrios to Elliniko, on behalf of all telecommunications providers.

With this project, metro passengers will enjoy full 5G mobile signal coverage both in the stations and on the tracks.

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COSMOTE 5G nationwide population coverage exceeded 80%.

Population 5G coverage has reached 97% in Athens and exceeded 90% in Thessaloniki and other 37 cities throughout Greece.

90% has been set as the nationwide population coverage target for 2023.

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STA.SY is proceeding with the start of the project of covering the stations and tunnels of the Athens Metro lines with a mobile phone signal up to the 5th generation (5G).

This is a project that in its first phase - until March 2023 - will be a pilot with the aim of finding the best technical solution, which will then be applied to the entire network.

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London South Bank University Cognitive Systems Research Center Head, Tasos Dagiuklas, speaks about, in the event of a fire in a remote area, firefighters, without specialized technical knowledge, be able to deploy a local 5G communication infrastructure plus make use of a satellite link to communicate with the Operations Center.

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The Australian Critical Communications Forum (ACCF) hosted a pre-conference Comms Connect workshop on 2022, October 18, covering the future of LMR with LTE, 4G, and 5G networks both public and private.

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