Julie Song, President at Advanced RF Technologies (ADRF), responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company globally.
In emergency situations, people often fixate on the first responders’ arrival time, unaware of the critical steps that make this process quick and effective. A key factor is reliable, secure and uninterrupted public safety communications, which enable responders to coordinate efficiently and save lives.
However, before any response typically happens, one has to call 911. According to recent findings from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), over 80% of 911 calls during emergencies originate from cell phones, highlighting that the majority of initial alerts come from citizens.
This growing reliance on personal devices during emergencies underscores the importance of having connectivity for both citizens and first responders in a building. This redundant approach, which integrates both commercial and public safety frequencies, marks a significant improvement over systems that rely solely on traditional public safety radio frequencies (RF) such as PS 700/800MHz and UHF/VHF using land mobile radio (LMR) technology.
The Evolving Public Safety Communications Landscape
Historically, LMRs have been the primary device for public safety communication. Two-way radios have played a critical role in providing reliable, instant communication in challenging environments. They operate exclusively on dedicated public safety bands such as UHF (380-512 MHz), VHF (138–174 MHz), as well as Public Safety 700 and 800 MHz.
While LMR systems have been upgraded over time to improve reliability and integration with newer communication platforms, they still face limitations. For instance, they often don’t support multimedia such as video or imagery, which could be beneficial in emergencies, and mostly do not work across state borders because the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocates LMR frequencies based on geographic regions. Local factors such as population density, geography and the needs of public safety agencies influence specific frequency allocations in each state or region.
Given these limitations, the federal government, in partnership with AT&T, began work on FirstNet in 2017—the first public-private nationwide public safety network. FirstNet operates on Band 14, a highly coveted swath of spectrum in the 700MHz frequency band used exclusively by responders on FirstNet-ready smartphones. This became one of many accelerants for smartphones overtaking LMR as the primary communication method for first responders.
Verizon and T-Mobile followed suit with their nationwide approach with Frontline and Connecting Heroes, respectively. All three networks provide emergency responders—such as firefighters, police officers, military personnel, National Guard members and even school teachers—with a secure and reliable communication platform, ensuring they can use their phones for emergency communications with priority access over the general public.
Supporting LTE and, in some cases, 5G, these networks offer advanced features like telemetry data, live streaming, GPS tracking and communication beyond traditional two-way push-to-talk radios. For example, during the recent Los Angeles wildfires, the mobile carriers provided first priority to ensure first responders were able to communicate even during peak demand. In some cases, they also deployed portable cell sites and satellite units to maintain connectivity in areas with damaged infrastructure.
However, these nationwide networks are not immune to outages or failures. For example, AT&T’s 2023 outage and Verizon’s 2024 outage disrupted critical communication services for both the public and first responders, revealing vulnerabilities in systems designed to enhance emergency preparedness.
The outages underscore the dangers of relying on a single communication network for public safety, especially during emergencies when uninterrupted communication is most crucial.
The Importance Of Redundancy
Having emergency responder communication enhancement systems (ERCES) in buildings that support LMR public safety bands and the nationwide networks that leverage smartphones establishes powerful redundancy that helps further mitigate downtime in the event of an emergency. When it comes to public safety, more options are always better, so these nationwide networks will always be a complement to traditional public safety and not a replacement. This ideology can be extended to commercial wireless (e.g., cellular connectivity for ordinary citizens), which also plays a vital role in public safety, considering citizens are often the literal first responders in emergencies.
While some may have viewed the creation of nationwide public safety networks as the new way for first responders to communicate, the reality is that it’s just another way. More connectivity options will always be better. When one system faces disruption, the others serve as reliable backups, ensuring continuity and dependability during all emergencies.