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SPONSORED BY The public safety broadband network has to serve more than 60,000 federal, state, local and tribal agencies. Big Plans for Broadband A public safety network is coming, but there's still a lot to work out So public safety got the D Block of the broadcast spectrum it coveted and the broadband network it wanted established in law. Now all we and our fre and law colleagues have to do is make the network a reality and fulfll its abundant promise. In other words, now the hard part really begins. The network is coming, at least on paper, where it was fnally established by the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. Bringing it to real life is the mission of the First Responder Network Authority, or FirstNet. FirstNet is an independent body created within the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) to develop and implement the dedicated interoperable nationwide public-safety broadband network that is expected to let EMS, fre, police, hospitals and others share large amounts of data seamlessly in emergencies and every day. It's directed by a 15-member board whose roster ranges from Cabinet members to prominent EMS and fre leaders. They are informed by a Public Safety Advisory Committee that has representatives from major EMS organizations like NAEMT, NASEMSO and NEMSMA. FirstNet will develop and operate the network, which tantalizes with capabilities like accessing victims' complete medical records from the backs of moving ambulances and streaming live vitals and video to docs at hospitals. It could dramatically advance how we perform EMS and our new mobile integrated healthcare efforts. But achieving what FirstNet board chair Samuel Ginn called "the largest telecom project in [American] history" remains an enormous undertaking, and we still have some hurdles to overcome. Getting Started The FirstNet board's early activities have focused on setting out long-terms goals for the network and starting to look at options and technologies that can provide the kinds of hardy capabil- | By John Erich, Associate Editor ities it wants for responders. In May it launched a series of six regional meetings with state and local representatives to start getting them up to speed on the network and what will be required of them. Next come one-on-one meetings with states to begin examining their individual needs and circumstances. "The states are very unique," says FirstNet board member Jeffrey Johnson, CEO of the Western Fire Chiefs Association and chief for 15 years of Oregon's Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue. "If you look at Guam, for example, what they have in common with Vermont is not a lot. What Alaska has in common with New York is not a lot. The reality is, each of these states has unique needs, and we need to make sure, in our considerations, that we address those. Communicating among the skyscrapers and eight stories of sub-basements in Manhattan is a whole lot different than communicating just north of Fairbanks." Conceptually, this is a scenario EMS leaders can fathom: Finding solutions POLICY: Dedicated universal broadband capabilities could allow advances in the emergency care of certain patients. EMSWORLD.com | JUNE 2013 27