Public Safety Advocate Special Edition
04.15.2013 by Andrew M. Seybold
This morning, the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) published a document intended for distribution to any and all elected federal, state, and local elected officials. This document states clearly and in plain language why Public Safety Land Mobile Radio (LMR) voice systems MUST be maintained even though FirstNet is building out a new Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN).
The document is attached in a PDF file and may also be access at www.npstc.org. The reason this document needs to be widely distributed is that many of us who have been working on this broadband network are receiving telephone calls and emails from elected officials and some within the Public Safety community asking why LMR systems must be maintained since they assume LMR will be replaced by the broadband network.
This document was prepared by the APCO Broadband Committee, and APCO sent it on to NPSTC for final revisions and publication. Please make sure you provide this document to any and all elected officials you may come in contact with as well as others within the Public Safety community who may not understand that the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network is focused on providing for the addition of data and video services to Public Safety and NOT replacing existing LMR networks.
Andrew Seybold
[…] in the future but LMR systems need to be maintained and even expanded for the foreseeable future. APCO, NPSTC, and others have published documents about the importance of maintaining existing LMR […]