AT&T to build network for first-responders

Carrier will design and maintain sophisticated system for emergencies.

The federal government has tapped the nation’s second-largest cellphone carrier to build a first-of-its-kind wireless network — one that promises to help firefighters, police and medical workers more easily communicate in a major emergency.

The 25-year contract directs AT&T to build and maintain the network, which is known as FirstNet and is unprecedented in sophistication and scale.

When federal, state or local authorities arrive at the scene of an emergency today, their communications devices must compete with those of consumers who are also trying to access the cellular network, FirstNet executives said. That can lead to congestion and delays that endanger lives.

The FirstNet network will be designed to give priority to first-responders, said FirstNet President T. J. Kennedy. Through special SIM cards inserted in their phones, police, fire and medical officers will be better able to communicate with each other. Much like current technology, the new network will allow them to send and receive video, data and voice calls before they reach a crisis area. But that information will arrive uninterrupted and in real time.

“They will always be prioritized. They’re always at the front of the line,” said Kennedy. “This happens inside the network at the millisecond level.”

FirstNet is administered by the Department of Commerce and was proposed after Sept. 11, 2001, when emergency workers responding to the day’s terror attacks struggled to communicate.

Under the contract, AT&T will spend $40 billion of its own money deploying FirstNet. It will also receive $6.5 billion from the government at the end of five years if it successfully meets a number of milestones. And the government is awarding the company as much as 20 MHz of new wireless airwaves that AT&T intends to integrate into the service. That so-called “spectrum” will expand the network’s capacity and help ensure that communications do not fail.

AT&T’s extensive existing infrastructure means that the company may move more quickly to set up FirstNet, which will be available in every state.

AT&T’s wireless arm, AT&T Mobility, is based in Atlanta.