Following the unprecedented economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, many future investment strategies for upgrading communications technology in the transport and logistics sector will have had their brakes put on. However, the reopening of the economy when individuals will once again be able to travel safely, and when global supply chains can get back up and running to pre-pandemic levels, will be a time to consolidate, not stand still.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is supporting counter unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) research, testing, training and evaluation across multiple DHS missions and components.

The second quarterly Third Generational Partnership Project (3GPP) Plenary e-meetings of 2021 recently concluded. The group focused on the completion of Release 17 (R17) stage 2 (architecture) work and preparation for prioritization of features for R18. The group declared the stage 2 work frozen, while allowing some work items to continue into the third quarter of 2021. At this time, the R17 stage 3 (protocol) freeze date remains on schedule for March 2022.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DoT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that Laurie Flaherty, the National 911 Program’s coordinator, will retire at the end of this calendar year.

The Land Mobile Communications Council (LMCC) filed a petition for rulemaking with the FCC that would modernize the rules governing protection of TV stations from LMR systems in the T-band spectrum.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched a new prize competition to advance the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in first responder search and rescue (SAR) operations.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) transitioned its Resilient Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Conformance Framework to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as an approved project, which will further refine the framework into international industry standards for resilient PNT user equipment.

The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) released the third version of its i3 standard for next-generation 9-1-1 (NG 9-1-1). The updated version includes updates to NG 9-1-1 infrastructure, which will pave the way for national and international interoperability, NENA said.

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is consulting on whether to launch a market investigation into Motorola Solutions’ Airwave network, which is currently used by all emergency services in the U.K.

Drones have been in the public eye for many years now. Still, the COVID-19 pandemic, which has flipped virtually every industry on its head and accelerated the rate of digital disruption globally, is also changing how we as a society perceive the use of this technology.