Motorola Solutions will host a “hackathon” in New South Wales, Australia. The 48-hour challenge aims to develop technology solutions to overcome complex operational challenges faced by the state’s government and public-safety agencies.

Working in partnership with UNICEF, Australia’s University of Adelaide researchers created a best-practice toolkit to help developing countries rapidly generate and implement life-saving communications plans in the event of local emergencies.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval announced his decision to accept the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) and AT&T plan to deliver a wireless broadband network to the state’s public-safety community. This will make Nevada the 15th state or territory to opt into their state or territory plan from FirstNet.

Verizon announced it plans to build and operate a private network core dedicated to public safety and make priority access and pre-emption services available to public safety “when necessary and at no charge.”

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback announced his decision to accept the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) and AT&T plan to deliver a wireless broadband network to the state’s public-safety community, making Kansas the 14th state or territory to opt in to FirstNet.

Southern Co. subsidiary Southern Linc entered into a partnership with the Huntsville-Madison County’s (Alabama) 9-1-1 Dispatch Center (MadCo 9-1-1) for mission-critical Long Term Evolution (LTE) service. The service is expected to be available in Huntsville and Madison County in the second quarter of 2018.

The state of Arizona opted into the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet).

Verizon plans to submit proposals to statewide requests for proposals (RFPs) for alternative radio access networks (RANs) to the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) state plans and continue to “be a very viable choice for public safety,” said a Verizon executive.

Scott Edson, executive director of the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS), provides an update on the combined Project 25 (P25) and Long Term Evolution (LTE) project.

Singapore company Addvalue Technologies formalized a worldwide agreement with Inmarsat to jointly offer a commercial on-demand communications service specifically designed to address certain elements of the rapidly expanding low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite market. The service, termed Inter-Satellite Data Relay Service (IDRS), will enhance and improve the operational efficiency of LEO satellite operations globally.