The final demonstration held by the DRIVER+ project in Warsaw, Poland, and the Hague, the Netherlands, 26 – 28 November, achieved all its key goals, according to the organizers.

AT&T pushed back the launch of mission-critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) services on the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) network, originally scheduled to launch by the end of 2019, until early next year.

Purdue University’s College of Engineering is working with AT&T to create a test bed for 5G-based research and development at its Purdue Research Lab. Located in the newly launched Indiana 5G Zone, the lab will use AT&T’s 5G+ millimeter wave (5G+) and commercially available multiaccess edge computing (MEC) technologies to help solve societal challenges such as disaster recovery in rural, agricultural areas and smart cities.

The European Emergency Number Association (EENA) released a position paper calling for technology companies to join with emergency services groups and providers to enhance citizen safety. In fact, the paper calls on tech companies for stronger cooperation before launching any new safety functionality.

“Location, location, location” applies to the world of public safety as well as the real-estate industry. Location plays a vital role in many aspects of public safety’s daily responsibilities. It is important to know both the location of a 9-1-1 caller and the location of the incident being reported. When dispatched, first responders need to know the location of the incident, and when on the scene, they need to locate citizens who might be trapped in a building or otherwise need to be guided to safety. Finally, while first responders search for people and pets, the incident commander, at minimum, needs to be able to track locations of the responders.

The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division completed a nearly two-year investigation into the standard-setting activities of the GSM Association (GSMA), a trade association for mobile network operators.

Customers in the four largest municipalities in the Netherlands have used the Entropia TETRA digital communications network for logistics and security services for years, and the 20 largest municipalities will also have Entropia services.

About 150 partner companies participated in the third-annual Operation Convergent Response (OCR2019) event, Nov. 19 – 21, in Georgia. Verizon and Nokia sponsored the annual event. The number of overall or public-safety participants was not available by press time.

First responders in northwestern Minnesota and those serving the White Earth Reservation will see a coverage boost with a new purpose-built cell site as part of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) buildout. The site, located between the White Earth Reservation and Itasca State Park, is part of FirstNet’s network expansion in Minnesota.

The buildout of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) network was at about 66% as of Nov. 13, and AT&T expects to reach 70% buildout of the nationwide broadband network by the end of the year, Igal Elbaz, vice president, wireless technology, AT&T, said during the Morgan Stanley TMT Conference. The next reimbursement milestone for AT&T under its contract with FirstNet is 80%.