Hytera announced it will deliver a nationwide TETRA system to the Ministry of Interior of Angola. This turnkey project includes TETRA infrastructure, Long Term Evolution (LTE)-TETRA multimode radios and TETRA radios, and convergent dispatching systems. The contract value is around US$31 million.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed a letter of intent July 10 declaring that the commonwealth of Virginia will allow the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) and AT&T to proceed with the deployment of the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN) in Virginia. Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead announced a day later that Wyoming will also join FirstNet.

Comments to the FCC on the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) proposal for interoperability compliance for states that opt out to build their own radio access networks (RANs) are due July 17.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in coming days plans to release a report summarizing results from the first mission-critical push to talk (MCPTT) Plugtests event held June 19 – 23. The report will follow preliminary data from the interoperability test sessions for mission-critical Long Term Evolution (LTE) equipment.

Winbourne Consulting received a contract from the city of Virginia Beach Information Technology Department to develop a plan, approach, schedule and scripted scenarios for the city’s body-worn camera (BWC) project.

The First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) expects initial mission-critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) services to be available on the nationwide public-safety broadband network by March 2019, according to a FirstNet road map for 2018 and 2019.

New research shows that more than 50 percent of government respondents say that public technology adoption should be stimulated, managed and aggregated at the local or city level. ABI Research conducted the business-to-business (B2B) technology survey of 455 U.S.-based companies that span nine verticals.

In an ex parte letter filed with the FCC, the Enterprise Wireless Alliance (EWA) responded to the recent efforts of M2M Spectrum Networks and the Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA) to persuade the FCC not to provide 800 MHz incumbents with an advanced opportunity to access expansion/guard band spectrum.

The state of Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget recommended that the state analyze Rivada Michigan’s bid alongside the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) state plan for Michigan “to determine the best value bid.”

The FCC released a report and order that establishes the standards and procedures it will use to review state alternative plans for states that want to opt out of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) and build their own radio access network (RAN). The rules give states that opt out of the FirstNet state plan an extra 60 days to complete a request for proposals (RFP) process, providing for 240 days total.