As shown by recent industry events, public-safety officials must hold commercial carriers accountable and not let the carriers take advantage of them.

The Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alliance (NUAIR), a coalition of New York and Massachusetts aerospace and academic institutions, signed a multiyear collaboration agreement with Thales. The agreement supports NUAIR’s efforts to safely integrate unmanned aircraft systems into traditional, controlled airspace and supports its ability to conduct operations at its New York UAS test site’s 50-mile UAS traffic management corridor.

A coalition of Puerto Rican advocates, racial and social justice organizations, and media and telecommunications experts asked FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to appoint an independent commission to examine the causes for communications failures in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria last year.

The U.K. Home Office and Motorola Solutions reached an agreement on terms for the new direction of the U.K. Emergency Services Network (ESN), as well as an agreement on terms to extend the Airwave nationwide digital radio network.

The FCC issued a notice of violation to New Jersey Natural Gas Co., licensee of private land mobile station WQOS285, operating at various locations in New Jersey including Rockaway, New Jersey.

The FCC granted a request from the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) for a temporary waiver to permit amateur data transmissions at a higher symbol rate than is permitted by FCC’s rules to facilitate hurricane relief communications relating to Hurricane Florence.

RapidSOS partnered with Google to deliver 9-1-1 caller location information to public-safety agencies nationwide.

Nedaa, the Dubai government secure networks provider, plans to share its current critical communications tactics in the public-safety domain when it participates for the sixth consecutive year at the Critical Communications Middle East and North Africa (CC MENA) Conference and Exhibition Sept. 24 – 25 in Dubai. As the host operator, Nedaa will detail its 4G network infrastructure and the technology’s crucial role in supporting public-safety enforcement and emergency response initiatives.

Global critical communications association TCCA released a white paper on TETRA connectivity to Long Term Evolution (LTE).

The 2018 Winter Institute will be held Oct. 22 – 26 at Disaster City on the campus of Texas A&M University (TAMU) in College Station, Texas. This year’s programming will include the Winter Institute exercise, a public-safety broadband workshop and Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) grant recipient support.