Law enforcement officials from around the country emphasized the importance of strong social distancing policies in keeping law enforcement officers healthy and on duty amid the COVID-19 pandemic, during a March 27 webinar hosted by the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) and FirstNet, built with AT&T.

AT&T announced new developments around the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) including a limited mission-critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) introduction, free smartphones with contracts and the first high-power user equipment (HPUE) certifications.

Vertel, Australia’s largest privately owned telecommunications carrier, and Ondacomms, an Australian wireless communications company, partnered to supply Grasshopper Environmental with a wide-area radio solution for its fleet vehicles.

Orion Labs, which offers push-to-talk (PTT) applications, announced a $29 million Series B funding round led by Dell Technologies Capital with participation from WRVI Capital and existing investors including Avalon Ventures, Argentum Capital Partners, Allen and Co. and Mathers Associates.

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford recently addressed public television station managers to share his vison about the future of the Army’s information and communications technology needs. He spoke about leveraging existing infrastructure and capabilities to improve information sharing, resiliency and readiness for the Army. He acknowledged that the commercial sector is developing and deploying advanced technology that the Army can use to effectively meet these needs. Crawford said that taking advantage of these developments, rather than creating everything internally, can speed deployments and better equip and inform our troops.

Direct mode, also called device-to-device (D2D) communications — or more precisely, the lack of it — is seen to be one of the main risks in moving from narrowband professional mobile radio (PMR) technologies exclusively to broadband Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)-based solutions. However, at times, the root cause is lost in the discussion.

Good education and training, meticulous equipment management and as much advanced planning as is practical are critical for public-safety agencies to effectively serve their communities during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, said fire officials whose agencies have been on the frontlines of the battle against the virus.

The Project 25 Technology Interest Group (PTIG) highlighted accomplishments and work in progress for 2020 from the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) TR-8 committee. New work includes addressing interference with 700/800 MHz cellular systems and security features, among others.

American Petroleum Institute (API) members called out Anterix for not providing enough information on how it plans to remedy interference concerns in the 900 MHz band and said refineries can’t give up critical spectrum until the issues are addressed.

Siyata Mobile began delivery on its government tender for up to 15,000 push-to-talk (PTT) devices, previously announced in December.