The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Public Safety and Homeland Security bureaus will host a webinar Sept. 27 on disaster preparedness for local and state officials.

Tioga County, New York, selected Federal Engineering to provide technical assistance and develop recommendations to improve the county’s wireless public-safety infrastructure.

Hytera Communications signed contracts with the Secretariat of Public Security of the state of Alagoas, Brazil, to provide TETRA communications infrastructure for the expansion of the statewide mission-critical communications networks, as well as four years of maintenance service.

The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is seeking comment on the vertical accuracy (Z-axis) test bed report submitted by CTIA and a proposal for a Z-axis accuracy metric submitted with the report.

The Safer Buildings Coalition elected Patrick Lau, Comba Telecom vice president of strategic development, to its board of directors as vice president.

Hytera Mobilfunk partnered with stashcat for secure messaging for LMR, particularly Hytera’s Multi-mode Advanced Radio.

The city of Fort Lauderdale selected Agile Interoperable Solutions (AIS) for communications technologies for its first responders, city management and other public-safety operations managers.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), in collaboration with the U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center (RDC), launched the U.S. Coast Guard Ready for Rescue Challenge, a $255,000 prize competition that seeks boater safety solutions that will help make it easier to find people in the water.

Two groups filed conflicting comments in the FCC’s request for input on whether to initiate a rulemaking proceeding to revise its rules for wireless priority service (WPS).

International Critical Control Rooms Alliance (ICCRA) announced it will to become an independent organization. ICCRA is the former Control Rooms Working Group of TCCA.