Edward Horowitz was named chair of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) for a two-year term, and FirstNet CEO Mike Poth will leave his position at the end of September.

Airbus kicked off the Critical App Challenge for the Middle East to help regional developers and start-ups to create the best applications for public-safety users. The aim is to establish new digital solutions to help police, firefighters and other professionals improve their work.

The unsealed version of a U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) judge’s initial determination in Motorola Solutions’ patent infringement case against Hytera offers more insight into the judge’s decision and the alleged theft of Motorola trade secrets by Hytera employees.

Airbus and STC Specialized partnered to make the Hajj 2018 safer. Reliable secure communications infrastructure contributed to the safety of more than 2 million pilgrims at the holy sites in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, the companies said.

The Public Safety Network announced a partnership with SafeTracer as part of its public-safety technology accelerator program.

Market research firm IHS Markit predicted that revenues generated by the mission-critical Long Term Evolution (LTE) market are set to increase across all major sectors to 2021. Leading the way is the utilities market, with 120 percent growth, followed by public safety, where revenues are set to double.

The FCC announced an Oct. 2 workshop to educate public-safety answering points (PSAPs) on real-time text (RTT). The PSAP RTT Education Day will take place from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. EST at the FCC’s headquarters. The event is hosted with the assistance of the Commission’s Disability Advisory Committee (DAC).

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) announced a third Plugtests event to test interoperability among mission-critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) technology at the end of the year. The event — dubbed MCX Plugtests 3 to incorporate MCPTT, mission-critical (MCData) and mission-critical video (MCVideo) — will be the first remote testing session following two in-person events.

Troopers with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OHP) have a new communications service that will help them in times of crisis. More than 750 troopers have enrolled their state-issued cellphones in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Wireless Priority Service (WPS) program.

The FCC released a public notice announcing that rule Section 90.251, which codifies a new procedure for public-safety entities to license mobile and portable radios on the federal interoperability channels, became effective Aug. 29.