An article in last week’s Inside Towers, Verizon Launches Public Safety Core As Well, Calls AT&T’s “Vaporware” regarding the respective public safety network rollouts of AT&T and Verizon drew a sharp response from the First Responder Network Authority. Verizon’s Kevin King said AT&T is “just offering a vaporware core,” while his company “offers public safety customers preemption and mobile broadband priority service at no additional charge.”
A First Responder Network Authority spokesperson, in reaction to the article, responded to Inside Towers with the following: “Public safety’s FirstNet core is a dedicated build of hardware, plus a Network Operations Center, dedicated team at the Security Operations Center, dedicated customer care – which public safety has never had before, certified devices and apps, and dedicated disaster recovery assets. For many years, this is what public safety has been asking for and it goes far beyond for first responders in comparison to any commercial network.”
“A separate physical core is what public safety asked for so they can be confident in the network’s security, and why we included it our [FirstNet’s] RFP. It takes time and effort to build and test a new physical core and we are pleased to have it delivered ahead of schedule.”
“The First Responder Network Authority is answerable to public safety for carrying out their vision for FirstNet,” the spokesperson said. “We take our role in overseeing the implementation of their nationwide public safety broadband network very seriously. Public safety will depend on FirstNet with their lives. So, we won’t be rushing critical infrastructure out the door at the expense of public safety. While we are moving to expedite our testing/validation of public safety’s core, we will not sacrifice delivering a robust, first class, secure broadband experience to our public safety users. In the meantime, AT&T is moving FirstNet users over in a controlled environment to ensure a smooth transition to the dedicated core,” they told Inside Towers.
April 4, 2018
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