Ken Brinkley, senior vice president/inventor at Select Engineering Services, demonstrates an automatic injury detector, which is a wearable piece for first responders that has sensors on the front and back of a person’s torso. The sensors will detect if a person is shot or stabbed, and automatically sends a text message with a person’s exact location to a pre-selected list of other responders. Brinkley was one of the speakers at a FirstNet informational event held at Lakeview Arena in Marquette recently. (Journal photo by Cecilia Brown)

MARQUETTE — Fast and efficient communication amongst first responders is essential during an emergency or natural diaster.

Local first responders, emergency dispatchers and officials had a chance recently in Marquette to learn more about the FirstNet system, which is a public-private partnership that aims to provide a dedicated network “built specifically for public safety, by public safety,” said Brent Schroeder, the FirstNet state lead for Michigan.

FirstNet, which is a public-private partnership between AT&T and the federal government, stems from recommendations developed out of the 9/11 Commission Report and aims to standardize and improve communications amongst responders, officials said. AT&T is under a 25-year-contract with the federal government to provide the network.

“We invested in building a completely separate network and a completely separate core” for first responders, said Jeffrey Brian, director of FirstNet outreach and consultation.

This is important, Brian said, as during an emergency, radio communication systems and/or cell phone systems can become overloaded and make it difficult for responders to communicate, but through FirstNet, responders can gain priority access to a dedicated network.

“Police and fire are in situations where they need the access to the network,” Brian said. “I’ll give an example — the Las Vegas shooting. When that happened, there were a lot of police and fire folks there at that concert, during that shooting, who could not make a phone call. They could not get out. Where, if they were on this network, they would have priority and pre-emption over everybody else who was trying to make calls.”

Not only does the network give first responders priority and preemption over other communications traffic, but it also offers standardization and security, they said.

“From a first responder perspective, the whole point of the network is to have a common infrastructure that they all use,” Schroeder said. “What we saw unfortunately when the 9/11 Commission (Report) came out, is that the state of New York and the city of New York, when that tragedy happened, they were all on disparate networks. They were all using something different. The cellular networks were down, and you had people not able to communicate, which cost lives.”

The standardization offered by FirstNet can allow improved communication amongst responders from different agencies, which can be critical in an emergency, they said.

“It helps in a mutual aid environment as well,” Schroeder said. “If something happened in Marquette, you’ve got the city, you’ve got the county, you could have the state police, you could have a federal agency — depending upon what the event is — all using different stuff. It’s difficult to communicate.”

An example of FirstNet’s utility even occurred during the Houghton-area Father’s Day flood in June, he said.

“Houghton County Sheriff’s (Office) was one of the first agencies in the U.P. to adopt the FirstNet program,” Schroeder said. “It happened to be right before the unfortunate floods that happened, so this was a way for them to continue communication during that event.”

In rural areas such as the Upper Peninsula, the FirstNet service can be particularly beneficial, officials said, as it aims to address “expand coverage in the Upper Peninsula” and adress coverage gaps in several ways.

“Most cellular carriers are going to focus on population before they focus on coverage for rural areas,” Schroeder said. “The state wanted that done in reverse. So we committed to a number of sites that weren’t even on the build plan to bring into the U.P. We’ve deployed band 14 already in the U.P. and we’re looking at extensive coverage enhancements in the U.P., all done in 2019.”

Because emergencies can often take place in rural areas without cell phone service in the U.P., FirstNet can also deploy satellite cell phone service in these areas for responders if an on-going emergency takes place, officials said.

Attendees of the event also had a chance to learn about the wide array of equipment that responders can use with FirstNet, such as smart phones, tablets, wearables and more.

Overall, officials said they hope to see more agencies in the U.P. adopt the program, as 5,000 agencies across the U.S. are using it and $1.3 billion has been invested in Michigan since 2015.

They emphasized that FirstNet system can be used by agencies and responders across the U.P., noting that agencies as a whole can sign up, or individual responders can also sign up for FirstNet by visiting an AT&T retail location if the preregister at firstnet.com/signup.

For more information on FirstNet, visit firstnet.gov.

Cecilia Brown can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 248.