Navy Signs Up With FirstNet at All US Installations

they don’t yet have all the solutions for coalition operations and communications. But we’re seeing forward motion.” U.S. military bases house an estimated 150,000 first responders, but emergency response personnel generally maintain their own infrastructure, he said. “Given that those teams’ surrounding civilian communities often rely on military first responders, it makes sense to further connect the state, local, tribal and other entities under the same communications network and platform.” A guidance memo by Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer said the Navy and Marine Corps installation commands will “engage with FirstNet agents to initiate the development of each installations public safety communications data interface and interoperability requirements.” The Navy "must align with their planning actions and ensure no technology gap materializes within its public safety communications architecture supporting the [Navy] first responders and their mutual aid partners on and off its installations,” it said. The memo is "a promising first step toward eventual procurement, deployment and management of FirstNet-based services," said Mike Leff, vice president-defense, AT&T Public Sector. Questions arose at the March FirstNet board meeting on progress in selling the service to federal agencies (see 1903200050). The General Service Administration announced last week that AT&T and Verizon completed their operational business support system testing under the new federal Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract. That lets the carriers “accept and process task orders or service orders, provision or deliver services, and bill for services,” GSA said.