Skip to main content

AT&T Celebrates 1 million FirstNet Connections with FirstNet One, a 55-foot Aerostat


I recently wrote about 3GPP progress towards 5G drones (UAS/UAV) connectivity here. In addition, there is also Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) feature that could be used to bring connectivity to hard to reach areas and in case of emergencies and disasters. I wrote about that here.

AT&T on the other hand is celebrating 1 Million Connections and Launch of “FirstNet One” – a Deployable Blimp – for Public Safety. Their press release says:

More than 10,000 public safety agencies and organizations across the country have subscribed and over 1 million FirstNet connections are in service, bringing first responders and those that support them the reliability, capability and accountability they trust to carry out their mission.

 Jason Porter, senior vice president, FirstNet Program at AT&T said, “FirstNet is the only wireless communications platform that’s been architected from the ground up just for the public safety community. It’s specifically designed to advance public safety communications, equipping subscribing first responders with the innovative, mission-focused tools, technologies and features they can’t get anywhere else.”

 That includes a giant addition to the FirstNet disaster response arsenal: FirstNet One – an approximately 55-foot aerostat. More commonly known as a blimp, the FirstNet One aerostat is the 76th deployable network asset to join the nationwide FirstNet fleet.

 FirstNet One brings a first-of-its-kind public safety communications solution to help keep responders connected during large-scale, catastrophic events:
  • Can fly up to 1,000 feet, potentially providing over 2 times the coverage area as compared to other deployable solutions, like Satellite Cells on Wheels and Flying Cells on Wings™ (COWs).
  • Fully operational in windspeeds up to 50 mph and capable of withstanding windspeeds up to 70 mph.
  • Able to stay aloft for about 2 weeks before needing additional helium top-off, giving first responders wide-scale portable connectivity over an extended period of time.
  • Tethered to a trailer to provide either satellite or wireline backhaul.
  • Reduces the need for multiple ground-based portable cell sites, freeing those dedicated assets to be used by other agencies nationwide.
The aerostat was recently tested in Tuskegee, Ala. Flight testing established its initial coverage area, airworthiness, payload lift potential, avionics and flight controls, and performance of the power and data transmission lines connecting to the FirstNet network core. Operational methods, procedures and safety standards required to deploy, launch, operate and recover the asset in a public safety incident response scenario were also tested.



Their Innovation Blog adds:

When disaster strikes, keeping first responders and our other customers connected is our priority – and the specific mission of our Network Disaster Response (NDR) team.

 Unfortunately, catastrophes like earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes and floods won’t simply just stop occurring. Being prepared is the best way to combat these inevitable events and we do that through our NDR team – we’ve invested more than $650 million in our program, making it one of the industry’s largest and most advanced. In fact, the team has been deployed more than 200 times since 2011 with 12 deployments in 2019 alone, including support for Hurricane Dorian, flooding in the Midwest, and California wildfires.

 NDR’s mobile fleet is maintained in 4, strategically placed warehouses across the country, plus a 5th location supporting our markets overseas. And to serve public safety even further, more than 40 sites nationwide house the FirstNet fleet of dedicated deployable network assets, enabling a 14-hour delivery window following the initial emergency request.

 Like our Flying COWs™, when deployed FirstNet One provides LTE coverage across the targeted area during times of disasters. FirstNet One is portable and can fly up to 1,000 feet for approximately 2 weeks before needing additional helium top-off, which means it has advantages in altitude and duration. It can also reduce the need for other traditional temporary ground-based assets, such as SatCOLTs.

 FirstNet One could operate during major disasters like last year’s Hurricane Michael, where assets were deployed for 3+ months in the Florida panhandle while recovery efforts were underway. This is the latest chapter in our spirit of service heritage and demonstrates our belief in the ability to make a better world through technology.


More details on AT&T FirstNet:

Related Blog Posts:
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Laser Inter-Satellite Links (LISLs) in a Starlink Constellation

When we first talked about Starlink back in 2019 , we saw in the video that the concept involved laser communication to communicate between the satellites. While the initially launched satellites did not have the laser communication mechanism built in, it looks like they are being added to the newer ones.  A report from Fast Company in late 2021 said: One of the next big upgrades in telecom will involve satellites firing lasers at each other—to beam data, not blow stuff up. The upside of replacing traditional radio-frequency communication with lasers, that encode data as pulses of light, can be much like that of deploying fiber-optic cable for terrestrial broadband: much faster speeds and much lower latency. “Laser links in orbit can reduce long-distance latency by as much as 50%, due to higher speed of light in vacuum & shorter path than undersea fiber,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted in July about the upgrade now beginning for that firm’s Starlink satellite constellation. The
1 comment
Read more

CSI-RS vs SRS Beamforming

In an issue of Signals Flash by Signals Research Group (SRG), they talked about 2 different types of MIMO. Quoting from their journal, "CSI-RS versus SRS. Those operators that have tested or made token use of MU-MIMO leverage a flavor of MU-MIMO that is based on CSI-RS. The MU-MIMO network we tested was based on SRS, which makes it far more likely to observe sixteen spatial layers (versus eight)." I reached out to Emil Björnson, Visiting Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Associate Professor at Linköping University to see if he has explained this in any of his videos. Here is what he said: " I'm not talking about 3GPP terminology in any of my videos. But you can listen to the slides that starts around 12:40 in this video (embedded below) . If you are looking for CSI-RS vs SRS based MU-MIMO, then jump to around 12:40 in this video where you can see CSI-RS being referred to as "grid of beams" and SRS is similar to the other option, which is t
Post a Comment
Read more

IEEE 802.11bn Ultra High Reliability (UHR), a.k.a. Wi-Fi 8

Back in 2020 we looked at the introductory post of Wi-Fi 7 which was followed up by a more detailed post in Feb 2022. We are now following on with an introductory post on the next generation Wi-Fi.  A new paper on arXiv explores the journey towards IEEE 802.11bn Ultra High Reliability (UHR), the amendment that will form the basis of Wi-Fi 8. Quoting selected items from the paper  below: After providing an overview of the nearly completed Wi-Fi 7 standard, we present new use cases calling for further Wi-Fi evolution. We also outline current standardization, certification, and spectrum allocation activities, sharing updates from the newly formed UHR Study Group. We then introduce the disruptive new features envisioned for Wi-Fi 8 and discuss the associated research challenges. Among those, we focus on access point coordination and demonstrate that it could build upon 802.11be multi-link operation to make Ultra High Reliability a reality in Wi-Fi 8. The IEEE 802.11bn UHR: Whose Study Gro
Post a Comment
Read more