Public Safety Needs to Make Itself Heard Regarding the FCC’s 6-GHz Order

In April, the Federal Communications Commission issued an order that enables unlicensed devices to share 1200 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum in the 6 gigahertz (GHz) band, to meet the growing demands for wireless broadband services.

The FCC cited in its order a Cisco report that projects mobile data traffic will more than double between 2017 and 2022. It also cited an Ericsson report that predicts the average amount of data per month used by a smartphone will increase from 7 gigabytes (GB) in 2018 to 39 GB by 2024. A large portion of this mobile data traffic is expected to be delivered on an unlicensed basis utilizing Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and similar protocols. 

Panel Discussion Offers Myriad Tips for Battling Public Safety’s Ever-Growing Cybersecurity Menace

The cybersecurity problem that public safety agencies have is very big and it’s not going away—if anything, it’s only going to expand as time passes. That was the consensus of a panel convened for MCP’s inaugural Conference for Advancing Public Safety, which was presented last month.

“The threat’s there—something is going to happen, and we need to be prepared for it,” said Thomas Stutzman, director, Indiana County (Pennsylvania) Emergency Management Agency.

Public Safety Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Cisco WebEx Vulnerability

As part of our ongoing effort to keep our clients informed about the latest cybersecurity threats, we issue advisories whenever new threats are detected. If you would like to receive such advisories in the future, update your preferences here. 

Looking Beyond the Brick and Mortar

Profound challenges often spur great progress. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. Not only is the public safety community staring an enormous challenge in the face, but also is looking at a tremendous opportunity to move the community forward.

Traditionally, public safety has been slow to adopt new technologies and embrace new strategies. However, the pandemic has forced agencies to do things they likely would not have contemplated before. The collection of new concepts not only will enable public safety to handle the pandemics and mega-disasters of the future, but also will enhance day-to-day operations personnel performance. Public safety is up to the challenge, as long as officials can get comfortable with being uncomfortable for a while.

One Way To Keep Public Safety Technology Procurements from Derailing

Emergency communications centers need a lot of gear. They need wireless communications systems to communicate with first responders in the field. They need call-handling systems to process 911 calls. They need computer-aided dispatch systems, as well as mapping and automatic vehicle location applications, to dispatch the appropriate emergency response. And those are just the backbone systems. The ECC technology ecosystem that enables effective emergency response is quite expansive.

Public Safety Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Critical VMware Bug

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their public safety communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.

This week, there is a new critical alert that requires the public safety community’s immediate attention.

Pandemic Underscores Importance of Public Safety Continuity-Of-Operations and Disaster-Recovery Plans

COVID-19, aka the coronavirus, pandemic is grabbing a lot of attention right now, partly because we don’t see global pandemics in the United States very often, certainly not one of this gravity. But we do see other significant events on a fairly regular basis— e.g., wildfires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, hazardous materials spills, network outages—that can disrupt or halt public safety operations.

MCP’s Nick Falgiatore Nominated for Critical Communications Leader of the Year

Three years ago, MCP’s Nick Falgiatore received an IWCE Young Professional award, which was created to showcase next-generation leaders who are shaping the future of the communications industry. Now Nick is being recognized again, having been nominated for IWCE’s Critical Communications Leader of the Year award. This program recognizes individuals whose outstanding leadership has resulted in successful critical communications implementations. MCP Insights recently chatted with Nick about what his nomination means to him, the firm and—most importantly—our clients.

The Public Safety Communications Challenges We’re Tackling in 2020

Earlier this year, public safety communications professionals from across the country came together in Austin, TX, to discuss and address the most pressing issues facing the industry at NENA’s Standards & Best Practices Conference. We discussed in a previous blog post why events like this one are critical to our industry’s success in continuing to improve emergency response outcomes. Which challenges are we tackling this year and what’s next for 911?

2020 Public Safety Industry Outlook

We’re six weeks into a new year and a new decade, and public safety leaders are focused on pursuing more funding, implementing unconventional approaches related to staffing, recruiting and retention, and implementing innovative strategies to modernize their public safety communications technologies and networks—all while keeping them secure from cyberattacks, which are increasing in frequency and complexity.

Recently, we hosted our first webinar of 2020, during which more than 100 public safety professionals shared their top budget priorities and marketing challenges. Upgrading public safety technology, such as legacy computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and records-management systems (RMS) was a prominent theme, with more than half of participants citing this as a key priority in their organization for the coming year. Transitioning to Next Generation 911 (NG911) and staffing, retention and organizational planning also were reemerging topics from previous years.

DAS and BDA Technology Might Seem the Same—But They’re Not

As we move about the public safety sector, we often hear a common misconception, which is that distributed antenna systems (DAS) and bidirectional amplifier (BDA) systems are the same. But while they generally serve the same purpose—which is to boost radio frequency (RF) signals to enhance in-building coverage—they are quite different. Let’s explore the basic differences.

URL Integration Acquisition Bolsters MCP’s Data-Integration Capabilities

When we launched MCP a little more than a decade ago, we established some pretty aggressive growth goals, especially for a firm that was operating out of a garage and had no clients at the very beginning. Nevertheless, each goal was met with room to spare. Our ability to do so hinged on a single, overarching, inflexible focus on delighting the client.