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Cover page of the Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report to Congress, overlayed on blue background; “Delivering on the Promise: Deploying the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network”

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Annual Report to Congress highlights the achievements and continued progress that the FirstNet Authority has made throughout FY 2023. Details of the FirstNet Authority’s milestone successes in ensuring the deployment of the FirstNet network and securing the renewal of its Band 14 license by the Federal Communications Commission demonstrate a continued commitment to innovation and serving our nation’s public safety community.

FirstNet Authority logo on neutral background

In the early hours of the morning on February 22, 2024, our network partner, AT&T, experienced a broad outage that impacted public safety users of FirstNet. The FirstNet network was restored by around 5:00 a.m. CST — about 3 hours since service was initially affected for some FirstNet subscribers across the country. The FirstNet Authority is working with AT&T to implement strategies and corrective actions to help prevent FirstNet from experiencing an outage like this in the future.

Compilation of different FirstNet deployables, including: miniCRD, a CRD on the back of a boat in the water, a SatCOLT, a Cell Booster Pro, a Flying Cell on Wings (COW), another SatCOLT, a CRD on the ground, a CRD on the back of a pickup truck, a mobile broadband kit

SatCOLTS are a popular offering in the FirstNet deployables fleet, but the fleet has more to offer than just big trucks with tall antennas. Some of the newest options in the FirstNet fleet offer flexible, versatile coverage options that can help with a wide variety of response scenarios.

A football sits on a football field’s green turf; Assistant Secretary Alan Davidson, NTIA, and FirstNet Authority staff pose in Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas

The FirstNet Authority team joined staff from AT&T to spend a January afternoon confirming that Allegiant Stadium in Nevada had broadband connectivity from top to bottom for the Big Game. Events like this are major tests for FirstNet, and the FirstNet Authority team has put in long hours to ensure that FirstNet passes with flying colors.

A mobile dispatch vehicle “Kansas 911” “Mobile Dispatch Training”; a hand holding a mobile phone showing a location app; a telecommunicator on the phone at a workstation

Officials from the Kansas 911 Coordinating Council discuss how the state uses cutting-edge technology to enhance 911 services for telecommunicators, responders in the field, and the public. The state is using FirstNet to enable data sharing, mobile dispatching, and redundancy for 911 agencies.