The Super Bowl — America’s largest sporting event — requires significant pre-planning to ensure the safety of players, staff, and spectators. Coordinating public safety communications for Super Bowl LVII involved more than a dozen different cities and jurisdictions and posed unique challenges, including overlap with another major sporting event the same week. Through the FirstNet Authority’s Network Experience Engagement Program, public safety officials in Arizona received pre-planning assistance for the Super Bowl, helping responders be ready on game day.
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The Virginia Communications Cache supports public safety communications during emergencies or large planned events, ensuring first responders have quick access to equipment, including radios, repeaters, antennas, and backup power. In December 2022, the state’s five cache teams conducted an exercise simulating a rescue in a cave. With FirstNet, the teams were able to set up wireless capabilities for computers and cellphones in the caverns, allowing responders to make phone calls, use apps, and coordinate resources thousands of feet underground.
The Public Safety Immersive Test Center in Boulder, Colorado, is an innovative test facility, created in partnership between the FirstNet Authority and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Public Safety Communications Research Division. Virtual and alternate reality technologies will help first responders train, and tracking systems will provide ground truth for location-based services.
When disasters strike, public safety officials need access to a reliable communications network to facilitate and coordinate resources in a moment’s notice. During a wildfire that started near the National Center for Atmospheric Research facility, the City of Boulder, Colorado experienced firsthand how FirstNet Compact Rapid Deployable assets quickly resolved connections issues by reestablishing communication within 15 minutes.
In the Fiscal Year 2022 Annual Report to Congress, the FirstNet Authority highlights efforts to advance public safety communications technology through innovation and insight. The report details the forward-thinking, state-of-the-art technology made available to the public safety community through FirstNet and ongoing efforts by the FirstNet Authority to enhance the nationwide public safety broadband network.