With land stretching from the coastal areas of the Chesapeake Bay to the rural Appalachian Mountains, Virginia has a diverse landscape that provides different challenges for the state’s first responders. Communication is important for public safety agencies not only across the state, but throughout the region as agencies in northern Virginia regularly work with public safety agencies in both Maryland and the District of Columbia.
The First Responder Network Authority team recognizes the unique communications challenges that Virginia first responders face. We have been working closely with Virginia public safety officials since 2014, capturing their feedback and working with AT&T, our network partner, to translate it into the design of the FirstNet network. During the development of state deployment plans, our team worked hand-in-hand with Virginia leaders to ensure the plan was customized to address their needs, including:
- Increasing coverage in rural areas and capacity in urban areas of the Commonwealth
- Coordinating with military and federal government users
- Making deployable network assets available for natural disasters
Following this close collaboration, Virginia became the first state in the nation to adopt the plan and “opt in” to FirstNet. Today, we continue to meet regularly with state and local officials to discuss their public safety broadband needs. In 2019 alone, our team met with Virginia public safety officials 50 times. Our engagements in Virginia included the Central Virginia EMS Expo, a meeting with Chesterfield County public safety agencies, a Mission Critical Services Workshop in Fairfax County, and regular, ongoing meetings with Loudoun County public safety agencies. Engagements like these are crucial to the ongoing success of the network and the advancement of public safety communications across the state and the nation.
Connect with our team of Public Safety Advisors to learn about FirstNet in your community.
Virginia's FirstNet Authority Public Safety Advisor
FirstNet in Action in Virginia
- Tangier is a tiny, remote island in the Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Virginia. When local landlines were scheduled to be down, emergency management officials worked with their partners across the state to deploy a FirstNet Compact Rapid Deployable to keep the island’s first responders and residents connected in case of emergency.
- The University of Virginia (UVA) Health system uses nearly 4,000 mobile devices, powered by FirstNet, to enhance care for patients. The leader of UVA Health’s Mobile Device Technologies program, Anthony Thompson, discusses the impact of FirstNet in healthcare and how it’s supporting telemedicine capabilities, translation services, and rural healthcare.
- One thing the 9-1-1 community learned from the pandemic was the need to plan for alternate ways to work. Rather than be tied to workstations at fixed locations, 9-1-1 telecommunicators need flexibility to remotely take, dispatch, and supervise calls. 9-1-1 leaders looked to technology for a solution. Through FirstNet, the nationwide public-safety broadband network, first responders had access to a secure, reliable connection outside of the ECC.
- First responders have worked tirelessly to keep our country safe, and even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic. FirstNet offers reliable and adaptive mobile broadband solutions to first responders as they continue to be on the frontlines of COVID-19 response. With the pandemic bringing a new set of challenges to delivering public safety services, emergency managers across the country, are turning to FirstNet’s innovative solutions to support the continuity of operations.
