In Walker County, Alabama, Sheriff Nick Smith said that digital radios running over FirstNet kept deputies connected to dispatch and an aviation unit that helped locate missing persons. Walker County deputies currently carry DuraForce Pro 2 smartphones by Kyocera which use FirstNet, a broadband network for first responders offered by AT&T.

During a missing person search last fall in a remote part of the western Black Hills in South Dakota, the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office had no cell-phone service. Within hours of calling FirstNet, Captain Tony Harrison said that the AT&T-FirstNet team set up a mobile cell tower to allow deputies to communicate with dispatch and locate the missing person.