2027 Agenda

For the first responders, communication is a lifeline. The ability to speak and hear is non-negotiable in public safety and emergency response. Modern public safety broadband is a major upgrade from the voice-only capabilities of LMR networks, adding video and data to first responders' toolbox. But we still need to close the gap, enabling first responders to communicate with each other when the network is down.

Delivering broadband off-network capabilities is a tall order, from spectrum availability, spectrum management and sharing, to performance, reliability, range, security, and MCX off-network interoperability. A lot of hard work went into closing this vital gap, to ensure that first responders will get what they need. Broadband off-network communications are readying to support not only mission critical voice, video, and data, but also best-of-breed situational awareness tools such as TAK. As we are almost there, this panel takes a look at how we got here and what's left to do to ensure first responders can communicate anywhere, anytime, anyhow in the broadband world.