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Historically, public safety agencies have been hesitant to incorporate new technology into field operations, preferring instead to conserve limited financial resources and rely on their trusted legacy equipment and tactics. But with the recent surge of compact highly functional hardened smart devices, secure platforms and a diverse app ecosystem giving first responders the ability to enhance their safety and greatly improve their workflows, there are now many more public safety early adopters and we are seeing an overall cultural shift towards acceptance and reliance on mobile broadband communications solutions.
With increased personal use over the last ten years and increased reliance on wireless broadband technologies, it is now much easier for public safety personnel to adapt those learnings to their public safety operational environment. And becoming an early adopter has several advantages:
- The opportunity to test new technologies and provide critical feedback to technology companies to enhance their utility for public safety as well as future mission critical offerings. This can often be accomplished through beta tests or pilots at low cost for a trial period.
- The opportunity to analyze data collected and shared during the trial period and in the early implementation phase, and apply those findings to administrative and operational policies and procedures.
- Less financial risk because of the shift toward “as a service” offerings – low monthly or annual cost compared to past substantial capital investments in equipment, with high annual maintenance costs and then always having to pay for upgrades.
- Multi-agency communication and collaboration (dynamic chat groups, text, voice, images, and video) for emergency operations, mission-critical voice and video and encrypted communications availability now allow for greater security, speed, and efficiency.
Numerous innovative communications and collaboration technologies are now available to public safety, and, with the arrival of a fully operational FirstNet, these new and emerging solutions are vastly improving the way responders get and share critical informational quickly.
Early adoption, implementation and integration of mobile communications solutions lead to streamlined workflows, improved product functionality through public safety feedback and collaboration, better overall policies and procedures, and improved responder safety. The Public Safety Network strongly supports and encourages all of these efforts in this exciting and vibrant new space.
