Northern Mariana Islands Gov. Ralph DLG Torres has accepted the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN) deployment plan offered by\u00a0FirstNet\u00a0and AT&T, meaning all 56 states and territories in the U.S. have made an \u201copt-in\u201d decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, Gov. Torres made history,\u201d FirstNet CEO Mike Poth said in a prepared statement. \u201cWith his decision to join FirstNet, we are proud to have every U.S. state and territory on the nationwide public safety broadband network.<\/p>\n
\u201cGov. Torres\u2019 decision will help enhance emergency communications across the territory\u2019s rural and remote areas by bringing coverage and capacity to the islands. We look forward to continuing to work with public safety in the Northern Mariana Islands to help ensure that emergency first responders will have access to the most modern and innovative tools available today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the law that established FirstNet, governors in all 56 states and territories have the choice of making an \u201copt-in\u201d decision\u2014accepting the FirstNet deployment plan and allowing AT&T to build the\u00a0LTE\u00a0radio access network within the state\u2019s borders at no cost to the state\u2014or pursuing the \u201copt-out\u201d alternative, which would require the state to be responsible for building and maintaining the RAN for the next 25 years.<\/p>\n
With Friday\u2019s Northern Mariana Islands announcement, governors in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five territories have made \u201copt-in\u201d decisions. As a result, all processes associated with the \u201copt-out\u201d alternative\u2014reviews by the\u00a0FCC, the National Information and Telecommunications Administration, as well as spectrum-lease negotiations with FirstNet\u2014will not be needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOpting in to FirstNet is a clear sign of Gov. Torres\u2019 commitment to public safety in the Northern Mariana Islands,\u201d said Stephanie Tyler, president, AT&T Pacific Northwest. \u201cFirst responders deserve the best possible communications platform, and we\u2019re honored to help deliver it for them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Governors in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands all announced \u201copt-in\u201d decisions by their Dec. 28 deadline. The Northern Mariana Islands and two other Pacific territories\u2014Guam and American Samoa\u2014had until March 12 to make their \u201copt-in\/opt-out\u201d decisions, because they did not receive FirstNet deployment plans until December. Governors for Guam and American Samoa made their \u201copt-in\u201d announcements earlier this month.<\/p>\n
With their early \u201copt-in\u201d decisions, all three Pacific territories are expected to be included in the initial FirstNet task order to build out the network. Although AT&T has been able to do engineering and preparatory work to deploy new FirstNet sites and begin operations on the 20 MHz of 700 MHz Band 14 spectrum, the carrier must receive a task order from FirstNet before installing infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Public-safety agencies in \u201copt-in\u201d states and territories are eligible to sign FirstNet contracts that give first responders preemptive access across AT&T\u2019s commercial networks immediately.<\/p>\n
AT&T will build the FirstNet RAN in \u201copt-in\u201d states or territories at no cost to each jurisdiction, although local public-safety entities will be responsible for paying subscription costs and end-user device expenses. However, the law that established FirstNet stipulates that individual public-safety agencies and potential first-responder users are not required to subscribe to the FirstNet service. (Urgent Communications)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Northern Mariana Islands Gov. Ralph DLG Torres has accepted the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[167,26,250,121],"class_list":["post-268449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-american-samoa","tag-cnmi","tag-network","tag-northern-mariana-islands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}