By Amanda Hilliard, FirstNet Director of Outreach

This week, FirstNet welcomed more than 125 public safety representatives from 52 states and territories to Reston, VA, for a two-day meeting focused on state and territory planning for the nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN). We were pleased to have dozens of state single point of contacts (SPOCs) in attendance, as well as SPOC team members and eight members of the Tribal Working Group of the Public Safety Advisory Committee. We were also joined by our federal partners from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and DHS Office of Emergency Communications.

Our main objectives for the meeting were to foster a two-way dialogue between FirstNet and the states and territories; to provide the states and territories with comprehensive updates and guidance on key FirstNet and State and Local Implementation Grant Program (SLIGP) developments; and share successes and lessons learned about the state outreach and planning efforts for the NPSBN.

Among the topics we covered were the public notice process and specific topics within the First and Second notices; data collection; tribal, state and local outreach and consultation activities; potential elements of the state plans that FirstNet will develop in consultation with each state or territory; priority and pre-emption; and network hardening, security, reliability and resiliency.

On behalf of the FirstNet team, I would like to thank everyone who participated in the meeting. We are already looking forward to organizing future engagement opportunities like this with the states and territories, in addition to our regular teleconferences, webinars, and consultation meetings.

-Amanda

To view more photos from the meeting on the FirstNet Flickr, please click on the photo below: