This article originally appeared in Rural Telecom, January/February 2015.

By Christian Hamaker

TJ Kennedy has a long history with public safety, but it’s the future of public safety that gives his work focus today. Kennedy, acting general manager of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet)—the group charged with establishing the first nationwide public safety broadband network—combines the focused intensity of an emergency front-line first responder with the coordination skills of an Olympics organizer and the polish of a pitchman and seasoned advocate.

As the pieces of the new network come together, Kennedy is in the right place to ensure that FirstNet delivers on the promise of a dedicated network for first responders. The need for such a network became evident during the chaos that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but it’s continued to be seen in smaller-scale events that nevertheless have had major impacts on communications systems. Think of something like the East Coast earthquake from the summer of 2011 or the Northern California earthquake last year. Structural damage from those events was minimal, but several people were hospitalized and one died from earthquake-related injuries. What if the earthquake magnitude had been greater?

“What if that was a 6.0 or 7.0?” Kennedy asked. “It would’ve been a little different. Those kinds of incidents show where the need for that [nationwide public safety broadband network] would be.”

From Volunteer to Pioneer

Kennedy recognizes a need for the national public safety network based on his many years of experience in the public safety arena, going as far back as his days as a police officer and firefighter in Utah.

After time as an emergency medical technician, Kennedy advanced to become a paramedic, as well as a firefighter. He became a Utah state trooper after college.

Living in the intermountain West, Kennedy was able to continue to work part time as a firefighter and paramedic after he became a state trooper. His responsibilities grew again when, in 1996, Salt Lake City won the rights to host the Winter Olympics in 2002, and Kennedy became coordinator for Wasatch Back—a region in the Rocky Mountains that includes Park City and Summit and Wasatch Counties. As part of the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command, Kennedy was tasked with planning for all public safety operations in the region.

“It was a great example of planning for an event you knew was going to last for 17 days, was going to bring in over 10,000 media and was going to have a large international presence,” Kennedy remembered.

His work began soon after the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta in 1996, leading to greater security scrutiny for the 2002 games in Salt Lake City. “It was a great way for me to really dive into all the communications technology, the public safety operations and the integration that’s needed between multiple layers of government to work well together on those kind of big events,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy leveraged his success working on the Salt Lake City Olympics to help SAIC with system integration of public safety systems at the Athens Olympics in 2004. After helping to build out 30 different systems that comprised the public safety infrastructure in Greece, Kennedy rose through the company’s ranks, helping to lead homeland security and public safety projects. His final role before joining FirstNet was as leader of Raytheon Co.’s public safety and security division.

A Call for a National Network

Although the bombing at Centennial Olympic Park unnerved the nation, nothing prepared the country for the trauma of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. As part of the response to those events and the need for coordinated communications among local, state and federal authorities that day, the 9/11 Commission recommended the establishment of a nationwide public safety network. After a decade of work among public safety, politicians, and state and federal government officials, President Barack Obama signed the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, which included provisions for funding and governing a nationwide public safety broadband network for first responders.

But who, exactly, counts as a first responder? And how important is the part that rural America will play in ensuring nationwide coverage for FirstNet?

“A first responder is police, fire and emergency medical services, but there are a lot of nuances to that,” Kennedy said. “Even in the act, you’ll see that it calls out two different definitions to help guide that. One is the Communications Act of 1934 and the second is the Homeland Security Act of 2002. There are some varying broad definitions in those meanings. We will continue to try to formalize that in a way that makes it digestible for everybody.”

As for Kennedy’s definition of a first responder, he said, “Those who respond day in and day out to emergency 911 incidents are the key targets, so we want to make sure they have the priority features that they need to operate.”

That applies no matter where in the country first responders must act. The legislation that initiated FirstNet spelled out different phases of rural deployment, along with milestones in the construction and deployment of the network. (See box, “Rural Coverage Milestones.”)

“Our goal is to meet those kind of key rural-coverage milestones as we build out this network,” Kennedy said. He also underlined how the act specifies that FirstNet must leverage commercial facilities and infrastructure to the “maximum extent economically desirable.” Kennedy fleshed out that terminology by noting that FirstNet is looking to partner with rural telcos and other commercial partners that can help speed deployment of the network in rural areas and “help make sure that the rural areas also benefit from public safety broadband.”

How Telcos Can Help

Independent telcos can be part of that process by working with key people in each state to make sure FirstNet knows where the telcos’ infrastructure is and how it can help support FirstNet. From there, telcos can partner with FirstNet in ways that compensate them for use of their infrastructure and assets monetarily or through capacity sharing spectrum lease agreements.

“To cover great portions of the country, we want to make sure we do it in a very cost-effective manner,” Kennedy said. “Part of that cost effectiveness will be in leveraging relationships that help get the network built in a costeffective way. If somebody already has infrastructure that could be leased to FirstNet at a lower cost so that we can deploy further, that would be a terrific thing. We want to leverage what’s out there. The ease of contracting is also something that would be important for us to be able to make that happen quickly. We really encourage rural telecom providers to bid on the network and to support that kind of key deployment as we go out across the country.”

As part of the legislation enacting FirstNet, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration’s State and Local Implementation Grant Program provided $116.5 million in grants to 54 U.S. states and territories. This funding provides recipients with the resources to work with stakeholders throughout the state or territory to identify needs, gaps and priorities for public safety wireless broadband. This work will also help recipients prepare for consultation with FirstNet.

FirstNet is consulting with regional, state, tribal and local jurisdictions, as well as federal agencies, to ensure that the network meets the needs of their first responders. FirstNet started the formal consultation process in Maryland in July 2014. By December 2014, FirstNet had initiated nine consultation processes with states and territories, including Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Puerto Rico. Kennedy is enthusiastic about future consultations in every state and territory; last December, FirstNet had tentatively scheduled the initiation of 11 more state and territory consultation processes by April 2015. These iterative meetings will result in FirstNet’s development of 56 unique state deployment plans.

Last year FirstNet sent out checklists for completion to all 56 states and territories. As of last November, 33 of the 56 checklists FirstNet sent out had been returned. Due to the varying complexities in different states, FirstNet set no timeline for return of the checklists, which FirstNet has been addressing as they come in.

“We have a smaller staff and we’re doing all we can,” Kennedy said. “Right now it’s coming in in a fashion where we can address it. So we haven’t put any hard deadlines.”

At the same time, each state and territory’s governance, organization and size present separate challenges. “There are some states that have hundreds of counties, and there are some states that have three counties or less,” Kennedy said. “Delaware’s a lot different than, say, Texas, as far as the complexity and the scope and the number of people that they’re communicating with. When you look at that, they’re each going to take a little bit of a different time to pull everybody together and to communicate.”

Response to RFPs

Such communication applies to all parties interested in the new network—including, of course, rural telcos that face the prospect of having their networks overbuilt by FirstNet. As part of its road map, FirstNet initiated in September 2014 a public notice and comment process on its procedures, policies and statutory interpretations, and a request for information to develop a comprehensive network strategy. At press time, those responses were being used to refine FirstNet’s acquisition approach and to draft a comprehensive request for proposal (RFP).

“The key is for your organizations to look at the RFPs as they come out and to respond to those RFPs,” Kennedy said of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association and its member telcos. “It’s the best way for us to know how they can help support FirstNet being built out. Our goal at the end of the day is to make police officers, firefighters and paramedics safer and more effective in their jobs because they have the tools to help keep them safe. We should never lose sight of that.” Once the network is up and running, it will be a testament to Kennedy’s passion for public service, and to the telcos—both rural and urban—that helped make it a reality.