By Amanda Hilliard, FirstNet Director of Outreach

Nearly 100 representatives from the various public safety disciplines and local, state, tribal, and federal government gathered in Santa Fe on June 10 for New Mexico’s Initial Consultation Meeting. In a state with such a large amount of tribal land, it was great to see nearly 10 tribal representatives among the attendees.

We learned that many in the state currently leverage commercial wireless service during day to day operations – with attendees acknowledging there is a great need for increased coverage in the state, including an imperative need for coverage in rural areas. This led to great dialogue on data collection and coverage objectives.

Public safety officials in New Mexico also presented use case scenarios on the recent Ruidoso Little Bear Fire, and their annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, to demonstrate current communications systems and where a nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN) could improve interoperability, capacity, and reliability in the state.

Ruidoso, Little Bear Fire: Joe Kenmore, Lincoln County Emergency Services Director
Just three hours into the fire, the response crew could not even see the sun. Initially, all of the first responders were able to communicate using their radios and cell phones. Even into the first night of the response, communications were operable because only the local responders were onsite. The bigger problem came when the fire disabled the power local power source. With no back up available, the power outage compromised the primary communications systems.

To add to the problems, the fiber optics were accidentally disabled by a contractor, making those communication lines unusable. Also, the satellite phones would not work. A team was assembled to go reconstitute power and communications, but trees had fallen across the road making it impassable. By the next morning, the road was cleared and the team was able to restore power to the cell sites. When the power did go back on, the system became quickly congested with users. So many different groups traveled into the fire area to respond to the incident: the emergency medical group was busy responding to people with health issues caused by the fire; various law enforcement agencies, the Forest Service, and two groups of amateur radio operators responded. Ultimately, there were more than 2,000 people that responded to this incident.

Thanks to Joe Kenmore for sharing this incident with FirstNet. It was evident that reliable, interoperable communications would have improved the safety of many responders, and assisted operations in a combined response effort.

Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta: Gary Surad, Deputy Emergency Manager, Bernalillo County, Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management
More than 800,000 individuals attended the balloon fiesta last year, with an average of 80,000 people on weekdays and 100,000 on weekends. The communications team uses 31 separate radio channels just for public safety, with three of them VHF channels, four of them 800 MHz channels, and 24 UHF channels. The balloon crews that handle each of the balloons also use their own radio channels.

Twenty-three public safety agencies participate in the fiesta with most of them relying on radios and cellular phones for voice and data communications. The only way for these agencies to communicate system data is through a cellular network. Eighty-five percent of fiesta attendees use cellular data to send pictures during their visit to the site. Cellular companies increase coverage each year, but it never works out to be enough with all of the visitors sending pictures and making calls, combined with the public safety communications traffic. During the mass ascension of the balloons each day, the public safety teams know that both voice and data are going to go down. Ultimately, the solution to this problem will have to be a NPSBN, because public safety needs its own system.

During this year’s event the Las Cruces, New Mexico early builder deployables will be tested and the testing will incorporate any agency that is interested to participate.

Thanks to New Mexico Single Point of Contact (SPOC) Darryl Ackley for arranging the meeting, and all those who took time out of their schedules to provide valuable input. We look forward to continuing to work together with New Mexico.

-Amanda