By Jeremy Zollo, Deputy Director of State Consultation

Nearly 200 public safety stakeholders, including representatives from each of Oklahoma’s 77 counties and attendees from several neighboring states, gathered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for the state’s Initial Consultation meeting with FirstNet.  Oklahoma’s Chief Information Officer Bo Reese welcomed attendees and acknowledged the efforts of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES), and the Oklahoma Public Safety Broadband Network (OKPSBN) team, as well as cross-agency support from the Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security and the broader public safety community.  Oklahoma’s single point of contact (SPOC) Ben Gherezgiher and his team explained the OKPSBN project objectives and discussed its accomplishments to date on data gathering, coverage reviews, and tribal engagement.

Ben and his team also discussed the state’s outreach and education activities.  Leading up to the Initial Consultation meeting, Oklahoma had held 26 outreach sessions across the state and hosted a tribal webinar, in addition to attending and presenting at numerous public safety and emergency management-focused conferences.  The OKPSBN also held special outreach sessions for Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and several other mid-sized cities.  Through surveys sent out to more than 10,000 public safety entities throughout the state, Oklahoma gathered valuable data on topics such as plan pricing, barriers to adoption, and phased build-out. More than 1,100 entities (including seven tribes) responded to the survey request.  Finally, the OKPSBN summarized the state’s recent data submission to FirstNet, which included a build-out strategy, maps, and geographic information system (GIS) layers, totalling more than 25GB of data.  The state’s next steps are to continue outreach and education, data gathering, tribal engagement, and coverage reviews while evolving the state’s governance structure to prepare for FirstNet.

The following are use case presentations provided by OK public safety representatives from several disciplines:  

City of Moore, Tornado Presentation

John Comstock, Oklahoma County Emergency Management

John briefly summarized the 2014 Moore Tornado and discussed the communications challenges faced by communications unit leaders (COMLs) during the response, including the reality that state agencies use different carriers and agency-specific command posts on scene could not communicate effectively.  John continued to explain the disadvantages of using commercial broadband during disaster response.

He shared that:

1. Normal capacity is usually not available (i.e., towers and infrastructure impacted by disaster)
2. Too many users attempt to use limited capacity (e.g., video uploads, broadcast media using cellular voice channels)
3. There are many unknowns (e.g., timeframes for full capacity, what full capacity means, how restorations will take place)

John concluded with a discussion of how the NPSBN will help disaster response overall. First and foremost, assuming data charges will be less costly, more devices can be put into first responders’ hands.  Secondly, he asserted that a network that is public safety grade will result in more trust in the system’s reliability and capacity.  These potential benefits would equate to improved disaster response and potentially more lives saved.

Tribal Presentation

Captain Steve Cash, Chickasaw Lighthorse Police Department 

The Chickasaw Nation's jurisdictional territory includes 7,648 square miles of south-central Oklahoma and encompasses all or parts of 13 Oklahoma counties.  Given the size of the tribe’s land mass, the Chickasaw Nation must be prepared for diverse emergencies, including wildfires and flooding, and must also be able to send information and data from a scene to an incident command post.  Captain Cash described how he and his fellow first responders expect dedicated broadband to aid with determining manpower requirements, equipment needs, and support resources and improve interoperability during emergencies.  In conclusion, Captain Cash stressed that the ability to obtain a steady stream of reliable information from a response scene is crucial in saving lives, and the ability to have live video feeds and interoperable voice and data communications is critical to incident response.

Wildland Fires in Oklahoma

Mark Goeller, Forestry Services

Mark began by discussing the pros and cons of commercial broadband during wildfire response.  Advantages include near real-time sharing of data; ability to transfer large volumes of data quickly; two-way high-definition video; and when mission critical voice is available, increased coverage.  Conversely, some disadvantages of commercial broadband include cost to buy equipment and use the system, lack of security, and capacity constraints.  Mark also shared some of the applications that aid wildland firefighting (e.g., Esri Collector app, GIS, automated flight following, fire response dispatching software) and commented on how improved broadband coverage would equate to faster, more reliable GIS data transfer and resource tracking.

Mark then recounted the devastating 2005-2006 wildfires in the state. The fires spread quickly and evolved into approximately 2,800 separate blazes that required more than 600 personnel and 35 aircraft to combat.  Oklahoma’s incident command post was active for 83 days.  Mark shared that a dedicated public safety broadband network would have improved wildfire detection and allowed faster access to risk assessments and structure protection plans, evacuation plans and notifications, wildfire mapping, and fire weather data and forecasts.  It also would have improved the ability to establish a statewide, centralized response plan and enabled remote briefings across the affected areas.

Law Enforcement

Sheriff Joe Lester, Cleveland County

Sheriff Lester explained how Cleveland County, which includes both rural and urban areas, has felt the effects of multiple disasters over the last 10 years.  He also shared that some of the county’s cellular and data communications struggles are due to the lack of existing rural infrastructure.  Thanks to the efforts of the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office, Oklahoma law enforcement officers have a statewide mobile data system that enables two applications – MobileCop and MobileRescue.  MobileCop provides access to real-time data for law enforcement first responders and provides interoperability between units.  Today there are over 190 agencies participating, including state, county, city, and tribal agencies.  Mobile Rescue is the companion software that allows fire fighters, public works, emergency management, and other users to share information in real time.  Sheriff Lester concluded by reinforcing that a dedicated broadband network for first responders will give first responders the ability to stream video and provide the priority that existing cellular companies cannot.

Thanks to the Oklahoma SPOC Ben Gherezgiher, his team, and the use case presenters for helping arrange and execute a successful meeting. We look forward to continuing to work together with Oklahoma.

-Jeremy