Guest Blog Post By Amanda Hilliard, FirstNet Director of Outreach

Yesterday, members of the FirstNet team and I participated in a meeting of the interagency body that is helping us coordinate federal departments’ activities to support the nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN) – the Emergency Communications Preparedness Center (ECPC).

The ECPC is comprised of 14 departments and agencies with emergency communications programs and users, including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, the Federal Communications Commission, and the General Services Administration. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) administers the ECPC.

In February, the ECPC established a FirstNet Consultation Group to coordinate federal activities, such as the collection of data related to the needs of federal users and federal assets that may be leveraged to deploy the NPSBN. Yesterday’s meeting was well attended and included ECPC representatives from 11 departments and agencies.

I provided a status report on recent FirstNet developments, including an update on key actions from last week’s FirstNet Board and Committee meetings and the state consultation process. I was joined by Rich Reed, FirstNet Director of State Plans, and Dave Buchanan, FirstNet Director of State Consultation. Together, we addressed a number of questions from the group and discussed potential federal users of the network. We also discussed some preliminary ideas for coordinating federal and state planning efforts, as well as how to leverage and coordinate federal governance structures for FirstNet.

Members of the ECPC FirstNet Consultation Group took action to document any existing governance structures that could support FirstNet efforts. The group plans to use future meetings to share this information across departments and agencies, as well as best practices for governance.

Thanks to everyone who participated in yesterday’s meeting – and a special thanks to the group’s co-chairs – Joe Wassel from the Department of Defense and Marsha McBride from the Department of Commerce - and Pamela King from OEC for coordinating the planning of the meeting. FirstNet looks forward to our continued engagement with the ECPC to coordinate federal support for the network.

-Amanda