By Dave Buchanan, FirstNet Director of State Consultation

Members of the FirstNet consultation team traveled to the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) earlier this year for the territory’s Initial Consultation meeting. There, we were joined by more than 50 public safety stakeholders from USVI for the consultation meeting. Bureau of Information Technology Program Manager Junior Garcia delivered opening remarks during which he noted that key stakeholders were in attendance from the National Guard, USVI Police Department, USVI Fire Service, and the Department of Homeland Security.

During his presentation, USVI Chief Information Officer and Single Point of Contact (SPOC) Reuben Molloy emphasized that the consultation meeting was an opportunity for stakeholders to provide valuable input on the design and deployment of the broadband network. In addition, Mona Barnes, the Director of the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency (VITEMA), stressed the importance of communication between first responders for incident response.

This meeting was an important opportunity to have a dialogue about USVI’s unique challenges and needs for public safety communications. The conversation allowed FirstNet to learn more about USVI procurement, budgets, and coverage dead spots. As a result, our team gathered useful feedback, particularly on how emergency communications coverage is adversely affected during hurricane season.

In addition, we heard from Captain Thompson of the Virgin Islands Fire Service about the need for global positioning system (GPS)-enabled cell phones during fire responses while discussing a fuel tank explosion last year in St. Thomas. He said the USVI Fire Service experienced difficulty communicating with the USVI Port Authority in response efforts. In addition, the lack of cell tower coverage and an overall equipment shortage momentarily hampered response operations to the tanker explosion.

As part of USVI’s stakeholder engagement efforts, Bureau of Technology Program Manager Khanisa Figaro discussed the territory’s data collection efforts. USVI is using various tools to collect information from its stakeholders on mobile data usage and streamline the process. This includes a survey that was sent to 20 public safety agencies. Based on early feedback at the time of our meeting, she said that a network with mobile data capabilities is a top priority for survey respondents. She also summarized some of the desired mobile data capabilities, which include text, email, and multimedia sharing. In addition, Ms. Figaro said respondents identified the need for communications interoperability as a key capability in the nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN).

I would like to thank all those who attended the meeting, and Reuben Molloy, Junior Garcia, and Khanisa Figaro for organizing a collaborative session. We look forward to working with the U.S. Virgin Islands towards the build out of the NPSBN.

Thanks,
-Dave