Decades after 9/11, Push-to-Talk Remains a First-Responder Challenge

BK Technologies, an equipment vendor to the public safety community, this week announced a new, interoperable push-to-talk (PTT) service for first responders.

The offering is “designed to eliminate today’s barriers and enable all first responders to communicate regardless of which cellular network they use or PTToC [PTT over cellular] service they subscribe to, or even first responders who do not subscribe to a PTToC service,” according to the company.

The need for such a service in 2022 is noteworthy considering it was the “inadequate communications among responding agencies” during the terrorist attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001, that sparked a national discussion about first responder communications. FirstNet – the nationwide broadband network backed by AT&T – arose from those discussions.

“What is concerning is that the goal of voice interoperability with push to talk remains elusive,” said Ken Rehbehn of CritComm Insights, a longtime analyst in public safety communications.

According to Rehbehn, first responders today must often navigate a complex communications environment stretching from narrowband, voice-only land mobile radio (LMR) networks to state-of-the-art 5G networks. No single network offers a full suite of reliable, interoperable communications services.

“We do not have a force today that brings these solutions together,” Rehbehn said.

Concerns about FirstNet

In the cellular realm, there’s ongoing debate over the role that FirstNet plays and how exactly the operation should interact with rival offerings from companies such as T-Mobile and Verizon.