Announcing Public Saftey Technology Alliance

The PSTA is comprised of a broad representation of telecommunications and technology industry leaders and federal, state and local public safety officials.

The PSTA is a nonprofit organization with a mission of fostering, identifying and promoting specific open, best in class, standards­-based technology for the public safety user community. The PSTA's mission is to (i) accelerate the conformance of open and standards compliant technology, (ii) select those standards that will offer public safety a safe, secure and interoperable framework for the next generation of communications tools, and (iii) provide helpful guidance to industry for the implementation and testing of technical specifications for applications, handsets, connected devices, and cloud applications and storage that will be used by the first responder community, specifically to ensure public safety can choose the best tools and know that they will all work together seamlessly.

"Technology must support the mission critical roles of public safety to better serve the residents of the communities we protect," said Board Member and Fire Chief of Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue Mike Duyck. "Importantly, this is the first time public safety will have an integral leadership role in selecting the technical standards for mobile broadband technologies that will be used by first responders."

Through its efforts, the PSTA intends to help promote new investment in public safety and lifesaving technologies by making it clear to industry which open standards public safety wants to leverage and clarify how they will be tested to ensure standards compliance across industry.

"PSTA-certified open standards and APIs created through industry and public safety collaboration will help promote interoperable data and communications which will provide agencies investing in new technology confidence and help accelerate adoption of innovative solutions to support the public safety mission," noted Board Member and Microsoft Chief Technology Officer for US State and Local Government Stuart McKee.

"The PSTA is a critical next step in ensuring nationwide wireless interoperability for public safety and we look forward to making significant contributions by bringing the public safety community and industry together to create a public safety focused framework of open standards," added Sonim Chief Executive Officer Bob Plaschke, one of the founding members of PSTA.

The PSTA is pleased to include AT&T, JVCKenwood, Microsoft, Secured Communications, Sonim Technologies, TRX Systems, and Verizon as some of its initial industry members. The PSTA also has committed participation from a broad spectrum of public safety executives from leading law enforcement, fire, and EMS agencies, as well as prominent CTO and CIO departments.