FIRSTNET
The right equipment for disaster response
Everpresent and reliable
FirstNet was born out of 9/11 recommendations to support first responders across the U.S. It’s a reliable, highly secure, interoperable communications platform for police, fire, EMS, and city and county safety departments.
FirstNet’s three elements include:
- Technology recovery for catastrophic loss
- Satellite links to rapidly restore cellular communication
- Special operations: a Hazmat response team
How ready are you for FirstNet?
FirstNet gives first responders the reliable communications and innovative technologies they need to save lives and protect our communities, but it only works if first responders have the right equipment. They must have the technology that’s built to handle the toughest of conditions.
“…it only works if first responders have the right equipment. They must have the technology that’s built to handle the toughest of conditions.”
When Colorado opted into FirstNet along with many other states, a nation-wide ramp-up to roll-out began. Public safety departments began deploying cellular-connected rugged laptops and tablets for real-time access to critical applications and information. While AT&T builds out and strengthens vulnerable sites for better communications, public safety is ramping up with devices capable of harnessing that communication, no matter what the conditions.
How ready are you for FirstNet?
FirstNet gives first responders the reliable communications and innovative technologies they need to save lives and protect our communities, but it only works if first responders have the right equipment. They must have the technology that’s built to handle the toughest of conditions.
“…it only works if first responders have the right equipment. They must have the technology that’s built to handle the toughest of conditions.”
When Colorado opted into FirstNet along with many other states, a nation-wide ramp-up to roll-out began. Public safety departments began deploying cellular-connected rugged laptops and tablets for real-time access to critical applications and information. While AT&T builds out and strengthens vulnerable sites for better communications, public safety is ramping up with devices capable of harnessing that communication, no matter what the conditions.
The FirstNet equipment you need
FirstNet links first responders with high-speed data including voice communications, location information, images, and video. The tools that collect and transmit that data are things like semi-rugged laptops for in-vehicle use, rugged tablets for use on-the-move, body and dash cams, mobile WiFi and routers, long-range external antennas, and automatic license plate recognition technology (ALPR).
As a Certified FirstNet Dealer, Route1 is ready to supply you with the equipment you need to respond quickly to any emergency situation that you encounter. We provide products and services supporting FirstNet band 14, mobile data, video and voice applications.
Use technology to reach your goals
Rugged technologies and video are essential ingredients in the quest for better public safety and improved disaster response. But it’s not about individual technologies. It’s about the data that those technologies deliver, and how it’s used. Start by asking “How do I use the data I capture to improve public safety, to learn from events, and to improve my technology mix in the future?”
A report on technology and policing strategy commissioned for the U.S. Department of Justice shows that law enforcement technology adoption is often ad hoc. It found that “the tendency to purchase technology without a clear, strategic plan can result in limited integration within the agency and a failure to recognize the primary or secondary benefits of the technology”.1
Many agencies are countering this trend by creating Strategic Decision Support Centers (SDSCs) that allow them to tap into multiple data sources—gathering, analyzing, and combining information for a more complete situational snapshot. This leads to better, faster decisions and increased responsiveness to the needs of the community.
Astute use of data not only helps public safety agencies to optimize response times, but also to protect first responders of all kinds in the field. Having access to a variety of data sources capable of communicating over traditional networks as well as FirstNet will allow agencies to better monitor situations as they develop, as well as to measure the effectiveness of new initiatives and interventions.
Use technology to reach your goals
Rugged technologies and video are essential ingredients in the quest for better public safety and improved disaster response. But it’s not about individual technologies. It’s about the data that those technologies deliver, and how it’s used. Start by asking “How do I use the data I capture to improve public safety, to learn from events, and to improve my technology mix in the future?”
A report on technology and policing strategy commissioned for the U.S. Department of Justice shows that law enforcement technology adoption is often ad hoc. It found that “the tendency to purchase technology without a clear, strategic plan can result in limited integration within the agency and a failure to recognize the primary or secondary benefits of the technology”.1
Many agencies are countering this trend by creating Strategic Decision Support Centers (SDSCs) that allow them to tap into multiple data sources—gathering, analyzing, and combining information for a more complete situational snapshot. This leads to better, faster decisions and increased responsiveness to the needs of the community.
Astute use of data not only helps public safety agencies to optimize response times, but also to protect first responders of all kinds in the field. Having access to a variety of data sources capable of communicating over traditional networks as well as FirstNet will allow agencies to better monitor situations as they develop, as well as to measure the effectiveness of new initiatives and interventions.
Data should be your greatest advantage
Many of our first responder customers are unaware of the data goldmine they are sitting on. Gathering and analyzing the data that your teams come across every day is the shortest path to improving efficiency, increasing situational awareness and keeping people safe. When we meet with customers, we might start off talking about one technology, then realize the opportunity they have with another, based on their goals and their current technology situation.
Going from data to actions that increase safety and improve disaster response sometimes requires a custom solution. We work with our customers to combine our technologies within a custom solution built to fulfill specific goals. The sophisticated custom software engineering capabilities that Route1 provides have become very important to customers like the U.S. Department of Defense.
Vulnerability-free rugged technology
‘Security first’ is also the approach we take when supplying agencies with the rugged laptops, tablets and other hard goods that they need, whether in a cruiser or on a field of battle. One concern with technology is its safety from a cybersecurity perspective—not just the mechanisms of securing data, but the security of the devices themselves—as the recent debate over Huawei 5G networks illustrates.
A report by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense found that in 2018, Army and Air Force Government Purchase Card (GPC) holders bought at least $32.8 million of commercial off-the-shelf information technology items with known cybersecurity vulnerabilities.2
Route1 is keenly aware of such vulnerabilities and provides military-grade rugged technology for business, first responders, government and our armed forces that is vulnerability-free. Our services can include pre-deployment planning, deployment project management and installation, and post-deployment maintenance—a full-service solution. We can also combine this with a tailormade device-based analytics program in order to bring further efficiencies to operations.
Security as a first principle
Route1 builds every solution with security as a first principle. That’s where our organization began and continues to excel: we invented data security and user authentication technologies that landed us patents in Canada and the U.S. and technology accreditations (ATOs) with the U.S. Department of Defense. From user authentication to securing data at rest, data in transit or data in use, we help businesses like yours achieve military-grade data security.
1Research on the Impact of Technology on Policing Strategy in the 21st Century, Final Report, September 2017
2Audit of the DoD’s Management of the Cybersecurity Risks for Government Purchase Card Purchases of Commercial Off-the-Shelf Items Report No. DODIG-2019-106, July 2019