COVID-19, Promise of 5G for First Responders, Dominate Discussions at IWCE

Two big issues dominated discussions at the virtual International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE) on its first day Monday: the promise from 5G and the continuing threat from the COVID-19 pandemic. Both still have many unknowns, speakers said.

5G has been hyped but offers new opportunities for public safety, said Cuong Luu, program manager in the Science & Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security. “It is true that 5G is going to enable more data at higher speed, with decrease of latency,” he said. “It has the potential to be a game changer, on paper,” compared with 4G, but a lot depends on the networks that are built and the services and apps, he said: “There’s a lot of complexity.”

Situational awareness, real-time mapping and navigation, the ability to connect many more wearables and sensors, the collection and transfer of large amounts of data, remote control of devices, connected vehicles and security, will all benefit public safety, said Lisa Soucy, lead in the Advanced Communication Research Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

“5G technology will enable new use cases beyond what we can imagine today,” Soucy said. “First responders will have the information they need, through increased situation awareness, to make better decisions and respond to emergencies more effectively,” she said. LTE is already helping, but the growing number of devices will overwhelm 4G networks, she said.

With 5G, “it’s not just humans connecting, it’s also all the machines connecting,” said Edward Chow, manager of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Civil Program Office. “We’re going to see machine connectivity grow significantly over the next few years,” he said. The apps will come after the platforms are built, he said. There are many unknowns of what 5G will look like, as the case when 4G launched, he said. Artificial intelligence will be critical, he said: “You need this kind of intelligence built into the service platform so decisions can be made autonomously” to “defend against attacks.”

Chris Oldham, president of InterTalk, a public safety communications company, said 2020 is a tough year for emergency communicators. “COVID-19, Black Lives Matter and the push for racial equality, and their related impacts to the economy, have now become daily elements of our news cycle,” he said. “We hear about the new normal and dream about if, or when, things will get back to normal,” he said.

Stay at home orders, travel restrictions and supply-chain disruptions all affect “our ability to perform our daily tasks, and, in the case of first responders, their ability to save lives,” Oldham said. We already ask first responders “to put aside their own personal lives to help us, and we expect so much of them,” he said: “Now we ask this in the backdrop of a global pandemic and heightened scrutiny towards police forces because of the fight for racial justice.” Emergency responders already face the threat of COVID-19 in 911 call centers, he said. “What happens when schools are canceled and a dispatcher has no alternative for their children?” he said: “This is a significant challenge for … agency scheduling to ensure that proper staffing levels can be maintained and calls get answered.”

FirstNet has been a success despite predictions to the contrary, said Jeff Johnson, CEO of the Western Fire Chiefs Association, former deputy chair of the authority’s board. “There were plenty of people that would tell you, and told us, we were crazy, that this would never work,” he said. “They said you will never get the spectrum and if you do … you’ll never get the money,” he said: “Even if you do, no one is going to build devices or chipsets.” Even if someone agrees to build the network, which AT&T did, no one will show up, critics said, according to Johnson. “Fascinating what happens in a decade or so,” he said.