Why can’t commercial carriers provide Public Safety with prioritized broadband capacity needed during critical incidents?
Commercial LTE systems do not have the ability to dynamically engage prioritization to Public Safety. As a result during a critical incident, Public Safety responders may not be able to access the LTE system immediately and have to compete for access with commercial users. Additionally, commercial LTE prioritization policy cannot distinguish between Public Safety incidents. There is no ability to distinguish between a cat in a tree or a 4 alarm fire. Commercial LTE prioritizes services based on the device; Public safety LTE networks prioritize based on the individual & the nature of the situation – the device may be of least importance. A Public Safety responder handing over to the commercial network looking for capacity may discover that the sites are down or overloaded and drop service. There is no LTE device visibility to the status of other networks and no guarantee that capacity will be available when switching between networks.
