FirstNet Tops 7 Million Connections As Coverage Approaches 3 Million Square Miles, AT&T Says

AT&T reports that FirstNet supports more than 7 million connections to public-safety users and that the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN) provides coverage to more than 2.99 million square miles in the US—more than 250,000 square miles more than its nearest competitor

By Donny Jackson, Editor

AT&T this week reported that FirstNet supports more than 7 million connections to public-safety users and that the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN) provides coverage to more than 2.99 million square miles in the US—more than 250,000 square miles more than its nearest competitor.

President of AT&T’s FirstNet business unit, Scott Agnew said the connection figure reflects public safety’s trust in the “layered” network approach for FirstNet, the NPSBN being built and maintained by AT&T. In addition to the carrier giant’s terrestrial macro network, public-safety personnel can connect to prioritized LTE and 5G services via other connectivity platforms, he said.

“When you take the macro, in-building, deployables and satellite all combined together, you get the most powerful network—and, of course, dedicated spectrum and a dedicated core,” Agnew said during an interview with Urgent Communications. “We’re excited that public safety is overwhelmingly choosing FirstNet, which just continues to grow. We are the number-one network in public safety, and more public-safety users choose us than anyone else.

“Whether it’s Butler (Pennsylvania, site of the shooting of Donald Trump) or whether it’s Helene or Milton, whether it’s an LA fire, it’s proven, and public safety gives us that feedback that it’s what’s working in the worst possible conditions. So, we continue to see adoption come in those areas, when public safety actually sees that—in their worst possible conditions—they still have the ability to communicate effectively.”

Town of Duck (N.C.) Police Chief Jeffrey Ackerman echoed this sentiment.

“When our officers were deployed to impacted areas of North Carolina after Hurricane Helene, FirstNet was there for us,” Ackerman said in a prepared statement. “With reliable connectivity on FirstNet, we were able to communicate with our team and other agencies while in remote areas. From search and rescue to welfare checks and even connecting an isolated resident to her husband, FirstNet helped us better serve the local community.”

When the FirstNet Authority was established in 2012, many expressed concern that building an NPSBN only for the estimated 6 million public-safety users would be problematic for any network operator willing to tackle the job. But even with FirstNet crossing the 7-million-connection threshold, Agnew said he believes there is still plenty of room for FirstNet to grow.

“I still think there’s a lot of opportunity in public safety to utilize FirstNet,” Agnew said. “You have 7.9 million land-mobile-radio users. We have an excellent mission-critical-push-to-talk (MCPTT) solution that runs over the network. You have hundreds of thousands of public-safety vehicles. You have body-worn cameras, and the list continues to go on—you have IoT, you have data connectivity, you have voice connectivity—don’t just think of an individual just equaling one [connection], because there could be multiple.

 “Then, of course, you’ve got command vehicles, command stations, wireless backup capabilities for remote offices [and 911 centers]. So, connecting public safety means a lot of things … Think beyond the individual, and that’s where you see that the actual total available market of connections is much larger.”

While Agnew—who succeeded Jim Bugel as head of the AT&T FirstNet team last year—acknowledged that the FirstNet connection figure includes different use cases, AT&T has declined to provide any granularity about the different types of connections, such as what percentage are IoT devices versus smartphones, or how many connections are for state/local public-safety entities and how many support federal agencies.

Perhaps more notable than the FirstNet connections total is the coverage figure, which falls less than 10,000 square miles short of 3 million square miles. AT&T claims that the 2.99+ million square miles of FirstNet coverage is 250,000 square miles more than its closest carrier—a remarkable figure, given that AT&T trailed Verizon’s LTE coverage footprint by more than 400,000 square miles in 2017, when the FirstNet Authority signed AT&T to a 25-year contract to build, operate and upgrade the NPSBN.

Agnew described the change as “pretty amazing” and noted that much of this terrestrial-coverage expansion was driven by state officials requiring AT&T to build sites in locations that were key to public safety—though typically not commercially advantageous to AT&T—as part of the opt-out/opt-in agreements signed by governors in 2016.

“These are purpose-built [cell] sites, based on the feedback of public safety,” Agnew said. “These are not business decisions, where we said, ‘We want to go here, here and here.’ This is public safety saying, ‘We need you to build here.’ We are the contractor, but it is public safety’s network.

“There were 1,200 sites identified during the state opt-in process were built. The state said, ‘This is where you need to build.’”

More of these public-safety-driven cell sites are being developed now, according to Agnew.

“In the reinvestment we signed last year in January, we committed to another 1,000 sites,” he said. “$2.5 billion of that $8.5 billion is being invested to [enhance FirstNet] coverage. The Authority already has issued task orders—and will continue to issue task orders—to build purpose-built public-safety sites. We’ve already started the process, and that’s happening yearly.

“I can’t tell you when it crosses the 3 million [square-mile threshold], but we’re darn close. And the network is constantly being invested in, and we’ll definitely get there.”

FirstNet’s coverage footprint increased by 20,000 square miles during 2024, according to AT&T.

Of course, no terrestrial wireless network will provide wireless coverage to 100% to a geographic footprint, particularly for a country as large as the United States. With this in mind, FirstNet has 180 deployable assets, which are augmented by AT&T’s 750 deployable cell sites.

In addition, AT&T for the first time revealed to Urgent Communications that public-safety entities have purchased more than 500 agency-owned Compact Rapid Deployable (CRD) miniCRD units, including 50 by the state of Florida. These simple-to-deploy cell sits let public-safety agencies control where to locate cell sites when outside of coverage from the FirstNet terrestrial network.

“[The number of agency-owned deployable assets] continues to grow,” Agnew said. “Public safety is very interested in being able to quickly deploy their own coverage wherever they want, whenever they want, and we have an entire program to support them on that.”

Perhaps the most-anticipated coverage development for FirstNet users is the testing that AT&T is doing with AST SpaceMobile in preparation to provide broadband satellite-direct-to-device connectivity when public-safety personnel is outdoors and beyond the coverage footprint of a fixed or deployable cell site.

Agnew declined to speculate when such service will be available for FirstNet customers to use, but he said the plan is to offer much more than texting functionality—something already provided in the market—when AT&T’s satellite-direct-to-device hits the market.

“To us, it can’t be just text messaging—it can’t be limited,” Agnew said. “When we deploy something to public safety, it has to be highly capable, it has to give them continuity of operations and consistency with what they experience [when connected to the terrestrial network].

“We’re not ready to announce that yet, but I can tell you that the team is working very hard to ensure that the public-safety experience translates, whether it’s on the macro network or on satellite.”