Safer Buildings Presents As Panelist At FCC DAS And Small Cell Workshop

Posted on May 3, 2016. 

This week Safer Buildings Coalition Executive Director, Chief Alan Perdue (Ret.), represented the SBC as a panelist at the FCC DAS and Small Cell Workshop. Alongside Mike Collado, Vice President of Marketing for SOLiD Americas (a founding member of the Safer Buildings Coalition), Chief Perdue communicated to those in attendance the imperative surrounding in-building wireless communication:

"I've been on the scene trying to talk to personnel inside a building and I can’t communicate. I often say, ‘We can talk to people on the moon and watch them get there, and I can’t talk to fire fighters inside a building when I’m standing in the street.’ How do we overcome that? By industry working together with public safety and developing solutions – and DAS happens to be one of those solutions that is available. We have to find a way to make it cost-effective so that building owners can put this in their building and it becomes part of the life-safety ecosystem of the building."

See Chief Perdue’s full testimony in the clip below:

• Technical/Engineering and Business Overview
• Deployment and Uses
• City Case Studies

Chief Perdue and Mike Collado participated in the panel discussion relative to public safety and the role of DAS and small cell solutions in public safety radio and new fire code ordinances for buildings and interoperability. (See their combined presentations on the in-building public safety wireless imperative here.)

According to Collado:

“When you consider the fact that the majority of calls originate and terminate inside of a building, the fact that the majority of emergency cases occur inside a building, there is a need to solve for that. SOLiD has focused a lot of attention on that and it something we can apply technology to solve.”

Moving Forward From FCC DAS And Small Cell Workshop

The FCC DAS and small cell workshop served as a springboard to launch industry participation in the advancements of public safety. Jeff Steinberg, Deputy Chief for the Competition and Infrastructure Division of the FCC, has this to say at the conclusion of the FCC DAS and small cell workshop:

“We learned an awful lot about the technology this morning and the practical uses. We’ve learned, if we did not know it, that DAS and small cell are the keys to making of these things happen…They don’t happen by themselves. They require work and people consciously focusing on them, but the one common theme is that it is people working together. And it’s not ultimately a question of if, it is a question of when. Deployment will happen. So let’s serve everybody and make it happen in ways that serve the public by happening quickly and collegially, rather than slowly and contentiously. And finally, I would say that we have lots of reason for optimism based on everything we have heard. There are lots of cities and companies that are all getting together and making things happen well. So for those of us who may be farther behind on the curve or for those of us who are well ahead of the curve that could make things work better, let’s learn from that.”

In the words of Chief Perdue, “Public safety is here whether you want to be part of it or not. It’s here to stay…”

With the Safer Buildings Coalition you have an opportunity to participate. Now is the time to get involved.

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