Many studies carried out in different countries show that Public Safety broadband services will most likely rely on both commercial Mobile Network Operator (MNO) infrastructure and dedicated infrastructure. This is commonly referred to as “Hybrid Infrastructure” as described in following TCCA white paper: A discussion on the use of commercial and dedicated networks for delivering Mission Critical Mobile Broadband Services. To ensure that first responders get the highest level of priority to the shared Radio Access Network when they are using an MNO infrastructure, there are already many prioritisation mechanisms (Access Class Barring, Pre-emption, Quality of Service Class Identifiers (QCIs), etc.) that have been standardised by 3GPP to provide mission critical services. Furthermore, implementing national roaming between MNOs is also a consideration as a cost-effective way of implementing enhanced network resilience.
However, implementing these priority mechanisms may require changes to legislation in order to be adopted in each country. Two examples are Finland and Belgium – both countries have enshrined in law such necessary changes through decrees.
There are already some major early adopters that are currently implementing Public Safety broadband services over MNO infrastructures: FirstNet (US), built on top of AT&T’s network and ESN (UK) built on top of EE’s network.