- With the wildfire and hurricane seasons still ahead, Verizon Frontline has already provided public safety agencies with 40% as many devices and solutions as in all of 2024
- Mobile cell sites, robot dogs, network slicing and private networks are among the tools Verizon Frontline is using to support customers
- The carrier is making devices available to first responders at no cost during times of crisis, even if they are not Verizon customers
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said on his company’s most recent earnings call, “Our strategy is to build the network once and have as many profitable connections [as possible] on top of it.” The carrier’s Frontline public safety team is doing its part by working to grow Verizon’s number of public safety customers, which already exceeds 40,000 agencies. But this team measures profitable connections in more than just revenue, since many of its connections save lives.
On June 18 the team showed off its fleet of mobile cell sites to public safety officials and members of the press in Miami as the state braces for the start of another hurricane season. Miami is one of the markets where Verizon recently turned on 5G SA. 5G SA is key to Verizon’s public safety offering because it enables the carrier to dedicate network resources to first responders through network slicing. Several customers are now testing the company’s network slicing product, Verizon’s public sector sales VP Patty Roze told Fierce. In addition to network slicing, public safety customers value private network technology.
“Private networks will be a game changer,” said Alex Brosky, senior manager, crisis response and innovation at Verizon. Executives said the team is working to upgrade more vehicles so they can stand up private networks on the fly in areas of need. Right now, Verizon has one mobile cell site which can establish a private network. The Tactical Humanitarian Operations Response (THOR) can support 10,000 simultaneous connections, and with its THOR’s Hammer component it can support 100,000. THOR’s Hammer was not at the Miami event because Verizon is currently using it in tests to develop private network capabilities for other mobile cell site vehicles.
Six trucks
THOR was one of six mobile connectivity vehicles Verizon brought to the Miami showcase. The others were its Cell on Light Truck (COLT), Satellite Picocell on Trailer (SPOT), Rapid Response Connectivity Unit (RRCU), Standard Trailer Universal Design (STUD) and its Vandoit special communications van. Each serves a special purpose in Verizon’s public safety portfolio.
The COLT is a $1 million mobile cell site that provides coverage for large outdoor events as well as public safety emergencies. It can use satellite or fiber for backhaul. One of these trucks covered Fort Myers Beach after the area was hit by Hurricane Ian. Verizon has 30 COLTs, and executives said this could be the next Frontline vehicle to get private network capabilities.
SPOT is the agile workhorse of the portfolio. Each of the 30 members of Verizon’s crisis response team keeps a SPOT at their home so they can deploy it as fast as possible when needed. The trailer has a two-sector antenna and a Wi-Fi hotspot powerful enough to cover a football field. It can use Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites or Geosynchronous orbit (GEO) satellites for backhaul.
The RRCU goes in the back of a truck or trailer and is the most compact of the mobile connectivity solutions Verizon showcased. It has an antenna, a Cradlepoint router and a network extender/server, plus a Starlink dish for backhaul. These units do not have an interior where network engineers or public safety officials can work, but Verizon does have two special communications vans fully equipped with 5G, LTE, Wi-Fi and satellite backhaul.
The STUD is a midsize unit which can be used to generate a 4G, 5G or Wi-Fi signal — or it can be deployed with the mast down and used just for satellite backhaul. Verizon has five of these units. One of the STUDs was used to restore connectivity to Sanibel Island after Hurricane Ian and another in Taylor County after Hurricane Debby.
Verizon’s Ernie Berthold, an engineering specialist for crisis response, said eventually private network technology could be extended to Verizon’s smaller units. “It could be done with SPOT or STUD – the technology is the same,” he said. “It’s just scalability.”
For first responders, the combination of a pop-up private network and a network slice could be very powerful in a crisis, because they could have dedicated spectrum supporting many devices at the site of the emergency, and dedicated bandwidth on the public network as they communicate with vehicles approaching or leaving the area. Terry Henry, senior client partner, Frontline Solutions, said he expects Verizon to offer customers a way to combine these two technologies in the future.
Three dogs
Three dogs were also on site at the Verizon event. Two were with HOPE Animal-Assisted Crisis Response, a non-profit which brings animals to comfort individuals impacted by crises and disasters. One was a robot dog named Red, developed by Ghost Robotics.
Verizon Frontline has purchased six of the dogs, and the one shown in Miami was outfitted with a Cradlepoint 5G router, which enables Red to connect to its remote human operator via 5G and broadcast a Wi-Fi signal to those nearby. Red goes into dangerous situations ahead of humans and scouts the area with cameras and sensors. A microphone and speaker can also be added so that people who might be trapped can talk to Red and rescuers can hear them.
An active start to 2025
So far this year, The Verizon Frontline Crisis Response Team has responded to 580 requests for assistance from 300 different federal, state and local agencies. The team has deployed roughly 4,000 devices or solutions, 40% of the number deployed in all of 2024. In 2024, a quarter of the team’s devices and solutions were deployed in response to wildfires or hurricanes, so crisis response teams were most active in the second half of the year.
Many of the devices deployed are made available at no cost to public safety agencies, said Verizon’s Associate Director of Corporate Communications Eric Durie. Even agencies that are not Frontline customers can access loaner devices during times of crisis, he explained.
Verizon’s public sector sales VP Patty Roze said those “dark sky days” when public safety is threatened are not a good time to be negotiating with customers or potential customers — those are the times to offer as much support as possible. She said she encourages her team to build relationships with agencies on the “blue sky days.” Her team is getting lots of requests for smartphones, as a number of smaller agencies now want to start providing them to employees. But the No. 1 request from customers is a reliable network, on both blue sky and dark sky days. “Connectivity is the baseline; it’s foundational,” Roze said. “Then it’s layering the applications on top of that.”