AT&T has secured a ten-year $8 billion contract to upgrade the existing US mobile public safety network with a 5G Standalone (SA) core. This comes at a time when many countries are upgrading public emergency networks to 5G, and incorporating more advanced capabilities to assist responders themselves, as well as the public. The USA’s national public safety network, called FirstNet, was conceived in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 – when responders were impaired by incompatibilities among various networks and technologies used by emergency services. At that time, mobile networks were insufficiently reliable for use in emergency response, but that changed over the course of the 3G and 4G eras. The inaugural FirstNet (First Responder Network Authority) was then finally set…